Women's History Month/100 Years of Women's Suffrage in 2020

In 1980 President Jimmy Carter proclaimed March as “Women’s History Week” since International Women’s Day falls on March 8th. Congress declared all of March to be “Women’s History Month in 1987. In the past three decades, schools and communities across the country have highlighted women’s contributions to history during the month of March. I find it a bit troubling that few people seem to be aware of this month dedicated to putting a spotlight on the achievements of women and girls (Washington Post source).

In addition to the March Women’s History Month, this year, 2020, marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment. This year's theme honors "the brave women who fought to win suffrage rights for women, and for the women who continue to fight for the voting rights of others" (National Women's History Alliance source).

 While I support the idea of having a month to highlight women’s achievements, I also feel that textbooks shortchange girls, and not enough is being done to uncover the buried lives and works of so many women in the past.  We know a few of the sheroes of the past who helped women get the vote, for example…Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul. Have you heard of Lucy Stone, who spent more time in jail protesting for women’s right to vote than anyone else? Or have you heard of Zitka la Sa, who fought for Native American suffrage, or Dr. Mabel Ping Hua-Lee who fought for women’s voting rights, even though as a Chinese American, she couldn’t vote herself? There were many other women who fought for women’s suffrage, but they have been erased from our history, just as so many women who have done heroic deeds and helped advance our civilization, have been sidelined (National Park Service source).

Even though women were given the right to vote in 1920 with the 19^th Amendment, African-American women did not get the right to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. Some Native American women got the vote even later as Congress passed a law to let states decide when Native Americans could vote. Arizona and New Mexico allowed Native Americans to vote in 1948, with other states allowing Native Americans to vote during the next three decades. As with African Americans, Native Americans were subjected to such obstacles as a poll tax and literacy tests, which prevented many from voting (Library of Congress source).

When President Carter was proclaiming Women’s History Month, he also used his position to try to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed. “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” https://www.equalrightsamendment.org)

 

In 2020, we are still trying to pass the ERA. Now all 50 states have ratified it, but it is stalled in Congress due to the time limitation imposed on this amendment, having passed. No such deadline is typically imposed on constitutional amendments. The United States is one of the few developed countries that doesn’t include equal rights for women in its constitution.

What I am going to do for Women’s History Month is to check on the progress of the ERA in Congress. If we can get the Equal Rights Amendment that Alice Paul first proposed in 1923--100 years ago--passed in 2020, it will be another significant milestone for women in the United States. Equality under the law. Imagine that.

In Defense of the Serial Comma

Often when I am doing copyediting work, I encounter use of the serial comma, or non-use of it, as the case may be. You may know this punctuation mark as the Oxford Comma, as its use has been heralded by Oxford University for many decades. It may also be referred to as the Harvard Comma, which nomenclature I must admit to preferring as it reminds me of my alma mater, Harvard, and I relish the reminiscences it brings to mind.

Nick Morrison photo (Unsplash)

Whatever name we give it, the serial comma is useful in making the meaning of a sentence crystal clear. (I’m using this term to avoid having to choose between these esteemed institutions of higher learning, Oxford and Harvard, a task that I feel unqualified to undertake.)  For example, in the following sentence, I have written it first without the serial comma, and then with the serial comma. (This is a common example used by serial comma enthusiasts, yet I cannot keep myself from using it here.)

1.       1. Highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.

2.       2. Highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod, and a dildo collector.

In the first sentence, we are affronted with the idea that Nelson Mandela was an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector, as well. How disrespectful! I am appalled that I could even write such drivel. Without the last comma, the serial comma, ‘Nelson Mandela’ is modified by an appositive, ‘an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector’. What nonsense! In the second sentence, we can readily see that our global traveler met three people, Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod, and a dildo collector.

Of course, even though using a serial comma in this sentence makes it much more apparent what the author is trying to convey, sometimes, as Benjamin Dreyer, the noted Random House editor, asserts, it may be a good idea to rework sentences for even more clarity (Dreyer 2019). For example:

3.       Highlights of his global tour include encounters with an 800-year-old demigod, a dildo collector, and Nelson Mandela.

