A few years ago, a 20-something Republican classmate of mine remarked that the Women's Movement "was unnecessary." I set him straight with a little story of my Mom's first pregnancy.
In 1959, Mom was a newlywed public schoolteacher who got pregnant during her first teaching job. At the time, it was school policy and probably Pennsylvania state law that pregnant women were not allowed in the classroom if they were "showing." Pregnant women were required to resign within 3 months of conception. Mom got away with an extra month of income by not informing the administration for a month after she knew.
There was no maternity leave then. Teachers unions - when they existed at all - had little influence. And her job would not be waiting for her after delivery. She - and all women - were forced to surrender their livelihoods upon impregnation.
Fortunately, Mom was married at the time. But what about the female school teacher who was NOT married and found herself pregnant and faced with losing her job? You know. Job? Money? Roof over head?
"How many of those teachers," I said to my deeply disinformed conservative classmate, "do you think chose the danger of an illegal back-alley abortion over the ending of their careers?"
And it would likely have been a career-ender, not just a job interrupter. The social stigma of public knowledge of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy of a public schoolteacher would have marked her as one of low moral character. On that basis, her teaching license would have likely been revoked and each woman barred from employment in the teaching profession all her life. And, of course, it's a policy that applied only to women.
And not just teachers. What about the millions of women in other professions and jobs, especially those unmarried?
For even though Mom WAS married, she still had to give up an important source of income for her family when it was needed most. My late alcoholic father was blowing rent money buying rounds of drinks for whole barfuls, while Mom was struggling with pregnancy and tending a newborn.
How many women rushed into unfulfilling marriages they wouldn't have agreed to back when they could have had their jobs taken from them? How many of those marriages ended in divorce?
How many women killed themselves rather than lose their jobs? And how many died during or after expensive botched abortions?
Mom finally returned to teaching in 1964 after having me and separating from her husband. In 1970, PA teachers were granted the right to strike, and Mom was active in the teacher's union. Even during my birth, there's a current lesson about the Women's Movement. Today, women are routinely discharged from the hospital only 48 hours after giving birth; sometimes only 24 hours afterward. Mom's OB/GYN in 1962 kept her in the hospital for a week after my birth.
"And it's a good thing I was there," Mom told me, "'cause on the 7th day I started hemmoragging."
If Mom had been at home when she started hemmoragging, who knows if she would have made it to the hospital in time to save her life.
And, Mom tells me, her successor in the teaching job Mom lost due to pregnancy also got pregnant - and FOUGHT the forced dismissal policy. All the way to the state supreme court, Mom says. And that one woman schoolteacher WON the right for ALL WOMEN in Pennsylvania to keep their jobs.
[**UPDATE: Mom's successor is Cindy Hill; she was earning her Master's Degree while on sabbatical from the Chartiers Valley School District when she got pregnant; Ms. Hill missed only one week of school as a result of her pregnancy, according to this press release of the National Organisation for Women (NOW) dated November 20, 1967 (Sorry for the British spelling, but the last letter of the alphabet on my keyboard doesn't work). Mom says maybe the case didn't go as high as the state supreme court, but she did say that the ruling (perhaps that of the PA Human Relations Commission-I find it hard to believe Chartiers Valley didn't appeal to the appellate courts) nullified forced dismissal of pregnant teachers in all school districts in PA. Later, Mom said, PA ACT 195 enacted in 1970 (referred to above) granted public school teachers the right to negotiate contracts with local school districts, including maternity leave rights.]
[***UPDATE II: Below is an excerpt of the text from the NOW press release of Nov. 20, 1967, mentioned above; the full text can be found at the link above (emphasis is this writer's):
The NOW Bill of Rights for Woman continues: "The right of women to equal opportunities in employment must be implemented by immediate revision of income tax laws ensuring the right to permit the deduction of full home and and child care expenses for working parents.
Another plank in the NOW Bill of Rights states: "Since bearing and rearing children is important to society, the right of women who want to, or have to work not to suffer because of maternity, must be protected by laws ensuring their right to return to the job within a reasonable time after childbirth, without loss of disability credits or seniority.
"Finally, the NOW Bill of Rights for women urges: "The right of every man and woman to be educated to the fullest potential should be secured by federal and state laws to eliminate quotas and discrimination on the basis of sex on all levels of education, discrimination in loans and fellowships, segregation of educational facilities including dropout programs, and education which develops passivity and inferior aspirations among women while encouraging abdication of responsibility for home and children among men."
At a press conference this morning In the Mayflower Hotel, NOW officers revealed the new "Bill of Rights for Women" and announced NOW support for music teacher Cindy Hill in her fight against the school district of Chartiers Valley Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Mrs. Hill was deprived of sabbatical study pay, and subsequently fired, after she gave birth to a baby while on sabbatical leave obtaining her master's degree at Duquesne University. NOW charged the school district has "violated the rights of motherhood, the rights of a married couple to manage its own family, and the basic individual rights of a teacher"and called Mrs. Hill's case "a serious example of employment discrimination based on sex." Introduced at the press conference, Mrs. Hill stressed that she had fulfilled all requirements of her sabbatical study leave, and had won her master degree "with accolades," taking off only one week to have her baby.
Think of all the young minds poisoned by wingnuts who are telling them the Women's Movement was "unnecessary." Or, rather, that it IS. Because the Women's Movement wasn't just necessary in the past. IT'S STILL NECESSARY. It's still a matter of life or death for millions of women.
Thanks, Mom.