By Anne Haule
On Mother’s Day, a group of about 30 women (and a couple men), some of the women mothers and some not, gathered at the Lyceum Theater to celebrate with champagne and listen to a panel of experts discuss “The (True) History of Feminism in San Diego”. The panel, assembled by the Women’s Museum of California, preceded a viewing of “Rapture, Blister, Burn”, a contemporary Pulitzer-nominated play by Gina Gionfriddo – a funny and poignant feminist play running for another week that I highly recommend.
The panel, consisting of a politician, a research psychologist, both a professor and a masters student in women’s studies was moderated by Ashley Gardner, the Executive Director of the Women’s Museum.
First up was former United States Congresswoman, Lynn Schenk. Lynn shared her hurdles, being one of San Diego’s first women attorneys in the early 1970’s. She recounted her disappointment in not being accepted at her first choice law school because it had already filled its “quota of women”. While in congress she noted that many of her male counterparts, although supportive of the feminist agenda, were not supportive enough to “horse trade” women’s issues. Acknowledging many victories since the 70’s, she opined that feminism today is harder than in times past because discrimination is much more subtle.
Next up was Anne Hoiberg, former president of WMOC and currently responsible for its education program. Anne became a feminist in fourth grade when she was the first girl shortstop on the little league team of all boys. As a research psychologist, she studied the military and concluded that women in the military were more efficient than their male counterparts.
The third speaker was Doreen Mattingly, a professor of Women’s Studies and soon to be Chair of that department at SDSU. She proudly reminded the audience that in 1970 SDSU had the first Women’s Study Department in the country – a department that is thriving and teaching more students now than ever before in its history. She was optimistic that “there is something big happening” – as evidenced by the extraordinary numbers of high school student feminist clubs springing up all over the county. She believes that the young people view feminism as a collective issue rather than a personal issue. She also believes that immigration has fuelled a fresh new passion among its youth.
The last speaker was Emma Fuller, who is a grad student and is working on a certification program with Planned Parenthood. This program would offer a certification in reproductive justice for entities that provide a living wage, paid leave, anti-sexual harassment education, and climate action recycling programs. She stressed the “intersectionality” of today’s feminist movement.
I found the panel discussion to be particularly interesting as regards what is happening now among younger people and most specifically how the movement has broadened in its focus and is being fuelled in part by local immigration.
The Women’s Museum of California is a significant asset to our community and I recommend participation in its various events to educate and keep the cause of feminism alive and well in our community.
Rapture, Blister, Burn
By Gina Gionfriddo
Directed by Sam Woodhouse
Showing: April 21 – May 15, 2016
Where: Lyceum Space, Horton Plaza
BUY TICKETS
Anne Haule
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I am bothered by the feminist movement supporting women in the military in a gung ho manner. I can’t support women in the military any more than I can support men in the military. Of all people women should be taking a stand against the militarization of the US and the world. Women as well as men should be taking a stand against militarism not supporting it in an uncritical fashion the way most men militarists do.
Wow. Ok I get it. You are not a fan of the military (which you’ve made clear many many times) but are you really suggesting that women by virtue of being women have a special obligation not to support it or serve/make a career out of it? Some may find that view sexist. I find a certain irony when people who support women’s equality make exceptions when women want to get involved in something they disagree with.
Logically speaking, Goatskull, you are completely right. If men go into combat and are trained, as they are by the Marines, to kill people, then logically women should have the same right to go into combat and kill and be killed. However, this amounts to a false equivalency between the sexes in my mind at least. The feminine principal is love and nurturing (again this may seem sexist), and the masculine principal is more action oriented and doing what’s necessary to bring home the bacon. Equating everything male with everything female blurs the distinction about what the sexes have been on their best days. When men and women become the same in their outlook on life especially when that sameness becomes the ability and inclination to kill people, the world has changed for the worse.
I think we had a healthier society in many ways when women took care of their children and men went out into the world and slayed the beasts and provided for their families. Now both men and women are competing for the same jobs, nobody is taking care of the children or the house and both spouses are stressed out and barely making a living with two jobs.
A well thought out response I will admit. Your last paragraph is almost dare I say, conservative. Also I can’t say I fully disagree with it but ultimtily it’s the choice of the individual on what they want to do with their life. Even if women are truly wired differently to be the caring an nurturing gender, she shouldn’t be forced to take on that roll (if she doesn’t want to) which is what I always thought feminism is about. That means women serving in the military, climbing the corporate ladder to get into the 1 percent, being more interested in a career than raising a family, etc. More and more there are men as you know who are taking on traditional female roles. Right or wrong, most people are going to do what they think benefits them rather and not care if what they choose puts a cog in the machine.
