“We are the custodians of our future.”
No matter which side of the aisle you’re on, no-one can deny our country is in turmoil. America is under attack from without; American women are under attack from within; and one calamitous byproduct of all that turmoil—if we, the “fairer sex” of our nation, are not vigilant—is going to be the erosion of the privileges, quality of life and civil liberties which women fought and died for, for generations.
In case you are inclined to think that is an overstatement, please consider this:
Under the Trump administration, the US State Department’s annual report will be stripped of nearly all passages dealing with female-specific issues, including civil rights, reproductive rights, family planning, contraception, abortion and sexual discrimination. While these directives and this report are specific to policies outside our own borders, they are disquieting because of their broader implications: women’s health and well-being, women’s access to safe and proper medical care, and women’s civil rights are all fair game when it comes to Donald Trump’s ultra-conservative (some might even say misogynistic) agenda—which, in some rural areas, is already rearing its ugly head.
There are organizations in our country right now that are buying up local hospitals and clinics, and then refusing to provide any medical services that have a bearing on women’s reproductive rights, including abortions, tubal ligations contraception.
Elaine DiMasi @ TVDC Meet The Candidates event; Photo by Cory Olsen
“Basically,” explains Elaine DiMasi, Democratic congressional candidate for New York District 01, “they are saying a woman is the ward of her husband, her father, or, as a last resort, the state. Men in charge. They control what the woman can do. They don’t want them in the workforce, don’t want them making decisions, don’t want them having economic power.”
Chauvinism on steroids.
This is nothing new; I just thought we’d ‘come a long way, baby’ … haven’t we?
Countering these reactionary tendencies and undertakings will take a concerted effort on the part of progressive leaders who are not willing to allow America to backslide into the 19th century.
Our country has been one of double standards since its inception. As far back as the 1600s, famed poets such as Anne Bradstreet and Hannah Griffitts literally endangered their lives, first by presuming to be poets, and thereafter by using their talent to speak out against the discrimination they endured simply because they had the misfortune of being born female. But you don’t have to go back that far.
Those of us who are at or near retirement age will remember clearly the double standard for college admission: thousand-page directories that told us girls needed higher scores than boys for admittance, while the remainder of the world simultaneously told us boys were more intelligent than girls. Even my own father, who was surprisingly enlightened for a man born in 1920, still bemoaned the fact that, while he graduated 3rd in his class from Columbia University, which is no small accomplishment, number 2 was a girl—a tidbit my mother loved to bring out at parties.
Actress Anna Lakomy, photo courtesy of Steve I-Lin Chung
Actress Anna Lakomy once told me, “What I’ve noticed in both college and in the professional world is the very different way we perceive the same actions performed by different genders. I’ve seen so many domineering men who are respected, admired and promoted, while women are told to be less dominant and more ‘aware of other people’s working styles.’”
That double standard invaded every aspect of our lives, at every stage of our lives.
Do you recall when, in 1978, singer Carly Simon asked women to think back to their early dating years: “Do you go to them [referring to boys], or do you let them come to you? Do you stand in back, afraid that you’ll intrude?” I’m sure we all worried about the same thing. I just wonder why it took so long for me to realize that it didn’t have to be that way, why being told to, “live like a flower while the boys grow in the trees,” registered more in my brain as a beautiful song than as a statement of sexual discrimination.
And what about Dion’s 1961 hit song, “The Wanderer”? Now, there was a doozy! While we were all wildly jitterbugging to “Well, there’s Flo on my left and there’s Mary on my right, and Janie is the girl that I’ll be with tonight,” did we ever once take a break from our revelries to consider that if a woman had replaced Flo, Mary and Janie with Tom, Dick and Harry, she’d have been branded a whore? Of course not—the censors would never have even allowed such filth on the airwaves!
Public Relations manager Carol Ross, photo credit: Pamela S K Glasner
Carol Ross (media, marketing, & public relations manager for Tommy James & the Shondells) describes her own experience with personal power as something that must be built from childhood: “I believed I was worthwhile and assumed a persona of confidence in whatever I did. Not easy when dealing in what we called ‘a man’s world,’ especially in the entertainment and music business. I realized that men needed to reinforce their manhood and power, and would use women to do so.”
I think in many ways that’s a shared experience among women. That, and the idea that, while there’s no getting around the fact that we’re female, somehow we’re supposed to get through the workday without drawing attention to it—IF we want to be taken seriously. As Elaine DiMasi explained to me, “Although there is a lot out there [on various web and social media sites] about my work history, there’s not a lot out there about how I felt as a woman physicist, as a woman pursuing a career, as a woman who wanted to keep my own last name when I got married.” DiMasi, like many other women, believed that talking about being a professional woman (as opposed to just ‘being a professional’) would detract from her accomplishments. She didn’t like the idea that being a woman physicist was an accomplishment in its own right; what she wanted was for her workplace to be a gender-blind world where her womanhood was not a consideration at all.
