Kimberly Emerson

Feminist (n, adj) fem-uh-nist: 1. adjective – advocating social, political, legal and economic rights for women equal to those of men.  2. noun – an advocate of such rights. (dictionary.com)

2a. Alternate definition:  Dictator, intent on subjugating of all possessors of Y chromosomes.  With minimal assistance, able to reproduce small facsimile of self.  
(popular conception)

With everything going on lately in Texas and Wisconsin, I’ve found myself paying more attention than usual to way that women in our country are treated.  I mean, serious attention.  Some politicians have made it their mission to regulate women’s reproductive organs. The cry has gone up that after forty years, we shouldn’t have to keep fighting for the legality of Roe v. Wade.  I heard this and my first thought was Good grief – forty years.  That’s within my lifetime.  I knew this, of course.  I just hadn’t stopped to think about what that meant.  Forty years, in the grand scheme of things, is not very long.  We obtained the right to vote less than a century ago.  One hundred years, in the annals of history, is barely a blip on the radar screen.

My great-grandmother Jessie Watts, in 1913

One hundred years ago, when my great-grandmother came to this country, even if she could become a citizen, she couldn’t vote.  I don’t know whether she was especially upset about this.  Maybe she just accepted it as the way things were.  Maybe she was too busy crossing the Atlantic and coming through Ellis Island alone, making her way to California where my great-grandfather was waiting for her, marrying him and bearing and raising four children to worry about who the president was, much less whether she had a say in picking him.  I don’t actually know how long it took my grandfather to obtain his citizenship and with it his right to vote, for that matter.  (Note to self: quiz Mom & Grandma at earliest opportunity.)

What I do know is that on August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving women who were citizens  of this country the right to vote.  My two-year-old grandmother would have that gift as a matter of course when she turned twenty-one.  (The legal voting age wouldn’t be lowered to eighteen until the passage of the 26th Amendment in 1971.)

As with so many rights in our land, it wasn’t granted as a right.  It was fought for and won by the sweat, tears, and yes, blood of many women who came before my grandmother and great-grandmother both.  In light of all the debates going on just now about how women live their lives, I thought it was a good time to do some research on these early feminists.

The word feminist has gotten a bad rap over the years.  Some people have come to see it as a combative word, a verbal shove that no loving, wise woman would use to describe herself. The only feminists in the world, some people assure me, are single, bitter, hard women who wish they were men.

Hi. My name is Kimberly, and I’m a feminist.

I don’t consider myself bitter or hard, and I have no particular yen to change my gender. Perhaps my desire to be male is buried too deeply for me to recognize, but I don’t think so. I feel pretty comfortable having soft skin and curves. I find the lack of testosterone freeing, though honesty forces me to concede that estrogen has its own challenges.  While I’m not married, I have a father, two brothers, two nephews, a couple of uncles, several male cousins and many friends of the XY persuasion that I adore and whose dreams I feel no overwhelming desire to crush.

Why then would I espouse this tainted word? Because it’s still necessary.  We’ve come a long way as women.  I recognize and celebrate that fact.  We just aren’t done with our work yet, and judging by the political climate at the moment, we won’t be any time soon.  Over the next few blog posts, I plan to take a critical look at how far we’ve come, and where we still have to go.

I spent the weekend with two old friends, Holly and Erika – women I’ve known for over thirty years.  Our lives are very different in many respects.  As wives and mothers, they appear outwardly to fulfill that sacred Cult of True Womanhood that the 19th century pushed on its female citizenry. Neither of them, however, would be willing to accept the limits that its creed of “piety, purity, submission and domesticity” imposed. One hundred fifty years ago, these two women would have been considered their husband’s property – treated more kindly than slaves (for the most part), but still.  Women now may choose to stay home with their children, if their spouse’s income is sufficient, but back then they would have had no other option. If a woman got a job of any kind, her income belonged to her husband. So did any property she might have had coming into the marriage, and whatever she might subsequently inherit. If her relationship went sour, she had no right to divorce, unless she could prove her husband had committed adultery.  Even outright violence wasn’t enough.  There was no such thing as marital rape.  Sex was a husband’s right, anytime he wanted it. One woman in North Carolina took her request for a divorce all the way to her state’s Supreme Court, after her husband beat and whipped her.  Chief Justice Richmond Pearson refused, saying “The law gives the husband power to use such a degree of force necessary to make the wife behave and know her place.”

Any man who tries to make Holly and Erika behave and know their place had better have a getaway car stashed close by, with the motor running.

Me? My life wouldn’t have been possible in the 1800s.  A single woman in her forties living with a cat was unheard of, unless she came from a fantastically wealthy family.  Even then, she’d likely have been a social pariah. (“Social dependents and failures,” as an ehow.com article described single women of the time.) I’d be married to anyone who’d have me, probably.  Otherwise, I’d be someone’s maid, governess, or prostitute.

Even so, I would have had some rights my married friends didn’t. As an unmarried female, I had a distinct legal identity. I could own property and enter contracts under my own name. In a Women’s Studies class in college, when someone asked whether a particular female author was gay, my professor wryly noted that that much was assumed about all women of the time who chose to remain single. While some of the probably were, I’m guessing that for an authoress making money, the decision to stay single had a lot less to do with sexual preference and a lot more to do with keeping control of one’s finances.

Over the weekend, Erika and I mused as to why the world still needs feminists. Even with all this progress, we could still make quite a list.  Because when a woman is raped, people still ask what she was wearing. Because women authors still feel the need to hide feminine names behind initials in order to write anything besides romance.

To these I would add, because much of women’s participation in history is still not taught in regular history classes.  Women’s studies classes still satisfy a diversity requirement in many colleges. As one of two sexes, “female” doesn’t really strike me as diverse, but we still have to bribe people to learn about us.  (Even women.  I wouldn’t have taken the class myself if it didn’t meet a requirement I needed.)

Because when I started researching this column, I found most of the books on women’s suffrage in the children’s section. As glad as I am that kids are being taught about women’s rights, they leave out a lot. I don’t blame them.  Much of the history of female suffrage isn’t suitable for children.  (More on that in the coming weeks.)

The struggle for women’s rights, like the fight against every other kind of discrimination, isn’t done yet. Until it is, and all of our rights are guaranteed, beyond question, I will wear my feminist mantle proudly. If that means Rush Limbaugh will call me a feminazi and others will silently agree with him, so be it. We’ve come this far.  Generations of women, past and future, are counting on me to keep moving forward.

Sister Suffragette lives.

Tags: Cult of True Womanhood, feminism, history, Nineteenth Amendment, Roe v. Wade, Sister Suffragette, suffrage, women's history, women's studies