Gloria Steinem was in DC to speak on behalf of the immigration reform group We Belong Together, and incidentally to accept a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Ruth Tam interviewed her for the Washington Post:
You first spoke at the National Press Club in 1972. How has your public persona changed since then?
Well, I was the first woman to speak ever at the National Press Club and they gave me a necktie. Now the National Press Club has had eleven women presidents. So obviously you can see some distance even though the membership is not as equal. You’d have to ask the people in the audience in 1972 but I think I was an oddity.
Why have you started campaigning for immigration reform as a women’s issue?
I want to help correct the inaccurate image of immigration in the media. There is an idea that women’s issues are over here and immigration is over there. Three quarters of undocumented workers are women and children. When the image in the media is a potential terrorist or drug dealer and at best, a male farm worker, it is an unrealistic portrayal of who immigrants really are. We need to make sure that our news, blogs and sources are more accurate about this imagery and what this nation needs as a work force… In the interest of accuracy and in supplying the expertise that this society really needs, I hope we can reflect reality in what we write into law….What do you have to say to women of color and non-cisgender women who feel like the feminist movement lacks intersectionality?
I don’t have to say anything; I have to listen. But what worries me about saying that the women’s movement doesn’t or hasn’t always included women of color is that it renders invisible all the women of color who were there. Because women of color were more likely to be in the paid labor force, they were more likely to recognize discrimination so they were always leading the women’s movement. I’ve learned feminism from the National Welfare Rights Organization and Dorothy Pitman Hughes, who was my first speaking partner in the seventies. It’s not that there isn’t racism in the women’s movement, there’s racism in this country and we have to be constantly vigilant. We can’t render those women invisible….
Read the whole thing, where she talks about the neverending fight for abortion rights, the rise of ‘nontraditional’ media, and why Steinem “can think of no president in history from whose hand I would be more honored to receive this medal”…
***********
Apart from paying due respect, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Bob In Portland
http://www.namebase.org/steinem.html
ruemara
I find it interesting that she responds to the question of minority & cisgender presence by saying she has to listen. If only more had that attitude. Really good read. Finishing off these rarebit biscuits for the office tomorrow & trying not to fret over… everything.
Yatsuno
@ruemara: She is, has been, and will contunie to be one amazing lady.
BTW watch your Book of Faces later on this eve.
Elizabelle
Jennifer M. Pardini, NYTimes Motherlode blog, 23 Weeks Pregnant, with ‘No good Choices’
She and her husband learn their unborn son’s heart is not developing normally.
MomSense
That was a great read!
Loved her discussion of immigration reform. It is powerful when we all work together.
Valdivia
@Elizabelle:
heart wrenching.
Trentrunner
Coming to read Gloria Steinem in the 80s was my first experience with the gap between how the MSM propagandized a “counterculture” figure–Steinem as a ball-cutting, manhating militant lesbo-anarcho-feminist–and how she really was: bracingly intelligent, insightful, empathetic, relentless and full of justice. Never trusted the media since.
Davebo
Shooting for sobriety but will settle for mild inebriation….
WereBear
I am thrilled that today’s young people have no idea what 1972 was like in terms of what women could not do.
ruemara
@Yatsuno: will it perform tricks?
Trollhattan
Two items, mostly unrelated, from California.
DFH Jerry Brown 2.0 is facing the scourge of future budget surplusses. Bastard. I suppose Rick Perry will try to claim it.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/11/california-fiscal-analyst-projects-large-surpluses.html
State Water Project initial allocation for the water year is 5%. We professionals refer to that as “not much.”
http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2013/112013.pdf
ranchandsyrup
@Elizabelle: Wow. What Valdivia said–heart wrenching.
I’m in the 4th ring of spreadsheet hell this evening.
Heard an interesting live mashup of the Cure’s Lovesong and Ozzy’s Diary of a Madman performed by A Perfect Circle. The stream is at the bottom of the article text. There is some stage banter at the beginning you can skip, but it’s still a 12 minute song or so.
