I make no bones (no pun intended) or apologies about what I write in my blog posts. I write them either as informational, inspirational or just my own personal brain dump. I write about things that are interesting to me, or near and dear to my heart. It’s no surprise to people who know me that I would spend time writing about my political or spiritual beliefs, then put them on the internet for all to see. So hold on to your hats – this month I’m talking about something that shouldn’t be fraught with controversy, angst and political gravitas, but is … women.
We’ve heard about them, we know them, we love them, over half of us are them. The interesting thing, to me, is that when you think the word, “woman,” or “women,” you will have an internal reaction – and no matter who thinks or says or hears the word, no two reactions will ever be alike. Could be your mother comes to mind, or another family member, or the boss you hated or the one who stole your man in seventh grade. Maybe you think of an archetype – Gaia, or Mary, the mother of Jesus, a pink princess, or a Halloween witch. Perhaps you see them as a “weaker” form of human being – someone to be taken care of or taught the ways of the world, lest their innocence lead them astray, or money-grubbing temptresses who use their evil, unclean bodies to control others and get their way, or someone who needs to have everything meticulously explained to them by a man, as if they were children, even if they have an advanced degree in the subject. Or a purely sexual object, to be ogled, touched, taken at will – a slut if they wear something you consider revealing, a tease if they reject your advances, an uptight bitch if they tell you to knock off the disgusting innuendo. Not to mention the old chestnut (still being used today) that any successful woman must have “slept her way to the top.” As if no woman could ever possibly be qualified for any position other than… a sexual position. Ignoring of course, that many powerful men have a habit of demanding sex from women they supervise in work settings, as a condition of them receiving promotions, benefits or simply to remain employed. Misogyny at its finest.
Maybe it opens up old wounds of the patriarchy for you – the way women have been subjugated and abused through the ages, how easy it is for a woman to be beaten, raped (and) or killed, then blamed for it (or told they “deserved it”), villainized for seeking to abort any resulting pregnancy, then berated for being unable to care for the resulting child on wages for those in the service industry – historically woman-held, sans benefits and low-wage. How women’s voices have been silenced since an old book told a story about a woman who somehow caused the destruction of the idyllic happiness of the human race by showing her partner some fruit her neighbor told them would give them special knowledge. How, still, in so many places in the world (including the US), women still have no rights, or lesser rights, or have to fight for the rights they’ve been given, or watch them be taken away one by one by those (often men) who think they know what’s best for them. If you don’t believe that any of this is true, then go back over the paragraph and replace “woman” with “man,” and see how it feels then. Ridiculous, right?
The idea of women’s voices has been at the fore in my mind these days. I grew up in a pretty traditional Italian-American Catholic family – where women and girls definitely had second place, or no place at all. Not only were my mother, sister and I treated that way at home, but every thing around us reinforced the idea over and over again. Women on television (in dresses, heels, makeup and pearls) had the job of taking care of their husbands, children (there pretty much had to be children – cats optional) and homes. In our house, my mother agreed with my father, or kept her tongue. If she spoke up within his earshot, instant ridicule followed (thankfully, he never raised a hand to her, that I know of – his weapon for her was words.. the hands were added to the words for us). We children were not to speak unless spoken to, or risk the consequences. But we thought nothing of it – the tv shows we watched, the commercials we saw, the books we read, music we listened to, newspaper and magazine stories – everything said the same. I was expected to be “ladylike” in my dress, body and speech (a constant disappointment to my parents was that I wasn’t).
It wasn’t until the mid-70s, when I was a young pre-teen, when I started seeing subtle differences. Young women (including my mother!) started wearing pants. We didn’t have to wear veils to church anymore. Commercials and tv programs started showing women in roles other than “dutiful wife/mom,” “tragic, angelic suffering victim,” and “sexy, evil femme fatale.” By chance, my long, straight hair (good luck trying to make it be anything but) was in fashion. My mother followed trends, so we were allowed to dress in bright polyester colors and patterns. I still wasn’t allowed a voice in my house, or in my own agency, but I saw that there were others who were finding theirs. You’ve come a long way, baby (trouble with those cigarette ads, which reminded us that women smoking was an act of defiant revolution, and we could get cancer from it alongside our brothers, was that – we hadn’t come a long way… and we’re not babies). My father hated it, snarling with disdain at the “women’s libbers,” which, of course, made it even more attractive to me. However, he was fine with my mother getting a part-time, and later full-time job in the place where he worked. It brought a little more money into the household, and gave him the evenings after we were forced to go to bed at 7PM to do what he wanted.
I decided to go to a women’s (Catholic, so no radical changes) college, and learned more about how women could write their own futures. I even had the opportunity to meet Geraldine Ferraro on campus during her run for the Vice Presidency. Unfortunately, I still clung not only to my parents’ religious beliefs, but also to their political persuasion, which was of course Republican, and I avoided her like the plague during her visit. I have a vague memory of pointedly walking past her as I left the Psych building (my campus home, as a Psych major) and scoffing a bit under my breath. This is one of my many regrets about my misguided youth. The other was that I wasn’t more informed about the abortion rights issue, and was active in pro-life groups, even serving as president of the campus Respect for Life (which of course was really just anti-abortion) group, and participated in one of the early “March for Life” rallies in Washington, D.C. I am embarrassed by that now, but it did reflect who I was, and what I believed at the time. I’m proud to say that I have grown and learned since I was that child of 18-21.
