The Modern Historical Roots of the War on Women

 There has, of late, been a great deal of discussion about the so-called "war on women" There seems to be widespread agreement that it exists but what are its origins? It did not emerge ex nihilo. On the contrary, the modern roots of the war on women go back to the early 20th century.

The date of August 26, 1920  signaled the beginning of great changes for American women and thus for the country as a whole. The passage of the Nineteenth Amendment meant that women could vote for the first time. No one could perceive what the future would hold (1) but the power of the vote meant that women had a direct voice at the table, perhaps for the first time in history. 

In the 1940's, during World War II. many women in the United States went to work outside the home.  With so many men being enlisted and drafted for the war effort women were asked to step in and fill the void.  Indeed, they were crucial as war production had to be stepped up and maintained. Women were heralded as very important to the war effort. The most visible symbol was Rosie the Riveter, the iconic figure who graced ubiquitous posters. What wasn't clear then was what would happen to those jobs when the men came home ( 2).

As it turned out, women were expected to return to the home and go back to being dutiful wives and mothers. And so they did - to some extent- but only after an extensive propaganda campaign by the government.   The Baby Boom emerged from this phenomenon as men came home from overseas and women from the workplace. The reunited families made up for lost time.  Television shows as "Father Knows Best," "I Love Lucy" and "December Bride" to name just a few all depicted women as housewives, deferentially following the lead of the husband. The message was that this was as it should be. Women, however, were now aware of what it was like to have a sense of independence and it would be impossible to turn the clock back. Many women started taking jobs outside the home as soon as their children were in school for full days. Many remained working for their entire lives. (3)

In 1960, the first birth control pill went on the market. It had substantial funding by Margaret Sanger, who had opened the first birth control clinic in the United States in 1916 (4 ). The "Pill" changed almost everything about home life, human sexuality and women. For the first time, women could enter the workforce for prolonged periods and actually establish careers of their own without needing to take a long break to raise their children.. The Women's Movement followed right on the heels of the advent of birth control pills and the IUD. So did the Sexual Revolution. The birth control pill meant that sexuality was not restricted to procreation. Recreational sex was on the rise and women were free on yet another level (5).

Both the Women's Movement and the Sexual Revolution opened doors for women in the United States, allowing for the exploration of self. Women were free to think and act for themselves in ways not true ever before. Women went to work, went to college, had careers and could put off having children until a time in the future when they were both planned and desired. It wasn't until the late 1970's, however, that women decided that they no longer had to choose between motherhood and having a career (6). The mantra became,  "We can have it all." 

This led to the demand for full equality with men. The Equal Rights Amendment, originally written by Alice Paul in 1923 was reintroduced in Congress and passed both Houses in 1972. It failed, however, to be ratified by the required number of states in the requisite amount of time. This was thanks, in part, to the conservative organizing effort of Phyllis Schlafly (7).  Nevertheless, as it is impossible to kill an idea, the ERA lived on in spirit and in the continued struggle of women for full inclusion and equality.

In 1973, there was a blockbuster Supreme Court decision that moved that ideal forward. Roe v. Wade codified the right of women to control their own bodies and reproductive processes. Abortions were made legal and because they were now legal they were made safe, taken out of the back alleys where countless women had suffered and died. (8).  In conjunction with effective birth control, legalized abortion meant that women were able to decide when and how they became mothers.

All these monumental leaps forward for women also affected men. With women in the workforce men had to compete for jobs. With women pursuing higher education, men had to compete for places in colleges and universities. Women were increasingly away from home and therefore started seeking help for running the household from their husbands. In short, women had greater freedom and choices and men noticed.

The decade of the 1970's also saw the first discussion of what is now referred to as the "rape culture." Feminists began a consciousness raising discussion of rape. Up until then rape was rarely talked about. During this period, rape was shown to be far more prevalent than previously believed and the underlying causes like misogyny, sexism and the objectification of women were brought out into the open. "In rape culture, sexualized violence towards women is regarded as a continuum in a society that regards women's bodies as sexually available by default" (9). Rape culture  is thus "...a culture in which rape and sexual violence are common and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media normalize, excuse, tolerate, or even condone rape" (10)

Behaviors that correlate with rape culture include: victim blaming ("she must be at fault because she wore..."), slut shaming, objectification of women and the trivialization of rape. Other behaviors that show up frequently include:  "...racism, homophobia, ageism, classism, religious intolerance and other forms of discrimination (11)

Feminists also point to the distribution and use of pornography as a way in which rape culture is expressed since pornography objectifies women and reduces their bodies to commodities (12). At bottom, rape culture devalues women and makes them objects and things to be used. In this environment women are not self-actualized, intelligent, independent human beings. Rape culture seeks to put women down, to oppress them. "Sociologists posit that rape culture links non consensual sex to the cultural fabric of a society, where patriarchal world views, laced with misogyny and gender inequality, are passed from generation to generation, leading to widespread social and institutional acceptance of rape" (13).  Rape culture is one factor in the war on women.