SiubhanDuinne
@WereBear: I remember that my husband had to sign off on my having a checking account in my own name. All credit applications were in his name. Want ads in the newspaper were segregated male-female.
I had read articles by Gloria Steinem years before she co-founded Ms. and have always admired her. She may not want to call herself a feminist icon, but damned if she can keep me from calling her one! I’m so glad the President honoured her with the Medal of Freedom today.
Anne Laurie
@Bob In Portland: Everything I’ve ever seen — and there was certainly enough infighting among feminists/radicals in the 1970s — says Steinem got burned early & learned to be extremely wary of the three-letter agencies. She’s no Bob Woodward.
WereBear
BTW, ya’ll, I’ve started blogging about art.
My first post is up.
Discover the art in Saranac Lake
Please read, share on social media, even comment!
How will I learn if I don’t have feedback?
;)
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@ruemara: The issue isn’t simply one of listening. It’s also of “what are you doing to ensure those voices have agency in the movement?”
And that’s a major problem in the movement, then and now. Being an ally to Women of Color — to any marginalized group — is an active position, and even active listening means a level of passivity that the moment does not call for. For example, she mentions in the next question “a guide to non-sexist, non-racist, multicultural language” that her center’s putting out. That’s a good point, and hopefully it’ll read and work well.
I’m still wary though. I had to learn the hard way that not all Feminists really deal well with racial issues, to put it mildly, just as similar truths are evident in the Civil Rights movement. And some of the issues I simply don’t see because they aren’t directed at me. People like ABL can speak much more authoritatively than I on them. But they are def. part of the discussion, and I don’t think Steinem has really, for just one point, dug deep into how the past of the movement’s interactions with Women of Color informs the present. There’s a very good reason that question was one of the first to be asked.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: I had to go to the phone company so my ex could put the account in her name
WereBear
Me too! Three cheers for our first feminist President!
SiubhanDuinne
@WereBear:
That’s beautifully written, WB! I really like your thoughts on art — especially the art you love and acquire — being full of possibility. Somewhat related, I’ve long felt that art contains time, because it takes time to conceive and craft. Even if it’s, say, a portrait or landscape or something that at first glance would seem to depict just an instant — it is really all about changing light, the changing attitudes and experiences of the artist (and often the subject), all things that require the passage of time.
Did not mean to get so OT here, just to say again that your writing is always a pleasure to read, whether you’re discussing cats or ceramics.
SiubhanDuinne
@Anne Laurie:
And for that, I humbly and devoutly thank the FSM and its noodly appendages, Ramen.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven: It was so ridiculous, because before I got married I had my own bank accounts, utilities were in my name, etc. It’s like they all believed that the minute a woman got married, she lost all common sense, intelligence, and reliability. “I now pronounce you Man and Stupid.” I wouldn’t go back to those days for anything.
IowaOldLady
That story about getting a tie from the National Press Club reminds me of teaching in a private engineering college. In 1991, I’d been there for 5 years, so they gave me the gift they gave all faculty on that anniversary: a tie tack. As I recall, someone crossed out “tie tack” on the box’s label and penciled in “lapel pin.”
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: It was pretty stupid and it was less than 20 years ago.
JPS
In 1972 I was working at a public radio station that regularly carried the National Press Club Luncheon talks, and heard Ms. Steinem. When she was presented with the usual gift of a necktie she quipped something to the effect of “I can wear this as a headband at the next rally”.
Violet
Her article about working at the Playboy club is still an excellent read. Met Gloria Steinem once when she came through on a book tour. The best part was standing in line with a bunch of excited people, including a gay man who was absolutely beside himself about meeting her–she was his hero and he was getting the book signed for his sister for a gift.
