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PYGMY STEPS FOR WOMEN
It
appears that our "small steps" do not bring giant strides for
women. The advances that we make both personally and in groups are
seldom disseminated either through our educational institutions or other
informational sources. Face
it. We women are just not news unless we are sexually involved with
a prominent man, get blown up working in a woman's clinic or knocked off
by a husband or S.O.
Perhaps that is why the small stuff is so important. But more important is that we get information out to support and encourage other women. This is where the Internet has and can help, but we must use it even more effectively. It used to be that the typical Internet user was a male geek, but this year, for the first time, women's online use nearly matches that of men.
Frank Gens, senior V.P. of International Data Group, doing marketing research found this additional information. "Women, unlike men, do not tend to go online and surf the hours away. Instead, they tend to go onto the Internet with a specific goal in mind, get it done and get off."
Just a click of the
mouse and several copies of your e-mail information can go all over the
world to be read and redirected to other women. Almost at once, we
all can learn that a Saudi prince, Talal bin Abdul Aziz has called for
modernizing the kingdom, including GIVING WOMEN MORE RIGHTS TO WORK AND
ALLOWING THEM TO DRIVE." Hopefully, a next step can be the elimination
of that horror -- cliterectomy. 
The women of Japan will now have the birth control pill available by prescription. It took hard work by some very determined women who were incensed that the male potency pill, Viagra was made available shortly after it came out in the U.S., but the pill was banned by law.
Have you ever heard of Doris Meadows who teaches 11th grade history in Rochester, NY? She starts her new students off by asking them to compose three lists of famous Americans in history -- African Americans, women, white men. Each year, she found ... well, you know what she found because we all have tried to think of more than 10 famous women or blacks.
The last week of school, she gives the list headings again and the children laugh because they can think of many in all three categories. This could happen because she had the courage to "change the way history is taught." "If the kids leave my class without being able to do that list, I am not doing my job," she said. We wrote last year about some wonderful women in the W.N.B.A. but we hadn't heard much about women soccer players. Now one of the tops in the sport, Mia Hamm, has written a book entitled, Go for the Goal. Suddenly this remarkable person is moved from the sports page to the book review page with excerpts (below) that show this book is just as interesting for its insights as it is for soccer instructions.
"I truly believe that guys (much more so than girls) are taught to compete against one another and go after one another hard in practice and NOT APOLOGIZE FOR SUCCESS." [our emphasis] "I would hope that young girls now know that it is O.K. to be tough, to be competitive, and to defeat an opponent ... "
What is thrilling about these quotes is that she is talking about playing a team sport and going all out to win. Usually this kind of pep talk is to encourage women to compete with other women to get a man.
Our past conditioning continues to dog us, getting in the way of our truly advancing as human beings. Theologian Dr. Mary Daly, a professor at Boston College, has worked for years so that women might have a space to UN-learn that restrictive training.
Once again, at the age of 70, she has refused to teach her class on feminist ethics because the college insisted on admitting men. "Even if there were only one or two men with 20 women, the young women would be constantly on an overt or a subliminal level giving their attention to the men because they've been socialized to nurse men," she said.
"Discrimination," cries the one male who tried to attend her classes. This could be true if there were not ample attention paid to several other ethics classes at the college. Women formerly suffered when they were not allowed into any all-male class because there were no other similar classes they were allowed to attend.
Who is right here? At this point, the college won't let Daly teach and many women are missing an experience of their lifetime. We hope Dr. Daly will continue to teach privately since she has so much to contribute.
"New York Times" columnist Maureen Dowd is sometimes overly rough on Hillary so it was a pleasant surprise to read her recent column titled, "Lighten Up, Baby!" We think she's right on the mark with this one revealing typical "deathStarr tactics."
Find it at nytimes.com -- 060999dowd Times archives.
Also check out Dowd's piece titled, "Puppy Love Politics" (060999dowd) for a good laugh and a heads-up. Did you see all the newsstand pictures of the media-anointed-next-president-of-U.S.? Gosh, and we haven't even had the primaries yet! Is this media hype or what?
Dowd strips the skin off the entire G.W. Bush mystique. Here are a couple of lines: "Yup, the Republicans are bewitched. And that means soon they'll be bothered. And then bewildered. Dreamboats always sink."
Keep this in mind. Poll after poll has shown that Gee Dub wins a majority of WOMEN voters right now. When the pollster asks for the women's reasons for their choice, most answer that they know nothing about his issues -- nothing about his political views or programs, and very little about him.
Kinda makes ya wince, don't it? Especially since men can tell the pollster exactly why they are choosing him. For those women who do not know their CHOSEN candidate's stand on the issues, it's a GIANT step backwards -- and a real danger they will take the rest of us with them.
1999-025
Copyright 1999 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@ConnRiver.net.
G e n d e r G a p p e r s T M
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