U.S. Women Have More Options Now…

There is a notable dichotomy that we occidental types fall back on when speaking of women’s rights and issues here at home. We all know that in countries like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan women play an extremely limited role in society at large.We tend to forget things about our own society that are part of our own very recent history.

I was in Mexico this past summer. There, as in many countries, women play a limited role in the work world. Employee wanted signs in shop windows specify often that they want a female employee who is unmarried and around 28 years of age. This is a completely legal request, as it was in the USA up until the mid-sixties. The work that young women do in Mexico now and in the U.S. of the recent past, centers around receptionist, hotel-clerk, salesgirl and other low-level often clerical or service jobs. And sometimes those women with some foreign language skills can procure employment in the travel industry.

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I was told in so many verbal and non-verbal ways, the work that I could do. The most important job was to marry and reproduce but, beyond that, my choices were limited to teacher, nurse, librarian, secretary and possibly for the strivers, something like social worker. A woman required tremendous external support combined with inner resources to move beyond the confines of her situation. 

And a generation earlier it was even worse. My mother, who was quite a bit smarter than my father, worked for Kelly Girls as a secretary. She had been a business major in college and the highlight of her working life was when she lived in New York City and worked as a buyer for Bloomingdales. The pay scales for male buyers were much higher than for female ones because those guys “had to support a family.”

She could not get her own line of credit or secure a mortgage loan to buy property. Those rights were not extended to women. To be sexually assaulted or raped carried with it a major stigma of shame. Women who were violated were routinely questioned as to why they were in the place where they were attacked and what provocative clothing were they wearing.

It’s true we still don’t have equal power or the kind of parity in government that we would like to see. In the United States women have never held top offices like they have in so many other countries around the world. But things have gotten better. It’s imperative that we hold our ground and not let them slide backwards to an era that is being somewhat romanticized. Those of us who lived it know the truth and it wasn’t pretty. 

Working for a Paycheck is Not a Choice

Ann Romney

With the latest flap between strategist for the Democrats, Hillary Rosen and obscenely wealthy wife of Republican candidate Mitt Romney making headlines, I feel compelled to interject some comments about well off folks, not just one-per-centers, and the shackles of the brutal, capitalist workplace.

First off, when Hilary Rosen when states that, "Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life," it's true she is not including the drudgery of child rearing, a dirty job in which many of us have consciously chosen never to participate. I'm also sure that Ms. Romney had tons of options for help available to her on days she wasn't feeling quite up to snuff because that is what wealth is all about: options. The single mother who cleans houses, sells drugs, or turns tricks for a living doesn't have options. She doesn't have health care, she doesn't even have a paycheck. The waitress may have some of these perks and the factory worker may have a few more but, none of them possess the luxury of sitting on their butts at home and focusing on child-rearing.

Having choices holds a value far beyond the material world. When you are speaking of creative pursuits, meaningful work, or landing that dream job, the cushion that money provides is not just psychological and physical well being. It provides the ability to keep searching or just wait until that life-affirming work appears. Take a mainstream Democratic Party politician like Nancy Pelosi. She may not be a member of the one percent, but her father was mayor of Baltimore, her hometown. She interned first, without pay and didn't take a job until the right political plum came along. And yes, after that she did work for a paycheck.

Many folks with cushions and safety nets use this strategy. I had a personal friend who wanted to work in computers. She went to a lot of classes and investigated all kinds of programming, all the while with help from her family. She didn't have to take a job until she found just the right fit at thirty years of age.

If you don't have this cushion, you must take whatever comes along whether it is meaningful or politically correct or not.You have neither the leisure to wait nor the connections to mine. This, of course, puts you at a disadvantage that lasts throughout your working life.

So Ann Romney when your only "job" is managing your household staff, dropping in on the children after they have been cleaned up and prepped by teachers and nannies and campaigning for your hubby, I would hardly describe that as work. Miss Ann and her husband Mitt couldn't be more removed from salt of the earth concerns. Their privilege is pale, thick and heavy and, like cream that has been sitting in the sun too long, has begun to ferment and smell.

Identity Issues and Boomer Homophobia...

Lately my queer identity has overpowered the other ways I identify myself. My various identies seem to ebb and flow depending on the circumstances. Sometimes, especially when among reserved folks, I feel terminally abrasive and jewish, in very sex-role circumscribed situations where all faces are male, I feel extremely female and among the economically privileged I feel very working-class. Now, among almost everyone I am beginning to feel really old. Yet, at rare and wonderful moments I feel as though I represent a universal human being, connected in many ways to everyone. It's never a question of one identity trumping the others, it's a far more fluid situation.

Of course, I feel very queer when I am singled out for discrimination. For example, I belonged briefly to a writing group that was overwhelmingly heterosexual. They were, like me, older lefties who were serious about writing. The format of socializing was very different from what I'm used to. The women didn't  reach out to each other very much. The person I got the most support from was a man. It wasn't a come on thing (he was married with kids), he just liked my writing. But I wasn't there to make friends so I let it go. The real reason I wound up leaving the group was that queer issues were not taken seriously. Civil rights issues for other racial and ethnic groups were, rightfully, regarded as an important struggle. But when I wrote a memoir piece about homophobia on the job they viewed it as a story about individual indiosyncracies presenting problems in a specific workplace.

An acquaintance of mine wound up in a nursing home. She was suffering from dementia. Her close friend/ex-lover would visit her there. The staff assumed she was her sister until one day she explained that Nan, in better days, had been her lover. This admission was a terrible mistake. Once the other old women realized that Nan was a lesbian, they became aftaid of her. In her dementia, Nan believed that she was in her own home and would sometimes wander around naked. Her roommate and fellow patients now considered her nudity a sexual come on. Due of the lack of conciousness and support of the staff, Nan had to ultimately find another place to live.

Homophobia, by its very definition, means fear. Will folks of the boomer generation and older ever overcome the way they were raised? As an old dog, I have learned quite a few new tricks so perhaps there is hope that one day we will come together to fight for us all.