Today is an election day. I'm very aware. As I think about it, I can't help but reflect that I have a lot of female friends and relatives "of a certain age". We have always had the right to vote; most of us have lived our lives mindfully and sensitively. Most have marched for multiple causes and donated hours, money and thought to creating a better country; a better world. Most have children. (Not all, but most.) Most lived through the sixties and the seventies fighting ignorance, male domination (in varied institutionalized and personal forms), and all sorts of phobias. Even the phobia to succeed. The phobia of ourselves.
We learned history that was from the perspective of disenfranchised peoples. We listened and studied the quieter voices. We radicalized themselves--even as what passed for mainstream. Western Culture tried to convince us that we should shut up and contribute to the status quo--that would be the more prudent path. Few of us gave up independent thought--even if our lives--on the outside--seemed we had.
While on the outside some adopted what at first was deemed "a traditional role"--taking care of a husband, a home and children--in fact, we radicalized education, childcare, healthcare, and life opportunities for daughters in fields that had been closed to ourselves. In fact, we began to change entire constellations of what families meant--opening doors to configurations that were not mentioned (let alone validated), in our own "growing up" times.
We took back their bodies; our hearts and our minds. We demanded to see ourselves portrayed in the way "new history" was revealing our pasts to have actually been. We were not satisfied to be the majority minority, as women. We wanted to be counted. To be seen. Our stories told and passed on as legitimate. Important. Our dreams, accomplishments, contributions all validated as the truth they are.
So many of my peers took steps to change the history of the known world; to uncover what the world had hidden--or simply forgot. But then, maybe we over-compensated? Out of residual guilt or internalized pain, we allowed our grandaughters, grandsons, nieces and nephews--if not our own children--to begin to slip into a culture of privilege. To take for granted the work that must continue, unceasingly, if enlightenment is to prevail.
At one point, Womens Studies seemed to be the most important step in the West, at least as far as education was concerned. To retrieve the contributions of half the world is no minor feat! Yet, after two generations, Womens Studies is now too often a "quaint reminder of the 70's"--and only taken seriously by esoteric high level academics who don't wear make-up or change their hair-styles; or who only publish in places that no one reads. A Saturday Night Live out-dated sketch...something for time capsules.
When I taught grammar school aged kids and high schoolers, I was most struck at how "The Womens Movement" was compartmentalized. O, maybe a few HBO movies or Lifetime Network specials would remind them of what we'd accomplished or where we came from, but by and large, their futures, seemed to be already won--not by them, but for them. (No worries.) I was one of the "quaint reminders", tolerated out of respect and affection, but not truly relevent. Neither sexy, nor fresh, nor even cutting-edge. (Not anymore.)
The new heroes are "Desperate Housewives" and "Real Housewives"-- who have mansions, husbands, the bodies of top models (and enough false eyelashes to rival Katrina's wrath). Girls-kissing-girls have more to do with tantalizing guys, than LGBT issues. Hey, even role-model American Sweetheart Sandra Bullock lip-locked a woman on national t.v., right after adopting an African-American infant boy and being cheated upon, publically, by a Nazi-loving reality star partner. (Oh how far we've come. )
Oh how much we've forgotten.
On an election day, as reminders of Suffragette suffering, images of past civil rights battles abound, I wonder: where are the forgotten ones? The women I grew up with who were my real role models? The nuns who dropped their habits and tried to reconstruct a failing religion; the academics who made mainstream the hidden histories of so many minorities--including their own; the radical lesbians who were not fashionistas with perfect teeth and make-up--who demanded that even Gay brothers take them seriously; the single Moms fighting to go back to school while raising kids off welfare; the blazing artists who still aren't allowed into the elitist ranks, but who continue to create beauty in ugly times, for a callous world...my friends and lost teachers...where are all of you, now?
No comments:
Post a Comment