Today is Women's Equality Day. In past years, I've honored this day by taking part in a march, or giving a speech, or writing an essay. But this year I'm asking myself, "Equal to whom? Equal to what?" I'm tired of comparing myself to what someone else has and what someone else is doing. Today I'm thinking about comparing myself to who I was last year, and what I was doing.
Am I better at speaking up for myself when someone I work with tries to shut me down? I'm so good at being sure that everyone in my family has what they need , but am I getting any better at identifying what I need, and taking care of that need, too?
I spoke with Suze Orman on my Mondays With Marlo series, and she said this surprising thing: that women don't think about saving money like men do. Hmmm, I thought, that's an interesting fact. It took months for it to sink into my head: "Hey! I'm one of those women!" There are some instances when I can be a very slow learner.
My mother used to say, "Charity begins at home" -- maybe equality does, too. Very close to home. Like within ourselves.
So much of who we are is learned at home. We have a saying at the Ms Foundation: "Girls are watching. What are they seeing?" I remember what I watched when I was a girl: my mother always taking charge of the house, the meals, where everyone had to go and what everyone had to have from the moment she woke up in the morning. Great on the face of it -- that is, till my sister and I grew up and realized that Mom never took charge of herself. Where was her equality? And the worst of it -- no one even noticed.
I've often made the joke that when I see a man in a terrycloth robe I get an uncontrollable impulse to squeeze orange juice. It makes everyone laugh, but we all know who always squeezed the O.J. in our childhoods. That's why I'm beginning to have -- once again -- some of those click moments.
So this year, to celebrate Equality Day, I am going to make a heartfelt effort not to compare myself to my mother or to anyone else -- but to take stock each and every day of the personal equality -- and quality -- of my life.
Don't get me wrong. I'm going to keep marching and speaking out for the very things this day was created for -- the ongoing struggle for women to have an equal footing in all things. But this year I'm adding myself to the equality-awareness list.
Justice and fairness were what Bella Abzug was striving for when she introduced the legislation for Women's Equality Day 40 years ago. So in honor of Bella -- and in my personal quest for justice and fairness -- for the next 365 days I resolve to:
1. Open my own savings account.
2. Not "make nice" when I really should take on the person who is trying to undermine me at work.
3. Turn off the phones and shut out the world when I want to read or study because that is I what I need.
That's just a start on my list...what's yours?
Happy Women's Equality Day to you...and me!
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How about celebrating " the don't get impregnated by a dope that you've only known for 30 minutes, that will go on to not pay child support and will probably punch you and your kid in the face" DAY?
Fun times for all!
Instead of only getting 70% of a mans sentence for the same crime, now women will serve the same jail time that men do!
Instead of being called 'homemakers' we'll call them bums, just like men.
What a great day! So...when does this equality stuff start?
I don't have to give up law school for love, or be a chef because I am a great cook, or work my way to the top in a corrupt bank, pop out babies as a stay at home wife (recovering from total disability), run for office or any other crazy thing a person tells me I must do, as a woman or any other category.
But if I do anything, it is first because I want to.
When both Marchant2's statement and the variation above are accepted, then we will be one step closer to equality.
When I heard the "wise Latina" crap... That was a nail in the coffin.
I don't care what a person is. I do care about contribution. Lots are getting pulled and pushed through the hurdles and celebrate (i.e. Obama). Sad days for America.
To protest each of our own perceived inequalities, we could each, in concert
1) open a savings account
2) stop "making nice"
3) shut out the world
5) Stop celebrating those that squeal for the dole from the productive peoples efforts.
==We are the majority demographically and more significantly, we also comprise 60% of all college grads, and professional school enrollment. That means we will eventually
occupy most of the leadership positions in business, the professions and politics also.
We can do whatever we please. We just need to do it!
The times have changed and we are the emerging rulers and leaders of this nation.
It's not frightening, it's empowering.
But yeah, it can create butterflies in the stomach just knowing there is no restraint on us..when we ask ourselves "do we dare do everything we have the power to do?"==
For example, at one time in this country you not only had to be a white male to vote, you had to be a special category of white male. Namely, a white male landowner. Yet we don't proclaim a Male Suffrage Day, or White Male Suffrage Day, or even a Black Male Suffrage Day.
So why are we unequally celebrating an equality day for one gender over another?
If you feel like celebrating the past with your own White Male Non-Landowning Voter Rights Day. Go for it. Not sure who would celebrate it as white men without land have had access to the voting poles for quite some time now. If you feel oppressed because of it perhaps you could organize a march on Washington? In the mean time women continue to be discriminated against and days like this work to reverse it.
Gender bias is in fact a social inequality. And I must disagree with your implication that changing one's social standing has ever been a trivial matter. However, it is true that one cannot easily change gender or disguise one's race (although I think a reasonable argument could be made against both of those claims), the point was that social inequality of any form is unjust.
But if women feel a need to have their own special day to fill that unequal equality recognition need, then as Rosanne Rosannandanna used to say, "never mind." I simply thought the goal was to eliminate gender bias so I'd ask the question. Thank you for clearing that up for me.
Try telling that to the indentured servants of the era who were essentially slaves. I suppose the Jews, Catholics, and Quakers could have just, says you, changed their religion to vote in those places where they were prohibited. This is naive.
"white men without land have had access to the voting poles for quite some time now"
Actually, many of the creative ways that politicians came up with, and continue to devise, to discourage voting or outright disenfranchise of specific populations impacted poor, white men, too. These included property requirements, poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, etc. Poor white men, along with many others, didn't have their vote protected until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Between the passage of the19th Amendment in 1920 and 1965, a wealthy white woman probably was more consistently enfranchised than a poor white man.
Today voting rights are again under attack and we are seeing more and more the disenfranchisement of felons, onerous voter ID requirements, extended residency requirements, and inconvenient polling places used as means to suppress voting. These methods cut across all groups, though disproportionately on some (poor, elderly, students, people who work multiple jobs, African-Americans, etc.)