 I much prefer the third example with the rearranging of items in this series so to lessen the association of South Africa’s heroic champion against apartheid, Nelson Mandela, with demigods and dildos, an unlikely and disparate group of individuals, to be sure. I wonder what editor we can thank for this example of the serial comma, or Harvard comma, as I like to call it. Call it what you like; just use it if you value clarity of expression. Am I clear?

Dreyer, Benjamin. Dreyer’s English. New York: Random House, 2019.

African American History Month: February, 2020

The month of February is designated as African American History Month. How did this celebration of the history and heritage of African Americans get started? In 1915, historian Carter G. Woodson, traveled to Chicago for a national celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation, sponsored by the state of Illinois. This exhibition, which showcased the achievements of African Americans, was attended by thousands of African Americans from all across the country. Inspired by this event, Woodson and a few others formed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH). They started to call for a Negro History Week (Black History Month Origins).

Carter G. Woodson

 In 1925, Woodson, in an effort to extend the popularity of this History Week, sent out a press release announcing Negro History Week in February, 1926. He chose February because Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, were born in February, and he wished to build on the tradition of celebrations of the birthdays of two famous activists for African Americans. (Black History Month Origins).

Woodson wanted this commemorative history week to be more than about these two men, however. He wanted to focus on the achievements of black men and women who had contributed to the advance of human civilization. In the 1920s Negro History Week caught on in the country—in schools and before the public, and it continued to become more and popular in many schools and communities (Black History Month Origins).

Mary McLeod Bethune was an important African American educator, civil and women's right advocate, an adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt, and founder of a college. She urged Woodson to establish the Negro History Bulletin, which promoted this new holiday.  In the 1960s, Black History Month replaced Negro History Week in many localities. In 1976, fifty years after the first celebration, the Association promoted shifts from a week to a month and from Negro history to black history. Since the mid-1970s, Black History Month was proclaimed by every American president. It is often referred to as African American History Month, due to the changes in current politically appropriate designations for the month (Black History Month Origins).

Mary McLeod Bethune

 According to the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), here are some good ways to celebrate African American History Month:

• .      Visit a Black History or Civil Rights Museum in your locality
• .      Spend time with a Black elder in your community
• .      Read a book by a Black author
• .      Sign up to mentor a Black child in your community
• .      Learn about an unsung hero/shero of Black history
• .      Explore Black Music
• .      Call out racism and prejudice in your community (Celebrate Black History Month).

 I urge you to choose one or more of these actions to pay tribute to the culture and contributions of African Americans. Carter Woodson, the founder of this celebration, wanted to have a Black History Year. That sounds like a good idea to me.

Some Oddities in the English Language

English is a crazy, mixed up language; it’s a wonder that any of us have ever learned it! My students, who were learning English as a second language, often commented to me how difficult English is to learn because it doesn’t follow the rules a lot of the time. English has words that are spelled the same and are pronounced differently, and sometimes opposite terms mean the same thing, and many other odd constructions.

Consider a few of these oddities:

1. Why are there no eggs in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger, and neither apples nor pine in pineapple? English muffins aren’t English, nor are French fries French.
2. If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese. So—one moose, two meese? One mouse, two mice means one house, two hice?
3. If teachers have taught, why haven’t preachers praught? 
4. How can people recite at a play and play at a recital?
5. Why is a slim chance and a fat chance the same thing, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
6. Why can a house burn up while it’s burning down? Forms are filled out by being filled in. An alarm that has gone off is still going on.
7. People can sit on a bough and cough through the night as they re-read a red book to say they’ve re-read it.
8. Why, when stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible?
9. Why had the cops sought the sot?  The photographers knot all fought for the shot—and not just for naught.  Do the police think there was proof of blood on a wood floor?
10. Why doesn’t Buick rhyme with ‘quick’?

While all these irregularities may confound those new to the language, and even some more proficient speakers at times, at least it is easy to see that English was not invented by computers. Because of the terms taken from other languages,and nonstandard adoption of words into the lexicon,  the language  is sometimes confusing. However, English still holds a certain, creative charm amid all its idiosyncrasy.