Through the decades, I watched with interest and sometimes joy over how my thinking has changed along with some of the changes in society that I watched around me. To the dismay of people like my father, women started finding and using their voice. They went to work, and were gaining rights over their own finances, medical decisions, consent to sex with their husbands and other decisions that men take for granted – at least to a point. And of course, the right to choose whether to become a parent. Which brings me to my point – how things we take for granted can change. It has been almost like the proverbial increasing fire under the poor frog in the pot of water on the stove. Degree by degree, women have been losing rights and heading back to the dark ages of our society’s view of our “place” – and barely noticing it. Until a conservative minority came to power due to a quirk in our electoral system as well as years of behind the scenes machinations, and the Courts were packed with people who longed for those “simpler times,” when women did as they were told. And now, fifty years later, although we never thought it could be possible, things are beginning to change more rapidly, and obviously. The frog is feeling the heat – is it too late for us to jump out of the pot, or are we already cooked?
Sadly, one of those subtle things that are chipping away at who we are is literally women’s voices. As I child I listened to the voices of Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Cher, Joni Mitchell and others who belted out their truth in no uncertain terms – loud, clear and sometimes gravelly – often literally yelling and shouting out. The disco era brought Gloria Gaynor, Whitney Houston, Donna Summer, Dolly Parton – all singing right out loud about working women (some in what some people might consider undesirable or indecent work situations) and jilted lovers coming back stronger. The strong Country women era gave us in-your-face “I will f*ck you up if you cross me” lyrics to replace “stand by your man” and caveman Johnny. Women sang with joy, with a wink and with a strong, guttural battle cry – grabbing the mic and showing how it’s done when you have nothing to lose. But then we started losing. And the voice seems to be the first to go.
Unnecessary whispering seems to be everywhere these days. It started with annoying commercials for alcohol, food, perfumes and other consumer products, where once it was saved only for the words “toilet paper.” (Honestly, don’t even get me started on the rampant “down there” commercials and those in which creepy cartoon bears are having some sort of sick love affair with their butt-wipes, and encourage us to “enjoy the go.” But I digress…) I was hoping that breathy, sexy, whispery women on commercials was just a phase that would disappear like a breath on the wind.
But then one day I took a break from listening to public radio as I drove somewhere and a woman’s voice started whispering in my ear. Thinking it was a commercial, I changed to something else, but found another woman hushing into a microphone. Then another, softly singing about something or other that I couldn’t quite hear, and didn’t care enough to try to figure out. I love the strong, powerful lyrics of the popular women singers who we all know by one name, but these women, who must be good enough and popular enough to have their songs get airtime, sounded like they were singing from some dark corner of hell, where if they raised their voices just a little they would be punished. Why in the world were these women whispering? Those were the breathy, soft voices we were trying to leave behind. Weren’t they?
I have read articles written by women who have escaped (their word) fundamentalist religious sects, describing the “Fundy Baby Voice.” Then I watched a few documentaries (I’m not a fan of the Duggars and their huge brood, any more than I am of the Kardashians or other “reality” tv stars, and haven’t watched any of their series episodes) about abuse within these sects (showing why these women felt the need to escape), and heard the voice. The Fundy Baby Voice. These women (some of the footage did indeed show clips of the Duggar matriarch speaking) literally sounded like scared children. I won’t say they sound like children, because, as anyone who has ever heard a child will tell you, children don’t whisper. Even if you ask them to – their whispers are usually quite loud. They speak with conviction and joy. These women were “speaking” as though they shouldn’t be. Their voices were wispy, breathy, girlish and wan. They were trying NOT to be heard, it seems.. perhaps so they aren’t punished for something they say. Keeping sweet and obeying.
Women, why are we whispering?
Have we lost our voices? Do we want to be small, quiet, shadowy, insignificant? Do we think that, if we make our presence known, more will be taken from us? Do we want to make this the new normal? If there were ever a time when we should be SHOUTING for our rights, it’s now! We need to heed the warning of what’s happening in other countries, where some women aren’t allowed to be heard in public at all. And, yes, that article is from September, 2024.
Some people are trying to chip away (sometimes with a sledge hammer) at the fundamental, in alienable rights of women, and we need to stand in the way of that – we’re in the fight for our lives, freedoms and well-being. In July, a great man stepped down from his ambition so that a woman could have a chance to lead as President of the United States for the first time. We’ve put a woman in the fore before, but she came with baggage – some of which was her husband’s dirty laundry. Maybe people just weren’t ready for such a radical change – the thought of being led by a woman (think back to those days of heels and pearls and being tied to the railroad tracks, waiting for the hero to come and save her, marry her and give her everything her heart desired) was just too unthinkable for those whose brains and other body parts were stuck in the past.
But this woman who has stepped up – a woman of color, of power, of joy – she has a VOICE! And the first thing the one who seeks to tear her down focused on was her raucous laugh. Laugh-out-loud laugh – the kind that makes others join in. A LOUD SONG of laughter. A we-want-to-be-heard laugh. A laugh that shows how present we are, and how we’re taking back what’s been kept from and stolen from us all these years. A frog jumping out of the pot laugh.
The voice of someone who steps up and says “I will lead” is the woman Helen Reddy was talking about when she sang “I am Woman.” That Peggy Lee meant when she sang “I’m a Woman,” and then spelled it out just to be sure we heard her right. That Aretha Franklin was channeling when she belted out her demand for “RESPECT.” We won’t be put in the corner anymore. Our voices will finally be heard. But only IF. WE. ROAR. We will not go gentle into that good night. We will RAGE against the dying of the light. And a woman will be in the lead.
Photo Credit: Ian Lindsay on Pixabay.com