Schlemizel
It has always made me sad that the entrenched power has managed to turn her into a caricature of herself. The real person has a depth and breadth that they have successfully managed to bury under a sea of bullshit. If those young women who like to brag that they are not feminists would actually take the time to read Steinem their heads might slip out of their colons and the oxygen would allow for greater brain function. That would lead them to discover that feminism is not the cartoon lesbian castration cult they have been led to believe it is and is actually a powerful movement that has given them the opportunity to go further despite their inability to understand what was done to get them the chance.
IowaOldLady
@Elizabelle: Situations like this one show why govt officials should stay out of decisions people make about their pregnancies. The self-righteous bastards never will experience this.
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: In 2007 I was at the funeral of my mom’s dad. He was 93. Outside having a smoke somebody I’d never met, before he knew who I was, said:
As her kid I didn’t know my mother was married before. Would have been the mid-60s.
I went to my dad and was like WTF dude? He said, he beat her, it is not something we talk about. Your mother got away that is all you need to know.
These years later, and my mom is about my best friend. Never asked her about it.
But now I know why as a kid (and now as an adult) why we give to women causes and women crisis centers.
I hope as an adult when I talk, as a male, about women issues all the time she knows she raised me well …….
WereBear
@SiubhanDuinne: Thank you!
Cats, and art. Both passions, and I’m glad it shows!
Schlemizel
@Trentrunner:
Dang trent I sorta aid what you said earlier, shoulda read the thread first! I second your points. I was there at the begining so it was easier for me to see the media BS, congrats for seeing through the shitscreen!
? Martin
@Trollhattan:
I would have put it differently: Fuck everyone who shit on California.
And on top of that we expanded abortion access, are signing up ⅓ of the people in the country on the exchanges, issuing drivers licenses to undocumenteds (DREAM kids already qualify for in-state tuition), raising the minimum wage, expanded LGBT rights, and approving new firearm restrictions. Oh, and 25% of our power is from renewables, and our carbon marketplace is working well.
Basically everything we want Congress to do, we’ve done. And we’ve got revenues flowing to keep it all going.
Baud
@? Martin:
But do you have FREEDOM?
Seriously, California is an example of what this nation could have had if we had rewarded Democrats in 2010 instead of punishing them.
Hal
Rush Limbaugh and Fox News had better watch out. Remember what happened the last time someone talked about Oprah?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAhuSDRIDHE
gelfling545
@SiubhanDuinne: In the 70’s I was &w (and wife) if I was mentioned at all on most of our accounts despite the fact that I was the one mainly paying the bills. As I recall, Sears was the only place that gave me an account in my own name.
Mnemosyne
@? Martin:
Huh. It’s almost like Keynes was right, or something. Nah, couldn’t be. Moar austerity!
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy: Wow! That had to be a tough thing to hear. What a way for you to learn about your mom’s history and how wonderful that she set, and continues to set, the example of giving to women’s shelters and crisis agencies.
IowaOldLady
I used to think California was ungovernable. Nope. Turned out it was just badly governed. The quick turnaround is just astounding.
WereBear
@IowaOldLady: So often a seemingly unsolvable problem turns out to be that only stupid things have been tried up to now.
Gravenstone
@Tommy: Near the end of her life, my grandmother was talking with my mother and I about her past. Unbidden came the tale of how, only a few months after giving birth to my mother, her husband (apparently a butcher in Elkhart, IN with a temper and drinking problem) raised his hand to her once too often. At that moment, she bundled up her infant daughter and walked out of the house, never to return – this was in the early 40’s. I always knew she was a crusty, no-nonsense woman, but that just floored me. Looking at my mother, it was clear she’d never heard that tale. At that instant, it became clear just how much strength she’d always had, not only to escape that situation, but to hold it in confidence for nearly 60 years.
scav
@gelfling545: It was advice given to women thinking about divorce (there were a few in my larger family at the time so hard-won hints were passed about); establish an independent credit rating. Extreme weirdness seeing one of the women’s daughter’s utter disbelief upon hearing it once took heavy fighting for a girl to take shop instead of home ec in jr. high school (and that in a generation roughly equivalent to hers).