Why is the #MeToo Movement Ignored in the Presidential Debates?

 The #MeToo movement and women’s equality have been pretty much ignored in the presidential debates. It’s been two years since the #MeToo hashtag went viral, exposing prominent men in the entertainment industry, sports, and politics for sexual assault and harassment. I am wondering why the #MeToo movement is absent from debate rhetoric, since women comprise over half of the US population and over five million women tweeted about their experiences with rape and sexual assault in October, 2017, after a tweet by actress Alyssa Milano, inviting survivors to share their stories. Tarana Burke, who created the #MeToo movement in 2007 has said, “Centering sexual violence in the 2020 election is critical because it’s been two years since millions of people spoke out and said ‘me too'. Those people are still waiting for a response from our national leaders” (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/me-too-democratic-presidential-candidates_n_5e1de8d0c5b6640ec3dc0371?ncid=newsltushpmgintwomen).

Tarana Burke has created a new hashtag, #MeTooVoter, to raise awareness about the abuse of power by powerful men in industries, and  to try to get debate moderators and presidential candidates to recognize that women are a big voting bloc and deserve attention in the presidential election. 54 percent of voters in 2016 were women. African-American women carried the Democratic vote in that election as they are the largest voting bloc in the Democratic Party. And, it isn’t only women candidates who should be bringing up the issue of sexual violence. It is a public health issue in which 19 million people have indicated that sexual violence has impacted their lives (MSNBC "Politics Nation" Tarana Burke Interview, Oct. 20. 2019) .

The leading four candidates have said that policies to address sexual violence will be on their platforms; however, none of them has rolled out a detailed plan to put legislation in place. In fact Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, at the recent Politico sponsored debate, when asked one of the only questions re: women in all of the debates, sidestepped the issue. They were asked to respond to a quote by Baraka Obama, “If women were in charge, you’d see a significant improvement in just about everything. If you look at the problems in the world, it is usually old men not getting out of the way” (Sanders and Biden Non-Response to Gender Question). Both of them sashayed over to their own favorite talking points, possibly due to their advancing ages. Yet why did neither of them at least acknowledge that having more women in power would be a positive change?

Former presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand did run on a platform of gender equality, centering sexual assault as a major policy issue. But she unfortunately, dropped out of the field in August.

Jennifer Klein, chief policy and strategy officer at Time’s Up, said she wants to see more specifics from the presidential candidates. “Politicians who ignore this pervasive issue do so at their own peril. Any candidate for president should have clear and robust policies for combating sexual harassment and assault, and promoting equity and dignity for working women” (Huff Post Article).

So why are women’s issues and #MeToo absent from current political rhetoric and the debates? While the #MeToo movement created a powerful momentum, and many men are being held accountable for sexual misconduct, when push comes to shove, women are still second class citizens in this patriarchal oligarchy. Congress has only 23 percent women. Women are only three percent of corporate CEOs. Only five percent of film directors are women. We still have not had a woman president.  We are not a significant part of the billionaire 1% who control most of our resources. We have to mobilize a movement of women who refuse to take the abuse, discrimination, and marginalization any more. We need to demand gender equality. Our time is now. #Time'sUp for #MeToo!

Building a Supportive Community of Women: No More Queen Bee Syndrome

I just went to see “Bombshell” with Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly and Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson. It was powerful to see how these women brought down serial sexual harasser, Roger Ailes of the Fox News Network.

What struck me the most was the silence of dozens of women who had been subjected to this sordid harassment for years. When Gretchen Carlson first filed her lawsuit against Ailes, she could get no women to support her story and to tell their own stories. Ailes made a concerted campaign to turn Fox staff members against Gretchen, and to plant spies to find out who might be talking about Ailes’ untoward treatment of them.

Enter Megyn Kelly, who was trying to balance keeping her prestigious position as a Fox News Anchor with joining Carlson’s lawsuit. Finally, after some months passed, during which time Kelly was attacked by Presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, for her searing questioning during the Republican debates, Kelly began to come down off the fence. She became the 23^rd woman to join the lawsuit against Ailes, which ultimately led to Ailes’ firing from Fox News. A big victory for women!  One of the first such victories in this #MeToo Era.

