National Partnership for Women & Families: Too Many 'Ignore' Oppression of Women in U.S., Washington Post Opinion Piece Says

National Partnership for Women & Families: Too Many 'Ignore' Oppression of Women in U.S., Washington Post Opinion Piece Says

Response to For Her Own Good

Having just re-read For Her Own Good written by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deierdre English in 1978 I was prompted to write the following:


Dear Barbara,

I've just finished re-reading For Her Own Good and find it as significant, if not more so due to the Ambiguous Liberation section of the Afterward which shows that we are still, over thirty-years later, still at the starting line.

Especially relevant are:

...[E]very advance in women's legal status seems to represent a further erosion of male responsibility. p. 320

...[T]oday's neo-romanticism is at best a degenerate descendant of the sexual romanticism of the nineteenth century. It makes no claims to intellectual rigor....and appeals to the ghosts of patriarchal religion. p.320

But there is a deeper level of corruption to today's neo-romanticism....it has been too thoroughly colonized, for too long. Its ideals do not come from the Bible...but from Madison Avenue. Etc. p. 320

The “neo-rationalist” program for women, then, is to break out into the marketplace, but without making any social provision for the children... p. 322

These then are the ideological poles which dominate sexual politics in the late twentieth century—the “romanticism” of the sun-belt suburbs or the “rationalism” of the paperback self-help shelf.” p.322

And where is feminism in all this—the force which reopened the Woman Question in the first place. Is it prepared to project a new ideal, a moral outlook, a way for women—and--and men (emphasis added) to live?...Feminism hesitates, unable to intervene in the dominant polarization between neo-romanticist and neo-rationalist ideologies. pp. 322-3

The reason we hang back is because there are no answers left but the most radical ones. We cannot assimilate into a masculinist society without doing violence to our own nature, which is, of course, human nature. But neither can we retreat into domestic isolation, clinging to an archaic feminine ideal. p. 323

The Woman Question in the end is not the question of women....[T]he Woman Question becomes the question of how shall we all—women and children and men—organize our lives together...And this is the only question. p.323

[I]t is not we who must change but the social order which marginalized women in the first place and with us all “human values.”...A synthesis which transcends both the rationalist and romanticist poles must necessarily change the masculinist social order itself. p.324

****
As a foremother of the current women's movement, I and others involved were about changing the masculinist social order itself. Not only to free women but men as well from their rigidly proscribed roles. And in this regard I feel, at least looking at the younger generation of men, i.e. my grandsons, I feel they have become freer from the constraints on their emotional and domestic side than many younger women have been freed from the sexual object ideal—aided and abetted by Madison Avenue and Hollywood & TV.

The role model for today's young women to emulate is either the predatory/seductive type or, as evidenced in so many contemporary films and video games, depicted as being tougher and better fighters and killers than are men.

The sixties-seventies Women's Movement left me when instead of working with other outcast groups to change the nature of this society, women were first enticed into and then co-opted by the system we sought to change and then adding insult to injury they sought to prove they were better at the male game than the men.

And, at the end of the day where are our children in this debauchle? And, Women's Studies have metamorphised into Gender Studies. And, women's right to choose is again under threat. And, women are now dying in battle alongside their male colleagues, and for men-at-war the rape of their female colleagues and those of the their combatants' women is still justified as a warranted response to battle fatigue. And, the list goes on.....

Thanks for once again getting my dander and hackles up! And my very best wishes to you where, in your latest book, I see you are still calling to task the “feel-good, don't worry, be happy” movement in face of any adversity!

Open Letter to Hon. Sarah Palin

The following letter was posted by registered airmail and sent via E-mail on 20 September 2008.


Dear Governor Palin:


I strongly support your right to not use birth control, to oppose sex education for your children, to carry a Down Syndrome embryo to term, and to have a career while raising a family. I do this as a founding mother of the current feminist movement, a mother of two, grandmother of four, great-grandmother of one.

In support of our U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, which grant citizens the legal means to debate and resolve fundamental disagreement within the Rule of Law, I defend your legitimate right to seek repeal or amendment of current laws and to enact new ones that would change the status quo—a status quo that once:

• Denied women the right to vote;
• Denied women access to education;
• Prohibited both men and women from access to birth control measures that would prevent unwanted pregnancies;
• Gave women no choice over whether to carry an embryo to term, even in cases of incest or rape;
• Failed to hold men accountable for children they fathered;
• Destroyed or tainted the reputation of a woman who had sex outside of marriage, but not the reputation of her male partner;
• Prohibited legal sanction of marriage between people of different races;
• Banned teaching of Darwinian evolution in elementary schools;
• Blocked civil service employment and most civil rights to homosexuals and lesbians; and
• Banned from public libraries books disapproved of by pressure groups.

Governor Palin, it is my understanding that YOU seek, or have sought, to:

• Prohibit sex education being taught in schools;
• Repeal laws that allow women the right to use birth control, including the “morning-after” pill, even in cases of incest or rape;
• Ban from public libraries books that do not conform to your religious and/or political beliefs;
• Seek to have Creationism taught alongside Darwinism in public schools.

If I have misunderstood your positions on the above, please correct me. Also, please inform me of your position regarding:

• Enforcement of equal pay to women for equal work?
• Provision of social and economic support for unwed or single mothers?
• Establishment of affordable and freely accessible child care?
• Enactment of legislation to ensure maximum Social Security retirement benefits for women who are stay-at-home mothers?
• Rigorous enforcement of a man’s responsibility to provide monetary support for any and all children he fathers?
• Provision of universal health care, including maternity care, for all U.S. citizens?
• Strengthening and expansion of public education?
• Free or low-cost tuition for higher education?
• Re-institution of inheritance taxes (currently mislabeled as “death taxes”)?
• Provision to renters of the same State and Federal tax write-offs now given to home-buyers, thus enabling renters to save down payments for homes?
• Banning excessive profiteering by manufacturers of military weapons?
• Banning arms sales by U.S. citizens to currently proclaimed terrorist organizations?
• Blocking the sale of guns without strong background checks on potential buyers?
• Rescission of the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act that abolished firewall regulations which formerly governed transactions between commercial banks, insurance companies, securities firms and investment institutions?
• Citing and fining commercial and agricultural businesses that hire illegal immigrants?
• Abolition of trade agreements that permit U.S. businesses to close facilities here and re-establish them in countries where workers’ rights and wages undercut those guaranteed in the United States?
• Sanction the right of trade unions to organize workers?
• Granting overseas professionals work permits that will greatly reduce or abolish jobs for similarly qualified U.S. citizens?

I am a U.S. citizen currently residing in the Republic of Ireland. I will be voting in the November 2008 election via absentee ballot. Therefore, Governor Palin, I respectfully await your response prior to Wednesday, October 24, 2008 to enable sufficient time to return my absentee ballot.

Sincerely,
Margie Bernard