SiubhanDuinne
@Gravenstone:
I wonder how many other stories like yours and Tommy’s are out there — perhaps still kept as a secret, perhaps buried with the people involved. I suspect these kinds of histories may be more common than we might imagine. Good for your grandmother.
mingo
I have to drop out of lurkance to second trentrunner – if you other older ladies recall, the operative word was ‘strident’. It was sooo unfortunate these ladies had to express themselves so * stridently *. Well, at that time my naive young self thought ‘darn, that’s too bad’. Then I read her actual words – and gained a visceral appreciation for anti-feminist propaganda…
SiubhanDuinne
@scav: It would not even have occurred to my generation of junior high schoolers to ask to take the “opposite” course. That took a few more years for the possibility to enter anyone’s mind. Of course, the truth is, everyone, male or female, should know how to use basic tools and be able to check plugs and fluid levels in their cars — just as everyone, male or female, should know how to put together a simple, nutritious meal and sew up a loose hem or reattach a button.
Yatsuno
@? Martin: Excuses over. Single payer. Naow.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: haha.. I never took home ec and in some ways it shows.
Splitting Image
Steinem wrote an article during the 2008 primaries where she said that black women should vote for Clinton rather than Obama because the sexual discrimation facing black women was more urgent than the racial issues. As I recall, several black women unloaded on her at the time in their blogs.
It’s notable, however, that the occasional stupid article from Steinem still seems to be uncharacteristic for her, while many of her (male) contemporaries have descended completely into hackitude. Somebody mentioned Bob Woodward above. Richard Cohen and George F. Will ought to be high on the list as well.
The whole of Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions is still must reading, in my opinion.
mingo
@SiubhanDuinne:
this to the eleventieth power.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
that’s kind of awkward phrasing.
Splitting Image
@? Martin:
If only
ObamaJerry Brown knew how to use the bully pulpit. Everyone would be getting abortions whether they wanted them or not, you would have signed up half of China on your exchange, and you’d be exporting your renewable power to Texas and Alaska.scav
@JPL: Can’t sew an apron using a stack of paper napkins and a cloth band (“Dirty? Pull off a napkin and it’s clean again!”). Home Eh? Mom had already introduced me to setting collars by that point (which I generally failed at, about on par with my sleeves) — cooking went much smoother — while Dad and I played with various heavy machinery in the garage with more success on my part although he hogged all the really fun bits (Dad also handled the programming).
Aji
@Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill: This, this, a thousand times THIS. It’s 2013, and there is still no room for us at far too many of the tables. I run smack into it everywhere, and while I expect it in conservative contexts [natch], it burns that much more when it’s alleged liberals who are telling me as a WoC that I need to shut up and fall in line behind my betters.
Bob In Portland
@Anne Laurie: When Steinem wandered the world vagabond-style after college she fit the profile of a CIA asset. She was spying for the CIA on students at the International Youth Festivals in Vienna and Helsinki: http://www.namebase.org/foia/festival.html
In her student spying she worked with Carlos Jose Bringuier. If the name sounds familiar, he was the intelligence asset who got into a scuffle with Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans the summer before the assassination.
In the late sixties there was an FBI memo, I believe it was from the San Francisco office, which said that the women’s movement could be exploited to divide the civil rights and anti-war movements. Clay Felker, her editor at New York Magazine who helped her start up Ms., was also a CIA asset. Ms. Magazine was funded by corporate interests. Steinem dated Henry Kissinger.