What I started wondering about is why women today in many situations, have little loyalty and feelings of camaraderie with other women. In “Why Women (Sometimes) Don’t Help Other Women” in the June 23, 2016 issue of The Atlantic, Marianne Cooper conjectures that when women are not supportive of other women in the workplace, it’s often a response to sexism by the distancing of themselves from other women. In this way, they will be seen as someone who is toeing the line, and not identifying with women who have lesser status, and therefore, keeping their own tenuous, special high status positions.  (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/queen-bee/488144/) Thus, instead of helping other women to climb the ladder of success, successful women may sometimes, buy into the gender discrimination that keeps women down.

 

I find this concept illuminating, though troubling. I’m from the old school Sisterhood is Powerful (Robin Morgan’s 1970s women’s liberation book) building community with women framework. In all the organizations to which I belong, I work to connect with other women and support them as they usually do with me. I sing in a community chorus, Womansong of Asheville, in which we not only give concerts, we also consider ourselves a village. I organize events for women, sing for equality,  march, and write for our empowerment in a world dominated by good old boys still.

In the 1980s I worked for a greeting card company. One of the other employees started telling off color jokes, which I felt were demeaning to women. Then he started coming over to my work station and touching me. I told him to stop, but he continued this harassment. He treated several other women at this company in this same manner.  When I spoke to some of these women, most of them thought he was cute, and said they weren't bothered by his unsolicited, inappropriate touching them. I was shocked that they weren't bothered by this flagrant demeaning behavior. It seems related to the oppression that women are subjected to, which often leads to a feeling that we are not worth standing up for, that we are less than human. Using women's bodies in dehumanizing sexist advertising and pornography helps lead to this desensitization to sexist violence.

I complained to management, and was fired the next day. They did not want to deal with it. It was easier to fire me, apparently. I ended up filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against this company. I filed with the EEOC and the NLRB and was represented by the Indiana University Women's Affairs attorney.  The company owner offered to settle with me for $7000, so management must have realized that this harassment was actually happening. Now I wish I had taken the settlement. Instead I continued with the lawsuit. The National Labor Relations Board could not get enough evidence as the women who had seen this harassment, and who had been harassed themselves, refused to testify. The Equal Opportunities Commission did not take up the case because of a several years' backlog of cases. 


Later I talked to one of these women who didn't testify in my case, which turned my case into a "she said, he said" case, which I did not win. She acknowledged the harassment, but she didn't want to stick her neck out. She feared that she, too, might be fired. We didn't have a union in this plant. I think the other women who were harassed probably had the same sort of resistance.

Besides overt job discrimination, lack of paid maternity leave, and harassment, there is a huge gender pay gap. Currently, there is a gender wage disparity with white women making 79% of white male salaries; African-American women 62%, and Hispanic women 54% of white male salaries (https://iwpr.org/publications/annual-gender-wage-gap-2018/. )

In the Atlantic article I mentioned earlier, Cooper calls this lack of camaraderie among women,“The Queen Bee Syndrome.” Because  of years of subordination, women who have achieved some success, sometimes feel that in order to keep their positions, it is wise to align with the men at the top in organizations rather than other women, whom they could be helping to rise in their positions. Women sometimes feel a keen sense of competition with other women for a few management positions. It is possible that some women don't want to support others who may be vying for the same positions in the company, positions that are hard won for women, and in which men are much more represented.

What does it take to encourage women to support one another? Many have spoken out with the advent of the #MeToo movement, and several high profile serial abusers have been fired, and some have been put into prison. How can we make work places safe enough for women so we will report harassment, and will support other women who report it?

What is the solution to this knotty problem? All I know to do is to continue to try to build a community of women, maybe more locally this time. It seems easier when there is face-to-face communication. I will work to improve communications, and to make sure that I am open and honest in all my interactions. Join me, sisters. Our unity is our strength.

