Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. Here we are, complaining about Seth MacFarlane and kicking up a fuss about senators definitions of rape. But what’s all this here talking about?
Thus, Sojourner Truth rallied the women at Akron’s Women’s Convention with her AIn’t I A Woman speech in 1851.
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman?
If you haven’t read it the rest, go read it now. It’s an incredibly inspiring piece that strips down women’s rights into one fundamental point.
Women can do what men can do, and no one should stand in the way while they’re doing it.
Are women free to achieve whatever they desire?
I say no.
Today, the year 2013, we no longer need men to put proverbial coats over life’s puddles. We condemn the sale of any woman’s child into slavery. Women band together to stand against breast cancer, violence against women and to support women’s health issues.
Yet, we are not able to do anything a man can do. Still, we are held back. I know this to be true, because were women and men truly equal, we would have no need for Women’s History Month.
Today, Sojourner’s question has softened, turned into an unspoken of what most women know but can’t quite prove when we find ourselves feeling marginalized and undermined.
We hear the soft whisper. It would be different were I a man.
HERstory, ahem, really MYstory.
My earliest gender related memory is of a kindergarden stand-on-one-foot contest. We all hopped and wobbled and the last one standing would win a prize. I was the last one standing. It came down to me and one boy. We wiggled and flapped our arms for balance and at the end of it all, I alone remained aloft, yet I didn’t win.
Why? Because I’m a girl and the boy has to win. I swear to you that’s what the teacher told me. It made no sense at all. I cried foul to the teacher and to anyone else who would listen about this unjust ruling. I knew without a doubt that this was wrong, and clearly I have not forgotten.
But what about the little girls who take it to heart and believe that yes, a boy must win, even if the girl is better balanced or stronger or better, the boy must win?
It would have been different were I a man.
Photo by ModestChanges
Skip forward a couple decades.
I spend almost a year arranging details of a photography project with a quite well known artist. We had dates. We had details. We needed only announce our collaboration. Then he stops returning e-mails. Soon after, I see he’s launched the project without me, working with a group of eleven men and only one woman.
It would have been different were I a man.
There are many other instances in which I’ve had that same niggling notion that I would have received better money, wider options and been taken more seriously had I been born male.
In Sojourner’s day, men defined the limits of women. You cannot vote. You cannot receive equal pay. You cannot say no. It is so much easier to identify an enemy who stands firmly against you. Then, we knew what we had to fight. Now, those who oppose us smile sweetly to our faces, tell us what we want to hear and then follow the old rules anyway.
The hypocrisy is killing. It makes you doubt yourself.
Yeah, it could be worse. Doesn’t make it right.
Even so, I can live my life happily enough. I am lucky, you see. My husband treats me as equal. I live in a comfortable house. I have enough food. My daughter is awesome. When someone turns me down because I’m not a man, there are plenty other options in my arsenal. I’m a lucky, lucky woman.
But not all are so lucky. Women’s health, women’s body image, violence against women, rape law. There is still much work to be done.
So, until there is no longer a need for a special month to highlight and honor women’s history, women’s rights and women around the world, I will take March to celebrate, educate and inform by posting articles, information and artwork by and for women.
Stay tuned. I am only just beginning.
