In
honor
of
Women's History
Month,
I
would
like
to
refer to
a
movie
I
saw
yesterday
on
Hulu,
"The
Wife
".
Glen
Close
was
riveting
as
Joan,
the
author, Joseph
Castleman's
wife.
He
has
just
gotten
the
news
that
he has
received the
Nobel
Prize
in
Literature. When an
aggressive biographer
accuses
Joan
of
ghostwriting
her
husband's
books,
she
denies
it,
yet
she begins
to fume
within,
until
in
one
of
the
final
scenes,
after
hearing
Joseph
tell
fellow
Nobel
laureates that
his
wife
didn't
write,
she
blows
up,
and
asks
him
for
a
divorce.
It seems that the irritating
biographer, though unpleasant, had hit the nail on the head. Joan had been warned that women could not succeed in publishing, so she instead wrote her husband's books, since his writing was much inferior
to hers. She took no credit.
That Nobel prize was rightfully hers, as Joseph realized
when he threw it at her on the way back from the Nobel Ceremony.
I see this show as a metaphor
for the roles women have been expected to play to support men as wife, mother, housekeeper, child care director, nurse, etc. Since the 1960s Sexual Revolution, a few more active, vital roles have opened up for women. Still even
the eminent J. K. Rowling felt she
had to use her initials
rather than her name on the
Harry Potter books, to disguise
her gender.
Will there ever be a woman
President of the United States?
There have been women presidents of a few other countries--New Zealand, Germany,
Iceland, Ceylon, Argentina, Namibia,
Bangladesh, India, the United Kingdom,
and others. Surely, the United States is progressive enough to elect a woman as president. Yet Hilary Clinton couldn't pull it off. Could any woman? In this country? I think we are so enmeshed in gender role expectations that it will take a major shift in cultural mores before women can attain such an exalted status as president of the United States. And with the ultraconservative backlash now wherein Roe v. Wade has been dismantled, and the right to abortion and other women's
health care has been taken away, the hope of a woman president is sadly fading.
I urge women to stand up and oppose these new draconian laws, and to assert our rights from the top of the mountains. It will take a lot to move this country forward,
out of the pit it has fallen into. We can do it. It will take everyone
of us, though. Every single one of us, sisters and supportive brothers.
Let's do it.