Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 17, 1992 TAG: 9203170360
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In my very early years, I knew my career options were limited to teacher-secretary-nurse-mommy. Around the house, there were boys' job and girls' jobs. I was expected to be neat and clean and submissive.
But during my adolescence, in the early '70s, my mother became a convert to the women's movement, and the family went along with her.
We all cooked and cleaned and did yard work. She began a career, and my father made dinner more often than not. She subscribed to Ms. magazine and I absorbed every word, especially the fiction, which gave me a broader view of what women could do with their lives. I read other feminist literature, too, all of which had a profound effect on my development.
Although too young to take part in the early struggles, I have memories that women younger than I don't of the changes the women's movement brought about. Today I am grateful for the benefits that have come to me through the efforts of the women who started it all. I don't take these benefits for granted, and I don't shy away from the label "feminist."
These days, older feminists are complaining that we younger women don't seem to care about the things they worked so hard to achieve, that the gains they made are being lost.
They are right about the latter, I think. Women are steadily losing ground on issues such as the right to an abortion and what they can or cannot do with their bodies while carrying a fetus. Sexual harassment, obviously, is still a big issue.
But they are wrong when they think we don't care. It's just that our outlook is different from theirs.
For earlier feminists, the women's movement was a cause they could dedicate themselves to. It had specific goals they could work toward, such as equal pay and equal opportunity. For them, it was a societal issue. They wanted to change the world and they did.
For me, and, I suspect, for other women my age, feminism has always been about personal issues. I never participated in a march or demonstration, never joined an organization, never thought it was terribly important when I found myself doing things most other women don't do.
In high school, feminism was about being able to wear pants, and having the option of taking shop class rather than home economics. In college, it was never doubting for a moment that I would support myself after I graduated. It was being able to make career choices that weren't based on gender, and it was living as equals with men in open-visitation co-ed dorms.
As an adult, my identification of myself as a feminist has not been associated with political causes. Rather, it is based on whether my employers call me and think of me as a "girl" or as a competent worker; on whether the mechanic at the garage or the car salesman allows that I know enough about automobiles that they will deal with me honestly. It is based on the fact that I can hammer together a bookshelf while my boyfriend puts dinner on the table, and we can both enjoy doing what we do best.
One of the biggest concerns of older feminists seems to be that some younger women who can afford to are staying at home, leaving the jobs and careers older women fought hard to secure.
In many cases, this has more to do with demographics than women's issues. Besides being the largest generation of Americans ever born, we are also the most college-educated. But there are so many of us out there and only so many jobs to go around. The lucrative, satisfying careers we were told would be our reward for earning a degree just aren't there.
Many women, particularly those at the tail end of the baby boom, are opting to work at building families, rather than holding down jobs in which they are underpaid and underemployed. I know several men my age who would do the same if they could.
Those of us who have stayed in the work force have come up hard against reality. There is the so-called "glass ceiling," for instance, below which a women finds she can advance but only so far. Look around any board room in this nation: Despite the gains made by women, this world is still run by men.
Others of us have found that sometimes even being better than men isn't enough. You can outwork the boys and you can outplay the boys, but you're still "just a girl" to some of them. It's like a club that allows you to attend the meetings, but will never let you join.
That attitude is changing. But for every man with the brains and sensitivity to treat a woman as an equal, there are plenty more out there who never will.
I am worried about the fate of women in this country. Will we be so caught up in the day-to-day issues of making a living, taking care of our families and meeting our own needs that we forget about the needs of women as a whole? Will we wake up some day in a world where all our choices have been made for us by a society that doesn't consider our interests to be a priority?
Twenty years ago, I thought "women's issues" would be resolved by now. I thought the battle would be over and won. Maybe we younger women are just now realizing that we were wrong. Let's hope it's not too late.
Betsy Biesenbach of Roanoke is a free-lance writer and paralegal.
by CNB