Recent notice of an upcoming Friends of the Mound House event to mark the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, has me thinking about how we take the right to vote for granted. It's only been 90 years that women in all states have had the constitutional right to vote in elections. The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments in 1865-1870 clarified civil rights and suffrage to all US citizens, though we all know the fight for those rights continued well into the 20th century. And those amendments did not include women.
One of the rites of passage for me at age 18 was the right to vote. I was excited about the chance to vote in my first presidential election, featuring Richard Nixon and George McGovern. Wow! I was a real adult! I'm sure my parents tired of my excitement quickly. There is nothing so tiresome as the idealism of youth. Ah, but where would we be without that idealism?
Thinking about the right to vote leads me to reminisce about the whole feminist movement. The word, feminist, has fallen out of favor of late, no doubt due to it's common use as an expletive by ultra-conservative talking heads. The word, however, only means someone who believes in the equal rights of women. Doesn't sound that terrible, now does it? It isn't, and it pains me to see young women today vehemently state that they are certainly not feminists as if they are being accused of some heinous crime. I wonder what their definition of feminist is?
The whole concept of women being considered equal to men was controversial in my youth, and some would say, remains so today. Being the first girl after two brothers, put me in a position to frequently argue that the boys did it/got it/ could go there, why can't I? So, by the time I headed to college, I was an expert with that argument. My parents, again, found me amusing, and branded me a "libber”. Even the going to college was a stretch, as my father had never considered that his daughters would want to go to college. He'd sent his sons, and was surely looking forward to a break in the financial drain of college. But no, those daughters wanted to go also. Fortunately, my mother, though refusing to wear the label, feminist, was most assuredly one. She insisted that her daughters get the same opportunities at education as her sons. And so we went.
I had worked at my first job out of school for over 2 years and then learned that a newly hired man was making significantly more than I was for the same job. He was a man and had a family to support, so, of course, he was paid more than I was. My boss made that statement sound like rational thought instead of blatant sex discrimination because he truly believed it. And the lightbulb went on in my head, this is exactly what those feminists are talking about. I'd like to say that kind of unfairness has faded into the mists of time, but I'd be lying. The concept of equal pay for equal work is still being debated in some workplaces today.
So, young women, when you are paid what a man is paid, or you are considered for a job that is traditionally performed by men, or you enter a voting booth, you are benefitting from the efforts of those controversial feminists of an earlier era. They do not demand that you share their opinions on all issues, just that you have the right to have your own opinion and be able to voice it.
On a totally different front, My family has had happy news this week as my niece and her husband met their new baby! They have a 4 year old son already. Their newest son is coming to them through the miracle of adoption, like their eldest did four years ago. This is a much loved and much anticipated child, as all children should be. We can't wait to meet him. Ours is a family that has always adored babies. Crying babies, happy babies, sleeping babies, our babies, other's babies. We grew up in a family culture where every baby is a rare and precious, one of a kind gift. My grandfather was the Chief Baby Holder in our family. He could just pick up a crying baby and that bundle of screaming unhappiness would begin to coo. While he's been gone for many years now, we still speak of his baby skill with awe and not a little jealousy.
This baby's arrival has brought our family a new window into the family building process as my niece's family has worked their way through the open adoption process. They completed countless application forms, chose an agency, worked through the home study process, completed another zillion forms. Finally, after being judged worthy of being adoptive parents, they were asked to complete a family profile that expectant birth parents would use to help them choose which family would adopt their baby. As I watched them go through this long, thorough and costly process, I was often caught thinking that it's too bad that all parents don't have to work this hard and put this much thought and effort into becoming parents. Our culture would surely benefit from better prepared parents and thoroughly loved and welcomed children.
Missy Layfield, Ed.