Words of wisdom, Goatskull!
Women in the military is the right wing response to Feminism. As usual there is a left wing take on feminism (equal pay for equal work) and then conservatives manage to come up with the right wing approach – women in combat, women trained to kill and loving it. I don’t think that I or anybody else on the left has to be so foolishly consistent as to support this right wing co-option of feminism.
“women in combat, women trained to kill and loving it.”
You know some pretty gnarly women that I’ve never come across in my 20 year military career. Most are not even trained in combat and for that matter (at least in the Navy) most men aren’t either. And of those who are, I can’t say I’ve ever heard any say the “love” killing.
“Even if women are truly wired differently to be the caring an nurturing gender, she shouldn’t be forced to take on that roll (if she doesn’t want to) which is what I always thought feminism is about.”
Well, thanks to advances in medical science, women are no longer forced to take on the roll of carrying babies either. Men have achieved full equality with women and vice versa because now it’s possible to implant a uterus in a man’s body which can be impregnated by means of artificial insemination with a prefertilized embryo presumably with the husband’s sperm. So while the wife is out engaging the enemy in combat, the man can stay at home and carry the baby to term. Then, of course, the baby would have to be born by C-section which is no big deal these days. By the way, none of this would harm in any way any of the male organs.
Thus full equality between the sexes has been achieved.
Yes, but despite medical advances, men still don’t seem to want to take on the child care roles 50%–100% of the time. This is a SIGNIFICANT problem since, as we see over and over again throughout the decades, if not throughout centuries, children have begged their fathers to stay at home, reduce their working hours, pay more attention and be more nurturing. Think of all the athletes who get on TV and complain about absent fathers — not only when their fathers have been completely MIA, but also when their fathers have been deployed or have engaged in demanding careers while they were growing up.
The reason men don’t participate in child care? Of course those men will justify that it’s somehow biological–but it’s about power, control and self-centeredness. Men don’t want to do child care because there’s no money in it and they have to make sacrifices. Even when putting your life on the line in combat, you get an enormous amount of accolades not to mention a pay check. The “service” doesn’t come for free.
Not so with child care. That’s expected to be free. It doesn’t have to be, right? I mean, we could defund the military and make that work completely free & voluntary, diverting all those funds to pay women for taking care of their own children.
Only when the government and/or businesses start paying mothers for child care will men want to get into that “business” so to speak.
Now you’re talking!
And I’m I’m wrong here feel free to correct me, but that’s how I seem to intemperate it.
We are incomplete agreement here, John. Men and women are different. Females are the carriers of life and any society that allows or even promotes putting them into harms way – let alone combat, is seriously degraded.
I considered myself an early feminist when it was about finding other opportunities and equality in pay and labor. All it seems to have done though -is enable corporations to double their workforce at no added cost to them and have children brought up with very little or virtually no care.
To have a government that in my opinion is basically controlled by a militaristic industrial complex, double their ‘cannon fodder’ and continue their engagement in permanent warfare for permanent profits – seems obscene to me.
“As a research psychologist, she studied the military and concluded that women in the military were more efficient than their male counterparts.”
I would love to see the data that lead to Anne Hoiberg’s absurd conclusion.
why do we need a large military?
offense: world influence / threaten or punish non’team’ players / attempted world domination.
the founding fathers were well aware of militaristic governments through history …& they REJECTED that approach.
instead: militias were memorialized as the law of the land.
difference?
defensive vs offensive.
how far we have strayed…
Frankly, John, I am highly disturbed when you say: “I think we had a healthier society in many ways when women took care of their children and men went out into the world and slayed the beasts and provided for their families. ”
Really? What era do you mean? What dates? What countries? Because all the indicators I have ever read show that the more women have equal rights to men IN ALL ASPECTS, the more developed and humane a country becomes. We are still getting there… It’s never been a good time to be a woman.
The more women serve in the military (as well as Mexican-Americans, and African-Americans, and Muslims, etc), the more the military changes internally. Without women on Wall Street or in the military, the more things stay the same.
Women are different from men? Would you also say that Muslims are different from Americans? That African Americans are different from whites? If you can say that women are different from men, then you better be able to say it about people of color, people from other countries, etc. I find it highly offensive and I’m not sure why people still feel it’s okay to spew that rhetoric. But I see it constantly. It’s still okay to say to a male: “You throw like a girl.”
