Women’s Day can’t be a Hallmark event
Even we seasoned feminists need to find the way to embrace this new chapter of feminism
I am what you would call a seasoned feminist. Une feministe d’un certain age if you will.
It’s both a good and uncomfortable place to be on International Women’s Day.
I can see all the gains women have made — and they are legion — but I sometimes shake my head at the Groundhog Day quality of it all.
We’re still talking about equal pay or reproductive rights? As a sign at January’s monumental women’s march put it: “I can’t believe I’m still protesting this s---.”
The annual day of celebration and activism about women’s issues got so much media attention this year I’m worried that what was enshrined in 1909 as a labour protest is about to become a full-blown Hallmark occasion: you know, a really nice greeting card, some slick slogans and where should we go for dinner?
That’s certainly how noted feminist leader Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government recently approved a law partly decriminalizing domestic violence, played it, issuing a treacly ode praising women for their “beauty,” “tenderness” and for “always being on time.” Thanks honey.
And renowned Pussy Grabber in Chief, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted he had “tremendous respect for women.”
For that he got a volley of online Twitter whupass. “Only the 10s!” was one of my favourites. Many pointed out that rolling back reproductive rights for women to pre-legal abortion days and curtailing access to birth control is showing monumental disrespect for women.
We fared much better here in Canada, with the glorious and touching spectacle of 338 young women occupying every seat in our House of Commons, asking smart, assertive questions of our famously feminist Prime Minister.
Trudeau in turn spoke eloquently about a woman’s right to choose when, how and with whom to start a family, as he announced a commendable $650million international package of aid to further women’s sexual health and reproductive rights.
Meanwhile, the real lives of women went on. The acquittal of a Halifax taxi driver charged with sexually assaulting a female passenger, who was found passed out in his back seat, naked from the waist down (the judge said “a drunk can consent” to sex), is being appealed.
Women are volunteering to drive other women home because vulnerable women getting a safe ride is still not a done deal in 2017.
Women earn 87 cents on the dollar compared to what men earn, women still battle fierce harassment in police forces and offices.
Women are threatened with rape online for just speaking out. One recent email I got calling me a “schlub lefty feminist” added a “Heil Trump” just to keep me on my toes. The beating goes on.
On the eve of International Women’s Day, I was at Ben McNally Books in Toronto, with a group of women celebrating the launch of Nigerian American author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s delightful new book, Dear Ijaeawele or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.
The short, eloquent book is written as a letter to a dear friend who wants to know how to raise her newborn daughter as a feminist.
At the event, Michele Landsberg, feminist activist and former Star columnist, spoke passionately in extolling a book that she said should be sold in every baby store along with the booties. “Nobody gets a pass out of this culture,” said Landsberg. It’s still “harmful and toxic.”
Adichie’s suggestions are solid if not exactly new. But that’s the point.
If feminism isn’t being redefined with every new generation, if it isn’t being trumpeted by new faces, especially by women of colour, then it won’t expand as a vital movement that finally includes a majority of men and women.
Included in Adichie’s 15 suggestions are “never apologize for working, loving what you do is a great gift to give your child;” teach her to “reject likability;” and avoid thanking men for “allowing” women to shine.
I loved the book. It made me think even seasoned feminists need a revised manual to embrace this new chapter of feminism.
Here are some starter suggestions: 1. It all mattered. Every public march, every private triumph. You spoke out. You raised your kids to understand the lives, needs and talents of women in a way no previous generation has and in a way that future generations will take for granted. 2. If you once assumed you spoke for “all women,” now you know you clearly don’t. Stop doing it. 3. Don’t be a purist. Welcome the pop culture embrace of feminism. Beyoncé, the Emmas, whatever. 4. Make a young woman like Adichie your feminist mentor. If it was worth stating once, it’s worth restating in a different voice. Support new, fresh voices. 5. Walk the talk when it comes to aging. I laugh every time I read the phrase “antiaging” applied to face crème and injectables. Aging is not a protest, sister, it’s a process. Set an example. Do what you can to look the way you want, but never risk your life for beauty. 6. Accept that you still have to be braver than you ever imagined. As actor Meryl Streep, who has railed against the Trump administration and been vilified for it, said in accepting a recent humanitarian award: public protest is “against every one of my natural instincts, which is to stay the f--- home.”
None of us can stay home. Not yet. Not ever.
Here’s to next year’s International Women’s Day and all the days we’ll live and fight between now and then to get there. Judith Timson writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at impat.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson.