A Time for Change

We’ve all been talking about what a wonderful moment it was for our history when Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President.   It was.  However, I was amazed to hear some people say that the struggle for civil rights ended with Barack Obama that day on the Capitol.

The big picture is that we have a long way to go in this country.  The African American vote is still suppressed and notwithstanding the election of Barack Obama, I have been flabbergasted at some of the commentary that I have heard, almost always from Fox News, that he was elected because he was “half white.”  The struggle is not over, clearly.

There is another struggle though that is  insidious and fairly ingrained in our culture.  Sexism.  Consider this from Mother Jones:

This just in—women want to be oppressed.

This October, more than 6,000 women gathered in Chicago for the True Woman Conference ’08: a stadium-style event to promote what its proponents call “biblical womanhood,” “complementarianism,” or—most bluntly—”the patriarchy movement.”…

The Associated Baptist Press explains the relationship of biblical womanhood to feminism, highlighting an ambitious initiative that arose from the meeting: a signature drive seeking 100,000 women to endorse its “True Woman Manifesto,” which, the ABP writes, aims “at sparking a counterrevolution to the feminist movement of the 1960s.”

Three thousand of women have so far signed onto a manifesto which affirms:

their belief that women and men were designed to reflect God in “complementary and distinct ways”; that today’s culture has gone astray distinctly because of its egalitarian approach to gender (and that it’s “experiencing the consequences of abandoning God’s design for men and women”); and that while men and women are equally valuable in the eyes of God, here on earth they are relegated to separate spheres at home and in the church.

Equal rights for women are lagging in this country and far too often get placed on the back burner. Now there is a movement to turn the clock back!!!  What?  The Christian right will not be happy until they drag us back to the 1800s.  I encourage any of you to read the Mother Jones post referenced above as well as the Salon.com article on which it is based.  It’s quite a read.

I am looking forward to the day when a woman takes the oath of office (not any woman, but a good woman).  I was really amazed at some of the coverage of Hillary Clinton and how vicious it was.  Use of the word “shrill” was applied to both Senator Clinton and Governor Palin and that word is never used for male political figures.

It’s not much different for the far less famous. When people refer to me why do they feel the need to use the word “female” or “lady” before the word lawyer?  We don’t say I spoke to that “male” lawyer. When I went to court, I always used to get asked if I was the court reporter.  When I used to call the law offices of my colleagues, I used to get asked if I was a secretary.  None of my male colleagues have been asked those questions.

Women comprise more than 50% of the population.  I think its about time that the Cro-Magnons among us start to think before they open their mouths (or try to drag us back to the dark ages).  Yet Cro-Magnons abound:

What is a good enough reason for divorce? Well, according to Rick Warren’s Saddleback church, divorce is only permitted in cases of adultery or abandonment—as these are the only cases permitted in the Bible—and never for abuse.

As teaching pastor Tom Holladay explains, spousal abuse should be dealt with by temporary separation and church marriage counseling designed to bring about reconciliation between the couple. But to qualify for that separation, your spouse must be in the “habit of beating you regularly,” and not be simply someone who “grabbed you once.”…

Andersen writes from personal experience, describing an episode of being held hostage by her husband—an associate pastor in their Kansas Baptist church—for close to twenty hours after he’d nearly fractured her skull. Andersen was raised in the Southern Baptist Convention, where she heard an unremitting message of “submission, submission, submission.” She saw this continual focus reflected in her ex-husband’s denunciations, while he detained her, of women who wanted to “rule over men.” Though Andersen was rescued by her church’s pastor, who had his assistant pastor arrested himself, she says other churchwomen aren’t so lucky, particularly when churches tell couples to attend joint marriage counseling under lay ministry leaders with no specific training for abuse survivors, who instead offer an unswerving prescription of submission and headship, often telling women to learn to submit “better.”

I am personally aware of a man who held his ex-wife in his arms with a gun in her mouth in a closet.  She was so terrified she urinated on herself.  Does anyone really think she will get over that?  She has to deal with him routinely because of the children and that is really quite painful.  By encouraging women to put up with these Cro-Magnons, they are enabling future wife beaters and murderers.  They are taking the power that women should have by being in charge of their own finances so that if a marriage goes bad they can rely in their own education, skills and career to get out.  instead, the Cro-Magnons are encouraging complete dependence that has never served women well.

I realize that change is slow, but there are also those who are kicking and screaming about the change that has already happened and want the clock turned back. That is also why education is so important.  Women need to go forward, not back.  Think about it – who are the proponents of regression? Old white men.  They get to keep the power, the money and control over women.

Women can do anything that the white male population can do and they should continue to try to climb higher and farther than ever before.   It’s time for the glass ceilings to come crashing down people.  It’s not like the old white dudes have done such a phenomenal job. I personally think women could do much better.  

We really need to support each other. It’s our time now.  We cannot afford to let each other down.