Time for a riot

Once in a conversation with a friend, she said that women don't really experience penis envy but they realize pretty young that boys get treated better than girls. In school, education still does more to reinforce  gender roles instead of breaking them down. The best professions and opportunities get corralled into an old boys network as a protected male preserve. So even if a woman can physically and mentally do the job she will be attacked for acting "un-lady like". If a woman tries to build a consensus -she is seen as weak. If she tries to lead -she is seen as being a bitch. People are easier to exploit when they are trapped in a Catch-22 situation.

So as my friend concluded -if you have a penis, you get paid more, you can do more things and less people question your motives. She wasn't envious of the organ but she did wish had the power it endowed. As she joked, "it's the original magic wand".

More than once I have heard women talk about carrying the deadweight millstone of always being a sexual commodity. That you never have the chance of transcending your body and being just a person. No matter how good your work is, people will comment more on your dress and hairstyle than anything serious.

There are several different women's movements that have tried to bring social change by either denying the body or confronting the society. A number of religious orders for women have allowed women to disavow their sexuality and provided them a place where they can be socially active in what would be seen as "God's work". The more modern idea of Feminism has been there to confront society -and maybe because of that confrontation its been successful but also reviled by traditionalists .

Not all women are Feminists and not all Feminists are women. If you want to find the most ardent Feminists talk to the parents of daughters. Having only daughters seems to change attitudes. With my one sister and her husband, they have raised their two daughters to be assertive, to value education and be good shots. Yes they both own guns and know how to use them. From their scores at 25 yards they could pass pistol marksmanship test for any police department. On one level I'm proud of my nieces but  it is a sad statement on how far a woman has to go before she feels safe.

Any woman that doesn't feel safe in her day to day life probably doesn't feel safe in pursuing her dreams. What happens when women break from traditional boundaries of lady like behavior? They still run the risk of becoming outcasts and outlaws.

Maybe that's why Riot Girl or Riot Grrr music is returning. It's relatively safe to be a social outlaw on stage and the audience for the message is giving the movement a second chance. Many of the original bands that started Riot Grrr, some twenty years ago, have weathered the criticism of being a post punk movement of angry college educated white girls (like that's not a valid enough group to make music about what some women feel and experience).  


 It could be because of gains as well as the lack of gains in sexual equality that keeps this music relevant. Malala Yousafzia became an international figure when she was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan. Malala stood up to the Taliban and stood up for women's education -on the bad side she might not ever be able to return home and her life is still under threat.

Under a great deal of pressure the US Congress passed the Lilly Leadbetter Act ending just one more type of sexual based pay discrimination . The bad news is, even though justice moved forward, Lilly Leadbetter will never get back the lifetime of earnings she was cheated out of by Goodyear. I wonder what would happen if women stopped buying Goodyear tires?

Because of its "one child per family" policy Chinese doctors were performing a disproportionate amount of abortions on female fetuses. That practice has stopped but it seems like such a low bar to clear. Sadly the damage has been done and the next generation of adult Chinese will find there are millions of less available women to marry.

Here's some music for some of the women I know. If I had a daughter I would share it with her. I do have two sons and I have taught them that men and women are both equal and different. It's not really a big leap of logic to realize that two things can be asymmetrical and still remain equal. It's more work than just saying I'm the boss -but I'm still on my first marriage and generally pretty satisfied with my life.