The Red Stockings never trusted her.
lamh36
Watching “The Campaign” with Will Ferrell and Zach Galifinakis (sp?), it’s way funnier than I thought it would be.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL: Well, I did — but very little of it stuck! I suppose if really put to the test I could still make the tuna-noodle-cream of whatever soup casserole, with crumbled potato chips on top. And I can sew on a button, but don’t ask me to do anything much more complex :-)
Debbie(aussie)
@SiubhanDuinne: I don’t understand the keeping secrets bit though. Especially in the world since the 60’s. Secrets suggest shame. There is no shame!
mdblanche
Is it just me or is the media in general going the way of Fox? CBS has become such a font of right-wing stenography that even the other networks couldn’t ignore it, the Villagers have been fluffing figures who haven’t been relevant for years like Moose Lady and Blackboard Guy, open racism has been “brilliantly” promoted on the Post opinion pages and that’s just the “liberals”, Republicans get to spew invective unchallenged while much milder statements by Jay Carney get interrupted by reporters accusing him of being uncivil… This is beyond enabling the crazy, this is actively partaking in it. It’s like in the last few months and especially the last few weeks they aren’t hiding that their goal is to help the GOP. Is it because the only demographics left that pay attention to them are the same ones that make up the GOP?
Bob In Portland
That Walker was part of that Walker Family.
JPL
@scav: I went to high school in the sixties and can remember not being allowed to take plane geometry. That was my first introduction into the different sexes. I didn’t handle it well as my parents, bless their hearts, could attest to if they were alive.
Yatsuno
@JPL: Good girls just didn’t DO that back then. Never mind the fact that female doctors were becoming more common and Admiral Grace Hopper was revolutionising the world of computers at that time. There has been progress, but more needs to happen.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: When the sons were small, I actually taught them how to make small bean bag type pillows they could juggle or whatever. Whenever we had appointments we had our little kits and they’d sit and sew. It was quite impressive for the office staff. The older one refuses to pick up thread and a needle to this day. btw, the older one that you met now works at the weather channel. He has to work Christmas day which I hate.
Chris
@mdblanche:
It’s not just you.
There’s an argument to be made that the entire point of Fox News and the whole right-wing media bubble was to open fire on the mainstream media with both barrels, relentlessly pillory it for being “liberally biased,” and so incite it to bend over backwards in favor of right wing memes in order to avoid that appearance.
But yeah, the entire media is right wing. It’s a choice between the “OBAMA: SATAN OR ANTICHRIST?” media and the “both sides do it, but liberals are always worse” media.
Josie
@JPL: I’m curious as to where you went to high school. I graduated in 1961, and I took all four years of math – algebra, plain and solid geometry and pre calculus. No one ever told me I couldn’t take any of it. Funny, though, I also took home ec. We did six weeks of several electives – home ec, art , shop, etc.
scav
@Yatsuno: Oooohhhhh, I Love the idea of mass public demonstrations of uppity, synchronized, plane geometry! Can we combine it with glitter?!
JPL
@Josie: Wow, I couldn’t take shop either. I grew up in central Massachusetts and the former Senator of Ct.’s wife was a year ahead of me. It at the time was a small factory town.
also, too.. Hadassah was in my sister’s class and would come over occasionally
Josie
@JPL: That is interesting. I grew up in a small town in south Texas. You wouldn’t expect us to be forward thinking here, but I guess we were at that time.
SiubhanDuinne
@Debbie(aussie): I fully agree, but I think there are plenty of people who do view it as shameful. Blame the victim. She must’ve been asking for it. Et cetera et cetera et fucking cetera. If the victims of domestic abuse buy into this at all, then they are going to experience shame.
Mnemosyne
@Josie:
It used to be that the western states could be very pragmatic — since they didn’t have a lot of people, they couldn’t stick too closely to gender roles and still survive. Wyoming was the first state to give women the vote. Now look where they are on the political spectrum.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
I think a lot of the shame is also, How could I have been so stupid? Why didn’t I see it coming? What’s wrong with me that I stayed with someone like that for so long? etc.
Speaking of which, my sister-in-law’s abusive boyfriend is back in the picture, apparently. But this time he’s been clean and sober for three whole months (in a sober living house) so it’s A-OK to take him back! Again!
Most pernicious myth ever: kids should know their father, even though some fathers just aren’t worth knowing.
