FOR A WHILE, I tried to avoid calling myself a feminist. I avoided writing too many columns about women's issues, and I avoided heated talks about gender in discussion sections. But then I realized that "feminist" is not a dirty word. In fact, the term "feminist" is incredibly empowering, full of rich notions about history and change. Being a feminist does not automatically make me a "man-hater," as some of my friends claim, and it doesn't mean I can't wear makeup or shave my legs. Because March is National Women's History Month, it is finally time to replace antiquated notions of feminism with a new image of feminism, one which doesn't include bra burning and hairy armpits, and recognize the effects of the earlier feminist movements on all of our lives today.
At the University, gender talk is put on the back burner behind issues like diversity and a living wage. Gender seems invisible, or at least unimportant, when women trump men in terms of enrollment, and women seem well-represented in most academic areas and student organizations. The problem with this lack of discussion about gender is that women still have a lot of work to do, on and off Grounds. It's easy to forget that women's suffrage was not permanently granted until 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. And it's easy to forget that women could not even receive something as simple as birth control without a husband until 1972, with the Supreme Court case Eisenstadt v. Baird, which recognized women as individuals separate from their husbands.
While 1920 seems like a lifetime away to us in 2008, my mother was 19 and part of only the second class of women at this very University in 1972. It is important to remember and reflect on the fact that single women just one generation before our own were denied some of the legal rights and recognition as married women, just because they did not have a husband. And contrary to what some believe, the feminist movement of the 1960's and '70's was important to both men and women alike.
The notion of having a right to privacy, for example, wasn't established in the Bill of Rights, but rather through a 1965 Supreme Court case about birth control and the right for family planning. This case, Griswold v. Connecticut, fought against a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives and was a major breakthrough for future cases about sexuality, reproduction and family values. This often overlooked case established the right to privacy in the bedroom, a right we often take for granted today.
Although we don't always notice it, feminist issues and movements have dramatically altered the landscape of today, and surprisingly, the movements have not always been the same. When the topic of abortion was debated back in the 1800's, feminists opposed it because they thought that if abortions were legal, then men would act upon their lust and impregnate women left and right. In the 1900's, however, feminists' views on abortion were very different. No longer viewing women as passive victims of man's predatory nature, feminists fought for a woman's right to be in control of reproduction and family planning.
Feminist movements, then, can be seen as a reflection of societal movements on a whole. While in 1860 feminists and the general population were more conservative, in 1960 feminists and the general population were more liberal. Feminism, while defined as a movement about equal rights for women, is really about human rights on a whole. It is hard to imagine a world in which women are not seen as equals, denied the right to own property, denied the right to vote, denied the right to procure birth control, and denied even the right to drink at the same age as their male peers, but it is to this world that we are indebted today. We no longer have to burn our bras because generations of women already did that for us, but our work is not done.
The new face of feminism, one of which I am proud to be a part, is much less dramatic than that of the risqué flappers of the 1920's or the mini-skirt pioneers of the 1960's but no less important. According to a 2007 study by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, women earn 80 percent of what men make one year after college and only 69 percent of what men earn 10 years after college. Many will argue that this is because women take time off work to have children or leave the workforce after starting a family, but this study controlled for hours, occupation and parenthood and still found that one quarter of the pay gap remains unexplained. Women, therefore, must continue the fight of our great-grandmothers, grandmothers and mothers and remember the rich and long history of feminism that affects us today and will affect our own children tomorrow.
Lindsay Huggins is a Cavalier Daily opinion editor. She can be reached at lhuggins@cavalierdaily.com.
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