We Won't Go Back

I try to stay away from certain subjects on this blog. I avoid religion and politics as much as possible, BUT yesterday was my birthday and there's something I need to say. I'm probably older than most of my readers and I know you won't all agree with me, but please bear with me this time. There is much at stake.

I've been involved with the Women's Rights Movement for a long time. My involvement has been in four areas, education and employment, social and reproductive rights. Many of you are too young to realize how recently things have changed. My grandmother didn't have the right to vote. Once women attained the right, she never let us forget how important it was to exercise that right. We received a phone call every election day to remind us to vote. I've never missed an election.

I had always planned to become a veterinarian. I had the grades and was accepted at the school of my choice, but there was a quota on the number of women accepted into the veterinary school and I was placed on a waiting list. The work was considered too physical for women. I chose not to wait and left school to enter the business world.

In the 1960s and 70s classified ads in newspapers were divided into male only and female only jobs. The main jobs for women were teaching, nursing and clerical. The employer decided if he wanted to hire a woman. Job applications asked if a woman was married or planning to marry, if they had children or were planning to have children. If an applicant said she planned to have children, she was asked when, how many and what plans she had for child care. Men were not asked these question. I remember a job application for a bank that I applied to in South Carolina that had a whole section of questions on my menstrual cycle.

Women were expected to wear skirts to work, regardless of the job or weather. Pants were not allowed and a woman would be sent home to change if she appeared in pants. Women were paid less than men for exactly the same work. Men were assumed to be supporting families and even if a woman was a single mother due to death or divorce, she was paid less. There was no mandated maternity leave. If a married woman became pregnant and left to have her baby, she was replaced. A single woman who became pregnant could be fired simply for being pregnant.

I worked as a bank auditor in Central New York and was taking notice of the women's groups that were forming and legislation that was being discussed. Although the Feminists made news by symbolically burning bras, they proposed a day for women to stay home from work demanding the right to wear pants to work. Along with a group of the younger female bank employees, I stayed home and the bank agreed to our terms, to a point. We were allowed to wear pantsuits, trousers with matching jackets. The bank also reviewed salaries and brought women's wages up to match those of men doing the same jobs.

Along with some friends I attended some rallies and heard speakers such as Gloria Steinam and Bella Abzug speak It was a heady time. In Syracuse where I lived, there were two restaurants with cocktail lounges that allowed no women unless they were escorted by men. These were not private clubs, but public facilities closed to women. We picketed these facilities and managed to get television news and local newspapers to cover our complaints and eventually both restaurants opened their doors to women. I remember the first day they did so, a girlfriend and I ate lunch at one of them and toasted our success.

Women who married were expected to take their husband's surname and were referred to as Mrs. Whatever. In my genealogical research an obituary from the 1970s would read John Smith was survived by his brother William Smith and his sisters Mrs. James Jones and Mrs. george Brown. A married woman was stripped of her own identity and became an appendage of her husband. As you know I chose to keep my name when I married and add my husband's name after a hyphen. In the 1970s I would not have been able to do that.

The subject that pulled me deeply into the Women's Movement was, of course, the right to make decisions about my own body. At that time there was no date rape or spousal rape on the books. A married woman was under her husband's control. He decided if and when she would have children, if and where she would work outside the home. A single woman who found herself pregnant thru rape or birth control failure had the choice of having the child or risking her life in a back alley with someone who might or might not be a medical professional, or risking her life by self aborting.

I volunteered at Planned Parenthood, organized rallies and talked to everyone, especially the men in my life. We needed them to understand what was at stake and join us in trying to make changes. Things did change slowly and we acknowledged every small change and celebrated the big ones. I even was able to file charges against an employer who discriminated on the basis of sex and won my case.

A lot of good women suffered and yes, died because change didn't come in time for them. Today I see young women taking many of the rights they have for granted and I see opponents chipping away at them. I fear that the hard won victories will be lost and society will return to times when women are not valued as individuals and their choices will be restricted. We need to pass our history on to generations coming after us and they need to stay on guard against those who would rescind our rights as women.

Thanks for hearing me out.