The 1980's marked the germination of a backlash against the feminist movement. The Right-To Life movement merged with the Moral Majority and with the opposition to the ERA by conservatives. The Right To Life movement was a direct reaction to Roe v. Wade, supported by conservative, evangelical Christians, the Roman Catholic Church and conservative Republicans. (14) The so-called Moral Majority was a movement started by Rev. Jerry Falwell aimed at overturning abortion rights, the ERA and was the modern origin of the Tea Party mentality. It was the first time in modern history that a part of the "Christian" tradition attempted to deliberately overstep the Constitutional boundary between Church and State. In fact, the intersection between Right to Life, conservative Republicans and the Moral Majority were the paternalistic and misogynistic parents of the Tea Party.

The intersection of RTL, Moral Majority and Republican conservatism were joined by the rape culture to create a quadrilateral of oppression and objectification. Right To Life would give the fetus priority over the woman which, in essence, revokes her autonomy and rights to self-determination. The Moral Majority (which is neither moral or a majority) would obliterate the line between Church and State and impose fundamentalist values on the entire country. Republicans would do anything within their power to diminish the power of women who are a strong base for the Democratic Party. Each group had their own motivations but, in the end, all were seeking to diminish the autonomy, freedom and rights of women.

Currently, state level attacks on women's freedom, autonomy, access to reproductive health care, birth control and abortion are all being orchestrated by conservative elements like the Tea Party and those who fund it as well as the ultra right wing GOP. (15) They are all products of the past and seem to want to take us all back to before the time when women had rights. Apparently they think that regression is the answer, which it is not. The answer is acceptance not denial. The answer is not repression and oppression. The answer is to accept reality. They need to get with the movement of history towards freedom for all.

All of us, however, need to understand that this contemporary "war on women" was born out of historical events and settings. They didn't arise out of nowhere. It is important for us all to understand the "how" and "why" which can allow us to move beyond and overcome. Without this understanding, however, we are, as the saying goes, doomed to repeat history.

ENDNOTES

 



1.   ("August 26, 1920,"  About. com,  http://bit.ly/16UO7yF  24 March 2013 .)

2.     ( "I Am Woman",

       http://iamwoman-mxtodis123.blogspot.com/2010/05/women-and-workforce-1940-1950.html 24 March 2013.)

3.   ( Ibid. )

4.   (Our Bodies Ourselves,  http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/companion.asp?id=18&compid=53 ,   24 March 2013.

 

5.   (“ The Pill”, American Experience, PBS3 http://to.pbs.org/wU3386 ,24 March 2013 )

6.    ("Has The Sexual Revolution Been Good For Women? Yes", WSJ, March 30, 2012: http://on.wsj.com/GLovU6 ,24 March 2013)

7.  ("Equal Rights Amendment", Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment , 24 March 2013 ).

8.  (“Leeches, Lye and Spanish Fly”, by Kate Manning, New York Times, 21 January 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/opinion/leeches-lye-and-spanish-fly.html, 24 March 2013.)

9.  (Chris O'Sullivan, "Fraternities and the Rape Culture", in Transforming a Rape Culture, edited by Emilie Buchwald, Pamela R. Fletcher & Martha Roth in "Rape Culture", Wikipedia,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture.  24 March 2013 )

10.   (Wikipedia, "Rape Culture", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture, 24 March 2013 )

11.  "(Aosved, Allison C.; Long, Patricia J. (28 November 2006). "Co-occurrence of Rape Myth Acceptance, Sexism, Racism, Homophobia, Ageism, Classism, and Religious Intolerance". Sex Roles (7–8): 481–492. and  Suarez, E.; Gadalla, T. M. (11 January 2010). "Stop Blaming the Victim: A Meta-Analysis on Rape Myths". Journal of Interpersonal Violence: 2010–2035.c From “Rape Culture”, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture, 24 March 2013.)

12. (Ibid).

13. ( "Rape Culture", Wikipedia,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture  24 March 2013.

