"The revolution is over. And we won. Now what?"
Those profound and ahead-of-his-time comments were made by Dennis DuBe about our little educational revolution in 1976. We had been advocating that "anyone can teach, anyone can learn," a philosophy hotly disputed and fought by institutional America. The NY Times even wrote an editorial opposing the idea.
That concept is now common, hardly noticed and rarely challenged. The opposition's belief that ordinary citizens would teach brain surgery never materialized. But we won? Really? Not everything was perfect. And yet we had.
In 2008 Jesse Jackson did not fully support Barack Obama's candidacy (until election night), because the struggle was not yet won, there was much to be done. And yet Obama won.
Today feminists face the same dilemna. Not everything is perfect. Women still do not receive the same pay for the same work. And yet, girls are wearing pink, high heels, do not think things can go backward, assume they can get the same job as a man, etc. Women have won. Now what?
Very soon gay and lesbian activists will face the same "we won, now what?" dilemna.
Progress in gender equality is part of the reality that is shaping the debate, Feminists vs. Feminists.
Photo: Dennis DuBe and wife Jude Biggs.
I don't think you can say that women don't get the same pay for the same work. Here's an article from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201262.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
It says, "Yes, the Labor Department regularly issues new data comparing the median wage of women who work full time with the median wage of men who work full time, and women's earnings bob at around three-quarters those of men. But this statistic says little about women's compensation and the influence of discrimination on men's and women's earnings. All the relevant factors that affect pay -- occupation, experience, seniority, education and hours worked -- are ignored. This sound-bite statistic fails to take into account the different roles that work tends to play in men's and women's lives."
Women in their 20s who do not have children make more money than their male counterparts (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/nyregion/03women.html). The discrepency happens when you add kids into the mix.
A lot of moms, myself included, CHOOSE to work less at certain times in their lives, because of their kids (I went down to 20 hours/wk for five years when my girls were little). Therefore we CHOOSE to make less for a non-monetary payoff.
By the way, I consider myself a Tina Fey feminist. Here's a clip of her an Jane Curtin talking about their experiences on SNL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZCO6fNZXWg - Fey is proactive and Curtin is reactive. I think you could call Fey a stage 4 feminist.
Posted by: Suzanne | July 28, 2011 at 01:15 PM