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Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Women's Movement
Is it over with in this country? Sister Joan heard that it was and offers up some insights into the perceptions and views of women in India. We may have come a long way baby, but those women have an even longer journey to get to where we are.
Young women have no memory of the time in which women could not practice any of the following occupations that are now commonplace jobs for women:
Medicaldoctor.lawyer.architect.Harvard or Yale or Princeton student.political leader.CEO.upper-level business manager.full professor.busdriver.rail operater.shipping company president.film producer or director.
That is a tiny sampling of the occupations totally closed to women prior to the 70s. We are able to participate in them now only because of the pressure from the Women's Movement of the 60s and 70s.
Never mind reproductive rights- I still remember a fierce debate in my high school biology class in 1967, in which we fiercely argued over whether contraception should be legal. Most students in my conservative neighborhood did not think so.
And how about renting an apt or buying a house? In the early 60s, a woman could almost not rent her own apartment and she could never buy a house.
What makes me uneasy is that we have backtracked considerably since the early 80s. We still have the same pay disparity between men and women that we had in the 60s, only now women are much more likely to be divorced with children to support and ex-mates who can't or won't support their children.
Young women now have no idea what we have gained in the past 40 years, thanks only to the Women's Movement, that they are now willfully throwing away.
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Young women have no memory of the time in which women could not practice any of the following occupations that are now commonplace jobs for women:
Medicaldoctor.lawyer.architect.Harvard or Yale or Princeton student.political leader.CEO.upper-level business manager.full professor.busdriver.rail operater.shipping company president.film producer or director.
That is a tiny sampling of the occupations totally closed to women prior to the 70s. We are able to participate in them now only because of the pressure from the Women's Movement of the 60s and 70s.
Never mind reproductive rights- I still remember a fierce debate in my high school biology class in 1967, in which we fiercely argued over whether contraception should be legal. Most students in my conservative neighborhood did not think so.
And how about renting an apt or buying a house? In the early 60s, a woman could almost not rent her own apartment and she could never buy a house.
What makes me uneasy is that we have backtracked considerably since the early 80s. We still have the same pay disparity between men and women that we had in the 60s, only now women are much more likely to be divorced with children to support and ex-mates who can't or won't support their children.
Young women now have no idea what we have gained in the past 40 years, thanks only to the Women's Movement, that they are now willfully throwing away.
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