Growing up in a parsonage, always aware of a deeply entrenched religious attitude that women were to be submissive to men, I rebelled against the preference in activities for boys such as in scouts, athletics, the usher board and a few other things. My father the Republican preacher heard my arguments — we did get a women’s usher board and girl scouts in addition to the few other options with the choir as well as the first opportunity for a black female preacher to speak from the rostrum of his church.
As I exited Junior High School in 1963, Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique defined for her 15th anniversary Sarah Lawrence College reunion the plight of many women dissatisfied with some aspect of their lives. Most don’t appreciate that during this time frame there was an Equal Pay Act of 1963, an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act which prevented pay discrimination; whereas the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 is mainly about when such discrimination began.
Attending UNC-Greensboro which was an all women’s institution (“W.C.”) prior to 1963, in 1966 aided by a grant from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to continue the integration of that institution, I arrived ready to protest any inequality I saw. I gladly welcomed the male students on campus in 1967 because I liked men and had four brothers whom I adored. The arbitrary standards put in place which limited women’s opportunities were visible, until I also saw a Republican light. American history taught us that the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the late 19th Century was backed by Republicans culminating in the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote on August 26, 1920.
The Anti-Saloon Leagues in which my father, the Republican minister, participated were an extension of efforts of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union bringing Prohibition to national attention much like M.A.D.D. (Mother’s Against Drunk Driving) in the hope that such would insulate families, women and children from the effects of alcohol abuse. From this came the 18thConstitutional Amendment. The Civil Rights movements of the 50’s-60’s were but an extension of forgotten Republican efforts to pass the First Civil Rights Bill in 1866.
Vietnam War protesters wanted us to make love not war and led to some nationwide radicalization of the college student bodies which impacted women with the advent of contraception on a scale and with an availability not previously seen; however, we had to pay for it if we wanted to use birth control. Those wanting the joys of sex without the responsibility of unplanned children took this option often discounting the sexually transmitted diseases which could result. Many tried to paint feminist of this era as anti-male and bra-burning. But those of us who stuck out our chest appreciated in such an act being freed from that restrictive bondage, our unharnessed bosoms could unfortunately be flung to every corner of the world, such as Madea illustrates, with a resultant back ache.
In my sojourn to Wisconsin, one of their first abortion clinics made national news. As I graduated from medical school, Susan Brownmiller published her 1975 treatise Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape which defined that forceful act against ones will as one of power, dominance and violence directed toward women. Such led to an increasing appreciation of the pitfalls of unadjudicated domestic violence, unequal status for mothers of children and a myriad of social ills some of which were afflicted upon women simply because of our sex and not our lack of abilities. Richard Nixon the much unjustly maligned Republican president and father of two daughters, went to bat for women with legislation which created a level playing field in any realm through the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 and in athletics with Title IX Education Amendments of that same year attempting to get parity in sports scholarships for women. Likewise George W. Bush, another father of daughters fully engaged women and minorities at all levels in his cabinet.
No where is the need for the government to limit action in the social justice arena more clear than the ill informed comments of many legislators on rape and the willingness of too many to tread into medical areas for which they have no training and limited understanding. Government or legislators don’t make good doctors. If Obamacare isn’t overturned, the onslaught of efforts to ration health care, control access, limit some procedures and push prevention without evidence that it can do the job will begin full speed and not at the hands of conservatives.
Feminist are those of us who advocate and support the rights and equality of women. We aren’t communist or men haters. We just want to participate in an opportunity society where we can be whatever we want to be and assume responsibility for our choices. If Democrats and many in the media would only tell the truth, it would be appreciated that throughout history, the Republican Party has engaged women in the present and empowered us for our futures. Always has and always will.