 

14.  (“Rev. Falwell’s Moral Majority: How It Changed Politics and Religion,” by

Patricia Zapor, Catholic Online, 20 May 2007, http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=24153, 28 March 2013.)

 

 

15.  (“The Ongoing GOP War on Women” by Alisha Mims, Ring of Fire, 13 February 2013, http://www.ringoffireradio.com/2013/02/13/the-ongoing-gop-war-on-women/, 28 March 2013)

A Call To Action

This week we have seen at least two appalling displays by the Radical Right. The GOP in the House and Senate have blocked solutions to the looming sequester, all because they want to protect their wealthy masters. Then, Antonin Scalia, upon hearing arguments about whether the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ought to be applied in an Alabama county, said that renewing the Act was "A perpetuation of racial entitlement."  It was such a blatant display of ignorance and racism that gasps could be heard in the courtroom.

Clearly, Justices Scalia and Thomas need to be booted from the Supreme Court but there is really no way to accomplish that. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court is the only unchecked branch of government. That really ought to be changed with a constitutional amendment but it will probably never happen.

The radical right wing court and the radical right G.O.P. make me less than hopeful for the future of this country. They do not care about actually serving THE PEOPLE (except the very few richest people and corporations).  

There comes a time when the people of the country need to step up and demand change. We have a long tradition of doing just that starting with the American Revolution, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Suffragettes, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and the protests against the Vietnam War. We are a people who stand up to injustice. Now is the time to do so again. The injustices we face are from the tyranny of the right. Now they attack all of the rights we fought for throughout our history.

In addition to the attacks on the Voting Rights Act, itself,  the radical right, in the guise of ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council,)  have crafted legislation to make voting harder, if not impossible for the people of color, the elderly and students - all of whom traditionally vote Democratic.  

They would also have us under the thumb of mega corporations just as the colonists were under the thumb of the East India Trade Company: 

"...the British trading company that faced ruin which was the reason parliament to pass the tea act, removing most taxes and bypassing colonial merchants, giving the British owned company an unfair advantage since they could sell their tea much cheaper than the colonial merchants, causing protests and the Boston tea party."  (Quizlet.com) 

If that sounds familiar that's because some things keep rearing their ugly heads. Just as the British Parliament gave The East India Trade Company monopolies to keep it from going under, so we have the US Government giving huge bailouts to our biggest banks. 

Then there are the attacks on women, particularly our right to govern our own bodies and our access to health care.  State after state (with the encouragement of ALEC) have attempted to pass or actually passed laws which make getting a safe and legal abortion almost impossible.  The most notorious of these being those which require a women seeking an abortion to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound, which essentially amounts to state sponsored rape with a foreign object (see Think Progress: http://bit.ly/UHD9tZ).   And on and on it goes.

If we sit back and continue to allow these injustices now, it will soon get worse. Already they have started attacks on trade unions because unions give employees a collective voice. For the radical right it is all about money and power and unions give their members power in the workplace. They also mean higher wages and better benefits: 

• Unions raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by about 28%.
• Unions reduce wage inequality because they raise wages more for low- and middle-wage workers than for higher-wage workers, more for blue-collar than for white-collar workers, and more for workers who do not have a college degree.
• Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow. For example, a high school graduate whose workplace is not unionized but whose industry is 25% unionized is paid 5% more than similar workers in less unionized industries.
• The impact of unions on total nonunion wages is almost as large as the impact on total union wages.
• The most sweeping advantage for unionized workers is in fringe benefits. Unionized workers are more likely than their nonunionized counterparts to receive paid leave, are approximately 18% to 28% more likely to have employer-provided health insurance, and are 23% to 54% more likely to be in employer-provided pension plans.
• Unionized workers receive more generous health benefits than nonunionized workers. They also pay 18% lower health care deductibles and a smaller share of the costs for family coverage. In retirement, unionized workers are 24% more likely to be covered by health insurance paid for by their employer.
• Unionized workers receive better pension plans. Not only are they more likely to have a guaranteed benefit in retirement, their employers contribute 28% more toward pensions.
• Unionized workers receive 26% more vacation time and 14% more total paid leave (vacations and holidays).  (Economic Policy Institute: http://bit.ly/pW3UdF)

For obvious reasons, many employers would rather not have a unionized workplace. ALEC helps them in their union preventing and union busting ways.  

What we, the people, need to understand is that all these struggles are one. When we fight for justice for one we fight for all. And fight we must, for women, for children, for the poor, the elderly, minorities and the unions. When we fight for them we fight for ourselves and for the country. Now is the time to act.