Insert something else instead of “girl” into that statement — another ethnic group, for example — to see how offensive that sentence really is.
I find the problem with liberals today is that they precisely become extremely conservative when it comes to women’s issues. I personally believe that sexism and conservatism has been a far greater driver toward supporting Bernie Sanders (sexism on the part of both males and females — because sexism is so infused in our culture, often females are against themselves), than Sanders’ purported liberalism. (His voting record on many issues in the past, such as gun control, have been very conservative.)
Women still have a long way to go. They still don’t have equal pay. The numbers are still not one-to-one. They are still shut out of certain jobs due to their gender. They still are the primary care givers to children & the elderly (when men should be taking on these roles 50-50), which makes their income levels much much lower over a lifetime.
Probably most shockingly, women are still subjected to high rates of rape and physical violence against them. The highest rates of PTSD within the population at large (just raw numbers here, not percentages) are among women. And yet, research shows that when a woman complains of physical or psychological pain, they are taken less seriously or dismissed altogether by the community. I’d like to see as much money and media devoted to the symptoms of PTSD in women that is given to veterans, especially since many veterans are listed as suffering from PTSD although they have NEVER been in combat.
The arguments in this chain demonstrate the folly of genderizing
every damnable and every praiseworthy human attribute. We say women are caring and more dedicated to justice, and then expect them to reform warfare. It’s asking too much. War may be human — who knows? — but it isn’t humane. Hillary’s a hawk. Is that womanly? If women have a genetic disposition to care and nurture they don’t locally here in San Diego — think of Bonnie Dumanis and Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman. If women look the other way on sex crime cases and withold damaging evidence from media is that manly, or womanly? This assignment of virtues to the sexes is just bullshit and only gets us into arguments about who’s who and why. Women have enough trouble without us asking them to rescue us from our own brutality and predatory economics.
Thank you, Bob. Agreed. And also —
Saying that “women are different from men” is as correct as saying that “Italians are different from Americans”. True, but what’s your point, really? That Italians therefore need to be shut out of certain professions? That Italians are expected to behave a certain way or believe certain things because they are Italian? Some Italians may live up to your expectations. Some may not.
If you don’t like the military, then try to shut down the military. Don’t target individual women who want to earn a living in the same way men do. Pragmatically, young men who enter the military do so simply because they know they will get pension benefits, free health care and much much more, most of whom will never see a day of combat. A young woman should be able to receive these same benefits, and yet they are still not allowed to be Navy SEALS and are still discriminated against in certain positions, let alone physically assaulted in some of those professional positions.) If you have a problem with the military, then target the military, not certain Italian-American, Irish-American, Mexican-American or American women who are serving.
As you know, the SEAL program is opening up to women. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/12/21/navy-seals-wont-change-standards-women-admiral-says/77695072/
Yes, but don’t you have reservations about whether it will actually be implemented? There’s a large amount of push-back from those in charge, from my cocktail conversations, anyway. Let’s see…
There’s always the possibility it won’t. On one end there are those who simply don’t feel women should be in the program and others that while they have no moral issue with women in the SEALS/BUDS program honestly feel women won’t be up to it physically. Like you said, we’ll see.
“young men who enter the military do so simply because they know they will get pension benefits, free health care and much much more, most of whom will never see a day of combat. A young woman should be able to receive these same benefits…” Yes, that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? When there are no decent jobs with benefits in the civilian world, the military is always there with open arms to be the employer of last resort.
Many join fore those reasons but not all. Plenty really do join with the ideal of serving their country. I know several RN’s and a couple doctors who joined well after working in their fields.
“The more women serve in the military (as well as Mexican-Americans, and African-Americans, and Muslims, etc), the more the military changes internally.” No, the more the military changes women.
Women in the military and in particular women in combat represents the co-option of the women’s movement by right wingers.
Whether or not it’s a scientific fact that women and men are wired differently, the purpose of feminism (at least that’s what I always thought) is to empower women to make their own choices for the path they take in their life and have equal opportunities to do so and receive the same pay as their male counterparts for doing the same job. If they don’t want to be tied down to the role of provider and nurturer then they don’t have to. And I seriously disagree that women serving in the military is some right wing version of feminism or even that the military itself is a right wing entity. In fact I find that offensive.
While I cannot agree with much I see posted here, it’s gratifying to see conversations about feminism going on. Viva the movement!! And thank you Anne Haule.