The first time anyone ever asked me if I was a feminist, I immediately answered yes. I was in my early teens at the time and did not know what a feminist was but interpreted the other option as masculinist so it seemed self-evident .In the post-colonial atmosphere of my childhood, the men were still damaged and reeling from years of ego-smashing poverty, unemployment and powerlessness. Though our history was loaded with heroic and good men, live ones in the new Republic were hard to come by. Dublin women from mothers to nuns were clearly the strongest forces for good. The women endured and to my child eyes were heroic in their endurance.
I met distinct groups of feminists in Geneva, Paris and Amsterdam soon after; some were inspiring as models of a female ideal (for me) of absolute independence, freedom of speech, thought and action, aesthetic sensibilities, and active and generous involvement with society. Others were the hairy- legged, hiking boot sisters who disdained all feminine habits and weren’t too fond of men either. Still others were women with intellects so soaring and theses so educated they broadened the listener or reader’s mind with every thought. Former or current wives and mothers had their own set of furies, needs and demands to be recognized for the essential services they provided. We women were and are a motley crew.
As I had been raised as one of five sisters and educated entirely in convents it was no stretch for me to think that women were capable of anything and everything. I had personally never experienced male superiority and was astonished by the notion of it. Equality, fair enough but superiority? Nah. Some men were superior to some women, no doubt but gender superiority had no evidence to support it.
There was disharmony among the factions of women from time to time but the major points did not get lost. Equal pay for equal work. Autonomy over one’s body and reproductive system. Equal opportunities for education and career paths whether in firehouses or boardrooms. Nearly fifty years later, those equalizing measures still do not exist.
Feminism in my life is not without its funny moments. The time when the aforementioned hairy legged and hiking boot sisters threw horesemanure at a fashion show the modeling school I worked for had produced. They thought it degrading of women. In truth the school and attached talent agency was the most feminist business you could imagine. It was all women, founded by a woman – a Native woman at that -in an exemplary atmosphere of female voices and respect. The woman director who hired me was a single parent – an expression I had never heard before. She supported her three children, two in private school, by her wits and hard work and showed up to work every day wearing a hat and in heels. The women there did not call themselves feminists; it was a very derisive label for women in business in the day. They lived it though, every day in every way.
We have made many many mistakes as women and as feminists. We have given up a lot. A wise woman I know said to me a few years ago that all the practicing feminists she knew were alone and broke. We were so naïve about what really went on with the men behind closed doors. Dangerously naïve about the retaliatory viciousness of the macho ego state.
And look where it got us. Society has been devolving steadily since the 80s. Men sire children and leave them to raise themselves. Women are working around the clock to live up to impossible superwoman standards. Designers and clothiers dress young women like tarts and the biggest ass in the Western world is made Woman of the Year. Media role models have so many chemicals in their makeup they no longer look fully human. Successful women in business have a tacit agreement to behave like baby-faced boys.
It is an ugly culture. And most distressingly Mother Nature (not Father Nature we note) is under constant assault from the rapacious greed of men to make money.
Everywhere we look there is evidence of deep malaise. Children are being exploited, human trafficking is big business, and pollution is legal. War and weaponry are trillion dollar concerns. Workers and the families they support are taxed to the hilt as the public purse is ever more bloated to fill the coffers of the few.
I do not say women are superior to men but definitely different. I have raised both a son and a daughter and can attest to that. The nurture is the same, the nature is different. And our differences may be just what are needed to save the world. We have to believe as 51% of the population that we need no-ones permission to step up. Young women have to take over and plot the course; we greyhairs need to help them do it. We need to educate them on how recently they have the rights and freedoms they have and unless ensured by vigilant activism, that those rights and freedoms could disappear quickly.
Now is the time for all good women and the men who recognize our worth, to come to the aid of the party.