JPL
@Josie: In some ways that doesn’t surprise me because females were respected because of their roles in caring for the ranch. In the north the female role was teaching or typing. I hate to simplify it but some of that was true. Mad Men is a great example of what was expected of females in the sixties.
scav
@Mnemosyne: I wonder if school size didn’t sometimes play a role too. Not everywhere could reliably fill classrooms of single-gender same-year subjects and hire the teachers to teach same.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL: I remember having an “aha!” moment when I first read about Rosey Grier’s needlepoint.
But I can’t imagine not being allowed to take plane geometry because chromosomes.
When I was a broadcaster, I worked many holidays. It can suck, but it doesn’t have to. Your son is a sensible guy and won’t spend the day moping.
Aji
@Mnemosyne: Yes, also this:
[Sigh] I can testify to that one. Sorry to hear about the S-I-L. Does she have any conception of the meaning of the phrase “falling off the wagon?”
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Good point.
And best to your SIL. I hope the boyfriend really has turned his life around, but three months is a little too close for comfort, IMNSHO.
Josie
@Mnemosyne
: @JPL:
Your points about the difference at that time between the western states and northeastern states are very good ones. I had never thought about that before. I love this blog because it gives me new ideas to think about.
Yatsuno
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks Obummer. :P
JPL
@Josie: It makes me feel like Richard Cohen, ugh. There were differences in the way females were treated during that time frame and maybe Steinem didn’t understand that. I didn’t understand
that.
Mnemosyne
@Aji:
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh, she’s been with this guy on and off for 20 years now. If he leaves, she goes out to find him. Frankly, he’d be better off if she would leave him alone, but she’s convinced she can “fix” him.
Did I mention that he’s almost certainly severely ADHD and bipolar since all of his known biological children are, but to my knowledge has never been treated for either one? Good times, good times.
ETA: He’s also spent most of his adult life in prison, so there’s pretty much no job that will hire him, even McDonald’s.
Suzanne
How much do I love Gloria? (A whole hell of a lot.)
Aji
@Mnemosyne: No, but I’m not surprised. So, a lifetime of self-medicating, basically. Shocker, that.
[Sigh] my other late sister – not the one you know about – was one of the “But I’m the one who can fix him!” types. With all of her own addictions and other pathologies. Yeah, sure. And she spent her life always chasing the ones who didn’t want to be caught, while treating like shit every nice guy who would’ve treated her decently.
How’s everything with you, BTW?
Mnemosyne
@Aji:
Things are pretty good. I’m being very lazy about my website and need to get back to that — I had a bunch of work presentations that all fell due at the same time and I just didn’t have the brainspace to think about Pre-Code movies. But I’ll be getting back to it soon, I swear. ;-)
I didn’t post a comment about it, but I loved your horse story. Pinto is my favorite horse color.
Aji
@Mnemosyne: LOL – maybe his nickname should be Bean. He’s been having a tough time of it (as has Cree, the brown/white pinto) with founder flares with the winter temps. But he’s mellow and happy and mostly healthy, so it’s all good.
I can relate to the whole “not getting back to the Web site” business. I need to update ours, but there are never enough hours in the day. Also need to go check yours out again . . . . I assume the deadlines are all met and everyone’s happy?
schrodinger's cat
I am exhausted just like this kitteh and I too am a great admirer of Steinem.
BTW is Bill Clinton sick or something? He looked really old and haggard.
Julie
Coming out of lurking to say that a lot of people don’t realize how much has changed for women. As recently as the late 1950s, married women in the workplace were routinely fired for being pregnant. My mother always told the story of how thrilled she was that when she became pregnant, her boss didn’t fire her immediately, but let her keep working until the end of the year.
Mnemosyne
@Aji:
Yes, all was well and presentations went smoothly. I was just tired of staring at the frickin’ computer screen for 8 hours a day and didn’t want to watch any movies. Mojo will be returning soon, I hope.