Because grad and post-grad students, which was what DiMasi was as she began her career, were fairly-well insulated from prejudices, she attributed her initial obstruction-free environment to the new, enlightened world we were all living in—equality was a given. However, as her career advanced, as she rose higher up the ladder and further away from the protected world of academia, the more obstruction she had to face, particularly in the male-dominated world of science.
Carolyn Montgomery-Forant onstage, photo by Evalina Transgozova
Singer, songwriter and recording artist, Carolyn Montgomery-Forant, found that clubs preferred a male headliner in the premium time slots, whereas woman were relegated to the earlier or later spots. “It didn't matter,” she said, “if she had more commercial success or was actually a better performer. When I asked why, a booking agent shrugged his shoulders and replied, “I guess it just seems more balanced that way.” Balanced? Really? The world of entertainment has hardly been balanced with male film actors making typically five times that of their leading lady. In 2018, we might find we are making baby steps toward gender equality in show business, but that is hardly making strides.”
Naturally, no woman would broadcast all over the place things like the sexist comments casually tossed our way, the shaky self-esteem, the incessant self-questioning, the deep-seated visceral fear that maybe we really are inferior, maybe it’s OK to fail because ‘I’m only a girl,’ maybe the bosses don’t expect the same output, maybe it would be better to just get one of those women’s scholarships … all of which can be extremely damaging. It can, and certainly has, lead women to back off and take a break from the rat race, not because the rat race itself is prohibitive, even exhausting, but because the added pressure of doubting your right and ability to belong can wear you out faster than just normal workplace competition.
Fortunately, there are efforts throughout our country to change all that. Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York announced a striking statewide campaign—“If You Can See It, You Can Be It,” which DiMasi is excited about and enthusiastically supports— to encourage more girls to enter ‘non-traditional’ occupations, and also to encourage them to pursue leadership positions in all fields, not just the non-traditional ones.
Fourth graders on computers, photo credit: woodleywonderworks
According to LongIsland.com, “This year, Governor Cuomo will launch New York’s largest state investment to expand high quality computer science education by offering teacher support and resources in computer science and technology, especially for the youngest learners, starting as early as kindergarten and creating a continuum through high school.” This is vital if the coming generations are to enter and be effective in the worlds of science, medicine, environment, conservation, architecture, infrastructure, film making, television broadcasting, city design and planning, pharmaceuticals, aeronautics, just about any kind of manufacturing—in other words, pretty much everything!
What’s even more vital is that this education begins at age 5, because in 2015 only 18% of New York’s computer science graduates were female—something I am certain had more to do with culturalization than equipment availability.
When I was growing up, when women’s rights and women’s empowerment were brought up, the naysayers would roll their eyes and assume we meant employment, wages, and reproduction. And while those certainly were part of it, they were hardly all of it. The darker side which, if it was ever spoken of, was done so in whispers, in small circles around the Mahjong table. “Did you hear about Sylvia’s daughter?” Then they’d lean in real close, cigarette smoke wafting in the air above them as they didn’t gossip, “They say she had to quit her job …” If a woman or girl was raped, it was at least partially, if not wholly, her fault. She should have known better.
As stated in the Governor’s proposal, “According to the Center for Disease Control, New York students report a higher rate of physical dating violence than the national average, and more than one in six female high school students in New York report being forced into sexual activity,” something to which I can personally attest, having been date-raped in New York City at the age of 16—something I never would have publicly admitted had it not been for the all the other recent (and empowering!) outcries of the #MeToo movement. Governor Cuomo’s proposed “Be Aware-Be Informed” learning module to empower young people to forge healthy relationships is meant to address this issue, as well as others, including violence against women and girls, and its myriad consequences.
When considering whether or not to make her womanhood a part of her congressional campaign, DiMasi chose not to participate in the #MeToo Movement, believing she had to choose between speaking about her femaleness and convincing 700,000 future constituents in her district that she was the candidate most capable of managing things like energy and environmental policies. She worried that bringing up her gender would dilute that message. And why not? If women are thought of as second-class citizens, then certainly women’s thoughts and abilities on pressing issues of the day—climate, domestic violence, homelessness, immigration, economics, healthcare—are also diminished.
“Maybe,” DiMasi mused, “I don’t want to get into women’s issues because energy and environment are more important. But on the other hand, how can anything be more important than half the population?”
Women’s Rally, supporters in Pittsburgh, photo courtesy of “DiMasi for Congress”
All those who think we live in a free country please raise your hand. There are those who would respond to that by saying, “No, we don’t—we live in a democracy!” OK—all those who think we live in a democracy please raise your hand. The answer to that one is also, “No.” We live in a republic. That means we divide ourselves into groups and elect one or more spokespeople to meet in some central location and speak for us, to “represent” us—or, more accurately, to represent the majority of us, the representative’s constituents. Unfortunately, that is not what is happening now. What is happening now is the majority of our representatives are voting along partisan lines, pleasing their donors and largely ignoring the oaths they took by ignoring the express wishes of those who put them into those sacred positions of power.
