TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/110890/1108390.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.0 KB | 121 lines

                                                                                THE ROAD TO EQUALITY, Page 15

Sorry, Sisters, This Is Not the Revolution


By Barbara Ehrenreich

[The author is a feminist and a writer. Her most recent book is
The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of
Greed.]


    American feminism late 1980s style could be defined,
cynically, as women's rush to do the same foolish and benighted
things that have traditionally occupied men. And why not? The
good and honest things that have traditionally occupied women
-- like rearing children and keeping husbands in clean shirts
-- are valued in the open market at somewhere near the minimum
wage. And whatever one thinks of investment banking or corporate
law, the perks and the pay are way ahead of those for
waitressing and data entry. So, every time a woman breaks a new
barrier the rest of us tend to cheer -- even if she's running a
pollution-producing company or toting a gun in some
ill-considered war.

    Two cheers, anyway. Because this is not the revolution that
I, at least, signed on for. When the feminist movement burst
forth a couple of decades ago, the goal was not just to join 'em
-- and certainly not just to beat 'em -- but to improve an
imperfect world. Gloria Steinem sketched out the vision in a
1970 TIME Essay titled "What It Would Be Like If Women Win."
What it would be like was a whole lot better, for men as well
as women, because, as she said right up front, "Women don't want
to exchange places with men." We wanted better places, in a
kinder, gentler, less rigidly gendered world.

    We didn't claim that women were morally superior. But they
had been at the receiving end of prejudice long enough, we
thought, to empathize with the underdog of either sex. Then too,
the values implicit in motherhood were bound to clash with the
"male values" of competitiveness and devil-may-care
profiteering. We imagined women storming male strongholds and,
once inside, becoming change agents, role models,
whistle-blowers. The hand that rocks the cradle was sure to
rock the boat.

    To a certain extent, women have "won." In medicine, law and
management, they have increased their participation by 300% to
400% since the early '70s, and no one can argue that they
haven't made some difference. Women lawyers have spearheaded
reforms in the treatment of female victims of rape and of
battering. Women executives have created supportive networks to
help other women up the ladder and are striving to sensitize
corporations to the need for flexible hours, child care and
parental leave. Women journalists have fought to get women's
concerns out of the "style section" and onto the front page.
Women doctors, according to physician-writer Perri Klass, are
less paternalistic than their male counterparts and "better at
listening."

    But, I'm sorry, sisters, this is not the revolution. What's
striking, from an old-fashioned (ca. 1970) feminist perspective,
is just how little has changed. The fact that law is no longer
classified as a "nontraditional" occupation for women has not
made our culture any less graspingly litigious or any more
concerned with the rights of the underdog. Women doctors haven't
made a dent in the high-tech, bottom-line fixation of the
medical profession, and no one would claim that the influx of
executive women has ushered in a new era of high-toned business
ethics.

    It's not that we were wrong back in the salad days of
feminism about the existence of nurturant "feminine values." If
anything, women have more distinctive views as a sex than they
did 20 years ago. The gender gap first appeared in the
presidential election of 1980, with women voting on the more
liberal side. Recent polls show that women are more likely to
favor social spending for the poor and to believe it's "very
important" to work "for the betterment of American society."

    So why haven't our women pioneers made more of a mark?
Charitably speaking, it may be too soon to expect vast
transformations. For one thing, women in elite, fast-track
positions are still pathetically scarce. FORTUNE magazine found
this past July that in the highest echelons of corporate
managers, fewer than one-half of 1% are female. Then there's the
exhaustion factor. Women are far more likely to work a "double
day" of career plus homemaking. The hand that rocks the cradle
-- and cradles the phone, and sweeps the floor, and writes the
memo and meets the deadline -- doesn't have time to reach out
and save the world.

    But I fear, too, that women may be losing the idealistic
vision that helped inspire feminism in the first place. Granted,
every Out group -- whether defined by race, ethnicity or sexual
preference -- seeks assimilation as a first priority. But every
Out group carries with it a critical perspective, forged in the
painful experiences of rejection and marginalization. When that
perspective is lost or forgotten, a movement stands in danger
of degenerating into a scramble for personal advancement. We
applaud the winners and pray that their numbers increase, but
the majority will still be found far outside the gates of
privilege, waiting for the movement to start up again.

    And for all the pioneering that brave and ambitious women
have done, the female majority remains outside, earning 70 cents
to the man's $1 in stereotypically female jobs. That female
majority must still find a way to survive the uncaring
institutions, the exploitative employers and the deep social
inequities the successful few have not yet got around to
challenging.

    Maybe, now that women have got a foot in the door, it's time
to pause and figure out what we intend to do when we get inside.
Equality with men is a fine ambition, and I'll fight for any
woman's right to do any foolish or benighted thing that men are
paid and honored for. But ultimately, assimilation is just not
good enough. As one vintage feminist T-shirt used to say, IF YOU
THINK EQUALITY IS THE GOAL . . . YOUR STANDARDS ARE TOO LOW.