I like pintos so much that we adopted a pinto cat. Apparently, in the cat world her coloring is called “cap and saddle,” so definitely horse-related. (This is Charlotte, who is very pesky and bossy, but we love her anyway.)
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Technically speaking, the first state to specifically include women’s voting in law was New Jersey in 1790 (later reversed, a generation later). Women had been included within the category of eligible voters in NJ since 1776, but were not specifically identified as a class until 1790.
Yatsuno
@Aji: The Peruvians have all gone to winter furball. I now know why their shows are all in the summer. I personally like the winter ruffs but they aren’t exactly dignified. :)
Aji
@Mnemosyne: Awww, she’s adorable. I can see why you love her. Scratch her head for me. But “cap and saddle?” Huh – talk about learning something new every day. Personally, I think you’re right – “pinto” works just fine.
And so after hours and hours staring at a screen, you’re . . . here, staring at a screen? A woman after my own heart.
ruemara
I know I’m not exactly old enough to speak to the full level of indignities women were subjected to, but I do have this story. Going back to teenhood, I always struggled with the woman business. I knew something was wrong. Talking to a nurse friend of the family, she suggested I be checked out for fibroids and/or endometriosis. So at 18, I was told by the female doctor that pain and bleeding was to be expected and she didn’t complain why was I such a whiner. The older male doctor I saw for a second opinion, sorta swished around and said he didn’t feel anything and it was all in my head. I didn’t go back until things got really bad in my 20’s. I asked the new male doctor about solutions and maybe this thing called an endometrial ablation and he told me I couldn’t have one until I’d had kids and had the approval of my husband.
This was in the 90’s.I was horrified.
And went untreated until things went so bad in my 30’s that finally a new female doctor who wasn’t bitter approved an ablation. Unfortunately, all that mess over the control of my own body meant I was such a mess when she opened me up, I wound up having a full radical by 35. I do wonder if I had been allowed to have agency, a bit of respect for my ability to comprehend that things weren’t right, would I have had to go through all this? Not to mention the DVT trying the pill caused me. I had thought we were in a different age.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat: That is one cute kitteh! He mades me yawn.
SiubhanDuinne
@ruemara: That’s a horrifying story! I’m so sorry you had to endure that for so many years. The fact that the first doctor was female makes it that much worse.
~ shudder ~
Aji
@Yatsuno: [Snorfle] no, “dignified” prolly isn’t the first word to come to mind. I’m just grateful that Rescue Pony’s winter coat has come in lush and healthy. When he showed up in April with the vestiges of last year’s winter coat, it was the most pitiful thing you could imagine.
P.S. Don’t suppose you got any pix of the Peruvians wearing their new ruffs . . . ?
schrodinger's cat
@SiubhanDuinne: Me too, I am really tired this evening.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@raven:
Huh. We got hitched in 1995, and we didn’t take any of that crap. Regional?
Gus
I can think of few people more deserving of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I’m glad that, unlike Bayard Rustin, she gets this honor while alive.
Bob In Portland
For that matter, Ben Bradlee worked out of the CIA office in Paris in the early fifties propagandizing the “Rosenbergs are guilty” line.
Jebediah, RBG
@Bob In Portland:
The Texas Ranger family?
dww44
@WereBear: Well,if they happen to reside in places like Texas, they may shortly come to know what 1972 was like. I remember what 1972 was like and Texas is well on the way to taking its female citizens back there.
maeve
@Mnemosyne:
I just learned recently that New Jersey was actually the first state to have women vote:
” Following the American Revolution, women were allowed to vote in New Jersey, but no other state, from 1790 until 1807, provided they met property requirements then in place. In 1807 all women were taken off the voters’ roll as universally male suffrage was instated.” – wikipedia so it must be true
However, you are correct that Western states often had women’s suffrage (because women were considered a civilizing influence) and in some cases had to repeal women’s suffrage in order to become states (rather than territories)