Case in point, New York District 1’s GOP incumbent, Representative Lee Zeldin, ignored letters, petitions, and phone calls—to his offices in DC as well as Patchogue, NY—begging him not to dismantle the ADA’s (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance rules, and instead voted along party lines to approve it. And who can forget the repugnant pontifications of Steve Bannon, whom Zeldin has chosen to ally himself with: if a woman is not pro-family, if she has no husband or children, she must surely be a “dyke” (Bannon’s word) from one of seven historically all-female colleges (aka The Seven Sisters) located in the northeast.
Elaine DiMasi at the Women’s March, photo courtesy of “DiMasi for Congress”
Of course, not all of Zeldin’s misogyny is quite so blatantly disgusting, though it is certainly destructive. Some of it is delivered so innocuously, you don’t even notice it—kind of like the way a tick attaches itself to a dog and then starts sucking blood. According to Emily’s List, an American political action committee that works to help elect pro-choice Democratic female candidates to office, Zeldin has a solid history of voting to defund Planned Parenthood (which is sometimes the only place women can go for regular, routine feminine healthcare such as mammograms and pap smears for cancer screening), undermine equal pay protections for women, roll back regulations that protect the disabled (including veterans), and eliminate affordable healthcare for those who can least afford to lose it: those with several illness, the elderly, and America’s poorest.
Fortunately, rather than intimidating or silencing us, this kind of contemptible rhetoric and inexcusable voting history has emboldened and energized American women into action like never before. According to Emily’s List, more than 25,000 women have signed up to join the race for political seats, a figure which is unprecedented in American history.
Additionally, in a March 7th 2018 article published on NPR’s website, author Domenico Montanaro wrote, “The power of female Democratic candidates is real. [It] was felt in the [Texas] Democratic primaries Tuesday night. More than half of the candidates who finished first in Democratic primaries were women.”
The silver lining to all this misrepresentation, backward thinking and turmoil is that it is not uncommon for some of the most far-reaching, momentous social changes to emerge from the most turbulent of times. Just look at the #MeToo Movement: Dozens of courageous women across multiple industries came forward and called out their abusers, molesters, and rapists—wealthy, powerful, seemingly invincible men—and brought them down, held them accountable for the unspeakable agony they inflicted. In Michigan, over 200 young women stepped out of the shadows and into the limelight to confront a monster. It was just, yes, but it was also cathartic. It was necessary. And empowering. And inspiring. And, my God, it certainly was time.
Michele Sorvino, photo courtesy of Michele Sorvino
Michele Sorvino, Executive Director of the Golden Door International Film Festival of Jersey City and advocate for autism, told me recently, “We all have the inner strength to succeed, the question is when will that key be unlocked.”
So here’s the thing: Empowerment is not just about surviving workplace harassment or even sexual assault; it’s not just about employment; it’s not just about the right to own property or sit on a jury or compete as an athlete or expect excellence in medical care or demand equal wages or know with absolute certainty that when we report a crime we will be believed. Yes, it is all those things, but it is so much more. It’s about truly believing, down to our marrow, in our unequivocal right to honor everything we are; it’s about how we perceive ourselves, our lives at present, our futures, and what we pass on to our daughters. Our daughters! Empowerment is not just a state of being. It is a responsibility to the generations to come.
What America needs right now, more than anything else, is solid leadership. And that’s really what all of this is about. It takes a certain kind of personality to become a successful scientist: curiosity, Intelligence, imagination, attention to detail, tenacity, communication skills, perseverance, ethics, courage, level-headedness, objectivity, and compassion. And those are the exact same qualities I want in a political leader, a lawmaker.
Elaine DiMasi — Scientist for Congress — Photo courtesy of “DiMasi for Congress”
That’s why I am so excited about the candidacy of Elaine DiMasi, a college graduate, a scientist, a woman who emerged from blue-collar roots, the great-granddaughter of immigrants, a woman I respect and deeply admire, and, most of all, the democratic challenger for incumbent GOP Lee Zeldin’s seat at the US House of Representatives. It was DiMasi who said to me, the other day when I was preparing to write this piece, “We are the custodians of our future.”
Not just our future, but the future of our country, the future of our world. I do not say that lightly, because under this administration, that custodianship may very well be in jeopardy.
To learn more about congressional candidate Elaine DiMasi, about her beliefs, her platform, and her vision for America, please visit her website: https://elainedimasi.com/. And above all, please make sure you vote on Tuesday, November 6th, 2018.
Pamela S. K. Glasner is a published author, historian, playwright, filmmaker, social advocate. Learn more about Ms. Glasner at http://tinyurl.com/ccywpza and http://www.lastwillandembezzlement.com/
Copyright by Pamela S. K. Glasner © 2018, All Rights Reserved
