This morning I saw a piece on NBC’s Today about a growing trend of young women public proclaiming why they are not feminists on social media. Their reasons ranged from their love of God or their boyfriends; that feminism is another word for lesbianism, to most interestingly a feeling that they just don’t need to because the fight for equality is over. This put my mind in gear to decide where I stand on the whole, feminist/non-feminist question.
I was born smack in the middle of the last century, a mere 36 years after the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. My mother was born sixteen short years later. In fact, both of my grandmothers and my mother-in-law were born before women could vote. Young women today can choose not to vote; but they can vote. How do they suppose this right was obtained? Did legislators simply wake up one morning, realize there was an outstanding injustice to the women in this county and put the item up for referendum? Certainly not! It was the long and hard-fought fight of generations of women and men, calling themselves “Feminists” who helped bring equal rights for women to the forefront.
Women’s suffrage didn’t simply give women the right to vote in this country, it began to allow women to more easily stand on their own two feet as individuals capable of managing their own affairs. Prior to obtaining suffrage, women were not only treated as the weaker sex physically; they were considered mentally inferior. As a result they were denied entry into most of the major colleges and universities in the US.
In my own lifetime, (and I don’t feel that old) feminists worked to gain entry for women into almost all of the colleges and universities in this county. Keep in mind that Princeton University didn’t go coed until 1969 and they were one of the first! My own alma mater, Rutgers College only began to admit women in 1972, the year prior to my arrival. The simple fact is that the choices of where I could study were greatly expanded by the time I went to school and continued to expand throughout the remainder of the end of the twentieth century. Again, this was not a simple matter of someone changing their mind; it was a long, drawn out campaign to open people’s minds; men and women to the reality that women were capable to studying on the same level as men. The whole notion that they couldn’t seem silly now, but then it was anything but silly.
Prior to Women’s suffrage, women were excluded from professions considered too harsh for the more delicate sex. Even if they managed to achieve professional status, they received a fraction of the pay their male counterparts and were viewed as inferior. Today young woman can choose to do almost anything they want; from astronauts to zoologists, with the exception of becoming a Catholic priest, there were few things my daughter couldn’t choose to do or be. That didn’t just happen without feminists working to make it happen.
Okay, so maybe politics aren’t a big issue in young women’s lives. Perhaps since they can vote, they just take the work of those feminists from almost 100 years ago for granted. So what have feminists done for women in this country lately?
Well, for one thing women are now able to decide how they wish to dress with fewer restrictions. Women are not required to dress covered and confined. As a school girl, I was required to wear skirts or dresses to school. Skirt lengths were monitored, sleeveless shirts were not permitted and girls were even sent home for improper dress. I admit that sometimes I wish there were “fashion police” out on the prowl when I see some of the outfits people wear; women and men, but again, the fact is that the reason fashion has changed and women have the choice to wear what they want in this country has a lot to do with feminists all through the last century from the flappers to the bra burning hippies. Today, women can choose to wear body-suits or berkas, spiked heals or berkenstocks; the important thing is not what you wear but that you can choose what you wear. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
I guess the way I see it, being a feminist is not about whether you have a career or stay at home with your kids; whether you wear flashy or conservative clothing, stand up publicly for injustice or just work quietly doing you own thing behind the scenes. Being a feminist is about an awareness that women in this county have the right to choose where they live, how they will spend their money, what they will wear, what they will study, where they will work, if they will work, will they be mothers and wives, or professionals. It’s all about the right to choose. Feminists are a big part of why we enjoy these freedoms.
And yes, you even have the right to choose not to be a feminist. But if you do, just keep this in mind: the fact you can choose was long fought by men and women in generations past who proudly called themselves feminists.
The most telling thing is that young women today don’t feel the need to be a feminist because those who went before them paved the way. Their cause is a success if today’s generation doesn’t feel the need. Perhaps they will conquer other social injustices.