November--Native American Heritage Month: Decolonizing Thanksgiving

1943 Norman Rockwell painting

A couple of days ago Americans enjoyed traditional meals with families and friends on Thanksgiving. Ever since I was in grade school I have heard the story of the first Thanksgiving in which Pilgrims and Native Americans sat down together for a feast. However, this idyllic story is nothing more than a myth based on colonialism, and has silenced the voices of Native Americans. This month is Native American Heritage Month, observed since 1990, a time to reflect on the history and contribution of Indigenous peoples.

Thanksgiving, a US holiday celebrating the national origin myth. Americans have been celebrating Thanksgiving for nearly four centuries, commemorating that solemn dinner in November, 1621. Thanksgiving was made a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln, who was lobbied by a prominent New England woman writer, to proclaim Thanksgiving a National Holiday to unify the nation after  the Civil War. Instead of a Thanksgiving celebration of the Pilgrims surviving their first winter in the New World, with the help of Squanto and his tribe, it was an entirely different affair (Indigenous History of Thanksgiving).

Harvard professor Philip Deloria, of the Dakota tribe, son of famous Dakota historian, author, and activist, Vine Deloria, Jr., sheds light on what the first Thanksgiving was really like. He tells the story of Ousamequin, the Massasoit (which is a title and not his name), who arrived, uninvited, with many warriors, to honor a mutual defense pact, after they heard shots, thinking the Pilgrims were under attack. The supposed celebratory meal of the Pilgrims did not entail the giving of food as a gift between the Native Americans and the colonizers. The traditional holiday foods like corn, squash, and pumpkin were stolen from the Wampanaog who were treated as servants at the meal. The meat could have been wild turkey, but also included fish, eels, shellfish, and a Wampanoag dish called nasaump, which the Pilgrims had adopted: boiled cornmeal mixed with vegetables and meat (P. Deloria New Yorker Article).

 Historian Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz, in her 2015 American Book Award Winning work, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, asserts that the idea of the gift-giving Indian helped establish what would become the United States, “an insidious smoke screen meant to obscure the fact that the very existence of the country is a result of the looting of an entire continent and its resources.” Protesting against the holiday, the United American Indians of New England have held a “National Day of Mourning” at Plymouth Rock since 1970.

Deconstructing the Thanksgiving Myth. How do we deconstruct the myth of Thanksgiving? We falsely remember a Thanksgiving of intercultural harmony. Maybe instead we should reflect on how English settlers cheated, abused, killed, and eventually drove Wampanoags into a conflict, known as King Philip’s War (1675-6), one of the most devastating wars in the history of North American settlement, in which a large percentage of the settler population was killed. The Thanksgiving story buries the major cause of King Philip’s War, the relentless seizure of Indian land. With indigenous resistance broken, Wamanoags were judged to be criminals; many were sold into slavery. (P. Deloria New Yorker Article).

Today, the Wampanoag make up two federally recognized tribes, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head, and they descend from a confederation of groups that stretched across large areas of Massachusetts, including Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket.

Bioneers Indigenous Youth  Project (photo-Rena Schild)

Decolonizing Thanksgiving. If classroom teachers today focus less on pageantry and instead on a more nuanced, inclusive history, still many students do not get the complete story about the place of Native peoples in the nation’s past or current history. Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz states, “it’s time for the United States government to make a gesture toward acknowledgment of its colonial past and a commitment to decolonization” (An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States). Today, Wampanoag people debate whether Thanksgiving should be a day of mourning or a chance to contemplate reconciliation.

The Bioneers Indigeneity Program has a mission to provide public education around Native perspectives. They have a blog post to share some ideas for new traditions to include at your Thanksgivings to better honor the Native Americans, immigrants, and their descendants who contribute to our country’s diversity (Bioneers Indigeneity Program).

Below are three new traditions suggested by the Bioneers you can adopt to begin to decolonize Thanksgiving:

1. Combat erasure by telling the real story of Thanksgiving around the table (Indigenous History of Thanksgiving).

 2. Re-center Thanksgiving by serving locally sourced food. Your local farmers market is a great place to find locally grown foods.

3. Address oppression by widening your circle.  Ask someone outside your usual group of friends and family what Thanksgiving means to them (Decolonizing Thanksgiving).

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