One of my grandmothers couldn’t vote until she was forty years old. The other was 24 when our white male congress decided women were responsible enough to vote and passed the 19th Amendment and 25 years old when it was ratified in 1920. Both were wives of farmers and they milked cows, chopped wood, grew a garden, canned produce, and raised children. When the field work was done for the day, they came in, hot and sweaty, and cooked meals, washed clothes, and cleaned the house while the men rested from the hard day’s work.
My Mother kept the country running while the men were away at war. When WWII ended, they were told to go home because the men needed the jobs. They and their daughters had to fight to get back into the workforce. When they did, they were given the lowest paid jobs, because “men had families to support.”
My high school guidance counselor told a girl that she couldn’t be a doctor. Boys were doctors; girls were nurses. He told the valedictorian of another class that she would just be wasting her parent’s money by going to college since she was going to just get married and have children anyway. He didn’t even bother to give me a school catalog when I told him I wanted to get a college degree.
When I did get to the university, my first counselor hit on me and I was afraid to go back for advice that year. I needed his advice.
In the 60s and 70s, women began to demand things that other groups valued like equal rights and equal opportunities. Our mothers were Rosie the Riveter, for heaven’s sake, so why were women not in construction jobs, or the trades, or the ministry or doctors or management?
When my husband and I went to a bank to get a loan for our first house, in 1974, the banker told us my income wouldn’t count toward our eligibility. I worked full time, my husband, a Vietnam veteran, was going to graduate school on the GI bill. To his credit, my husband asked if that rule wasn’t some form of discrimination.
I worked in HR and saw women promoted to positions above men in the office and knew their salaries were tens of thousands of dollars less. The pattern seemed to be that longevity determined how much people were paid. The men had been in the work force much longer so, even though a woman was promoted above their level, she received less.
There are few women who weren’t sexually harassed in the workplace. Men, who were co-workers, salesmen, or clients, seemed to feel the women employees were there for their entertainment. My boss allowed me to empower the women and affirmed they would not be punished for refusing to be treated that way. One receptionist actually worried that she might get fired if she firmly told the client who kept calling her to chat that she had work to do.
Now after 96 years of getting the vote, we have a female nominee of a major party. That final pinnacle of power is within grasp of a woman. I’m excited and near tears of joy. The United States has been particularly stubborn about giving women that power. Many, many other countries including Pakistan, India, Liberia and Guyana beat us to it. They are hardly bastions of progressive thought and opportunities for women.
This morning I scanned the Washington Post and found a snarky column by a young woman about the “glass ceiling” being Hillary Clinton’s Moby Dick. As we all know Ahab was obsessed to the point of putting the lives of his crew at risk to get Moby Dick. Alexandra Petri wrote, parodying Sec. Clinton’s speech, “I wish my mother were here tonight to see how things have changed. To see what I have become. To see that her daughter could grow up to be a hardworking secretary whom a wealthy man will spend the next several months yelling at.”
I’ve been there. I’ve seen that. I don’t find it funny. If young women think they have equal opportunity, they should look in the boardrooms of this country. Look at the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives. Look at our military hierarchy.
Sec. Clinton will be abused by that “wealthy man” not just yelled at. He will drag her into one sewer after another. Men and women in his party will stand by and watch him debase her. They’ll say nothing in her defense, even those who know her, who worked with her, who laughed with her. He will call her a liar and worse. He will blame her for actions not her own. He will diminish her accomplishments, which far exceed his own.
So, as young women, great granddaughters of women who weren’t allowed to vote, granddaughters of Rosie the Riveter, daughters of women who fought for equal treatment enjoy the gains their foremothers made on their behalf observe this election, you’d better realize that nothing came easy to women. Watch this campaign because you will see how low this man will go, how mean and cruel he will be, how sleazy he’ll get, and thank Hillary Clinton for fighting this last final battle for women in this country. You will see how dirty the fight gets to keep a woman from the Oval office. Sure, they’ll try to convince you that they wouldn’t treat another woman like this. It’s just this woman. That’s bunk. Maybe you should think about defending her, standing with her, so she doesn’t fight this battle alone. Do it for your daughters and granddaughters.