So I realized I had rewritten my blog on Rowe-Finkbeiner's "A Tsunami in History" and Hogeland's "Fear of Feminism", but had never posted it. So here goes.
Extended Comments with thanks to Felicia Gminski's blog post.
Felicia says:
"As far as I remember, all my lady friends also voted. We all thought it was an honor and a duty. We felt responsible for helping to decide who ran our country."(pg. 24). I thought this was an interesting quote to bring to attention merely because it shows how active and willing to participate these women were once they received the right to do something we may take for granted today. Women in history have fought for decades for something that seems like such a common right today when in actuality, this was once considered a huge privilege.
I complete agree with Felicia. I personally think it's really interesting how back in the day women fought so hard to even get the right to vote and yet now, more often than not, many adolescence (of both genders) would rather leave the responsibility and decision making up to their parents. Today, society takes so much for granted without even realizing it.
Felicia says:
I consider this quote to be a great segway into another quote I came across while reading the same passage. As stated by Marybeth, a 45 year old family therapist -- "We dealt with work-and-family balancing acts and rising divorce, and ended up with women working both inside and outside the home. Many young women are rejecting that struggle and saying they want to have more fun. We were so serious. So, there's some jealousy of younger women there. They get to be hip, sexy, and cool, and we didn't get to do that. But it's also great to see younger women standing on the shoulders of the second wave enjoying life." (pg. 31). I felt that this was yet another important quote to bring to attention because it brings to mind the hardships women in the first wave faced in trying to secure equal rights and now where are we? Are we taking for granted the struggle our elders faced prior and not helping the cause? Or are we gratefully enjoying the perks while still working in a more leisurely manner to allow others the same benefits in the future? Are we in continuous support of this movement if it means having to put in the work that's required to gain change?
And again I agree. My mom and dad got divorced when I was 10 years old and my brother and I lived with a single mom for years. She was my hero for being able to face all the struggles that were in front of her. Without the first wave feminists fighting for equal rights, my mom would never have been able to have kept the house we live in, work at the job she loves (and get paid as much as a man), and enjoy her life (i.e. find my step-dad).
Felicias says:
Transitioning into my last quote pulled from Fear of Feminism, I find it important to point out Lisa Marie Hogeland's statement of "Young women may believe that a feminist identity puts them out of the pool for many men, limits the options of who they might become with a partner, how they might decide to live. They may not be wrong either: how many young men feminists or feminist sympathizers do you know?" (pg. 20). I think this quote is imperative to bring up alongside the other quotes mentioned in this post because I feel with good reason that they go hand-in-hand. Women of the first and maybe even second wave may look to the waves following and wonder why there are still women that either are unsupportive or take neither side in the stand for equality. Maybe we can say the second wave had an excuse... maybe. Perhaps they were reaping the benefits the first wave had brought on and that's all fine and dandy... they still continued to fight, right? Right. And now here we are with our newest generation in what could be considered the third wave and yet to this day, we are still facing these challenges with some who are still unsupportive or inactive. Is it because we have accepted these benefits and don't feel the need to continue on or is it that we are too afraid to be unaccepted as willingly as one who doesn't fight for themselves/others? After all, who wants a trouble maker, eh?
Who wouldn't want to be a trouble maker if our rights are in jeopardy? I feel as though this generation doesn't realize that there was a time when women didn't have all the rights we have now, they weren't just handed to us, we had to fight for them.
I did find another blog that tells women why there's no reason to fear feminism that I thought is pretty interesting.
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