The key word is “feel.” As an African-American woman, my mother was acutely
aware that a person, and a woman in particular, could be shoved into a lower
rank in a very real and profound way. Laws could dictate where you could live
or work and whether you could get a business license or own property or vote.
Customs and social mores and self-appointed status checkers could keep you
out of the boardroom or the clubhouse. But no one actually has the power to
reach inside your soul and turn down the dial on your self-confidence.
My mother has a strong work ethic, but she also has a fierce “worth ethic.”
Self-regard in the face of oppression is her superpower.
That word—power—takes on different dimensions viewed through a gendered
lens. Power is most often associated with strength, which in turn is linked to
physical prowess or financial might. The default assumption is that all of society
benefits when men are raised to become powerful—their families, their com-
munities, their places of work and worship. When women talk about exerting
power or flexing their collective might by coming together, the assumptions
are very different. It’s too often seen as a zero-sum game, in which women gain
power at the expense of men and at the peril of larger society.
I came of age during a period of protest in the streets. Women have been marching
and picketing and demanding their rights for my entire life. And as with most
movements, progress comes in fits and starts, times of setbacks and periods
that feel like a whoosh of momentum. The Equal Rights Amendment, first
drafted in 1923, seemed certain to be ratified by the early 1970s but stalled. We
are now in another moment of sweeping progress, most evident in the #MeToo
movement—an astounding upwelling of emboldened and infuriated women
saying time’s up to sexual harassment and assault. That revolt has produced
a new wave of legislation, greater awareness, and immediate consequences
for men who had previously gotten a pass or slap on the wrist for predatory
behavior. Veterans in the struggle for women’s rights, used to disappointment,
are hoping this really is a long-lasting movement, not just a moment.
This is an era of outrage and division, but there are strong reasons for optimism.
We are witnessing an age when six women can stand on debate stages in the United
States and credibly argue that they should be elected to the most powerful office in
the world and when a woman is the speaker of the House of Representatives. We
live in a time when a woman can become a four-star general or an Oscar-winning
film director or a Fortune 500 CEO.
Around the globe women are gaining unprecedented power. They hold a
majority of seats in the lower house of Rwanda’s legislature. Nearly two-thirds
of the Spanish government’s cabinet ministers are women. The only country
that banned women from driving, Saudi Arabia, has finally allowed it. Women
have led almost a third of the world’s countries.
In a seismic development, the U.S. women’s national soccer team dominated
the World Cup with such force, consistency, and chutzpah that it outperformed
the U.S. men’s team in victories, viewership, and pop culture status. When you
mention American soccer today, the women are the ones who symbolize the
sport. But we still live in a time when those megastars are fighting in court to
ensure they are paid the same as the men. Actually, it’s not even about equal
pay for equal work; it’s equal pay for demonstrably more successful work.
These are women who strut their success, reveling in their triumphs on the
field and becoming role models for women seeking to challenge the basis for
their second-class status.
For centuries women have been viewed as the weaker, more vulnerable gen-
der. They have been rendered inferior, not necessarily with their consent, but
with considerable help from social constructs and scientific research. British
journalist Angela Saini documents how science has long defined and confined
Could we finally be
at a turning point?
Actress Dorothy Newell
was a national sensation in
1915 when she painted her
demand for equal rights on
her back, less than a month
after tens of thousands of
women marched down Fifth
Avenue. Two years later, New
York allowed women to vote,
and in 1920, the nation did. It
had taken a sustained cam-
paign launched in 1848 to win
women the vote denied them
by the U.S. Constitution.NOVEMBER 2019 13