From fly girls to bitches and hos

The Second Gender

“The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man towards woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her” –Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, along with many other powerful and influential women, took it upon themselves to be the voices of women across America from the beginning of the woman’s rights movement to the present day. They were the first ones to stand up for women’s rights and protest gender discrimination. By demanding social and political reform, these women were the founders of the women’s rights movement that ultimately led to the equality of both men and women under the law. Along with denied political and social rights, women worked to erase the stereotypes and stigmas attached to the female gender. By being extraordinary and stepping outside the norms of society, these women went beyond what was simply expected of them and instead chose to achieve what was meaningful to them and, eventually, to women across the nation. They fought not only for women’s rights but stood alongside prominent abolitionists in the fight against slavery and pushed for the equality of African Americans during the civil rights movement. From the beginning, starting with the first feminists who sparked the movement until now, many historical female figures have surfaced and changed the way the world views women as a part of society; these ground breaking efforts have proved successful; however, the achievements that exists today were not reached without a tremendous and inexhaustible fight.

The dividing line between masculine and feminine has disrupted history since the beginning when the first settlers came across American soil, and the rest of the world for that matter. The preconceived inferiority of females to the superior males is innate in the nature of human beings according to the stereotypes, stigmas and limitations placed on woman. Before change finally occurred, woman were given less rights and seen as less important than men in almost every aspect of life. Nothing about a man’s capabilities has proved so far reaching that a woman can’t achieve; their brain is not larger, their wit is not any more apparent, their abilities no more significant. I would like to see a man go through childbirth and be personally responsible for carrying another human being for nine months. Just because their voices are deeper and they have more muscle capacity doesn’t mean they are the naturally born superior gender. Just because they pick fights and spit on the ground doesn’t mean they are entitled to any more rights than females. Simply because of the prevalence of a Y chromosome, women across the world have been a long standing group that has suffered through discrimination and inequality while sexist men hold them just below the line of equality, close enough to see it but far enough not to feel it.

Contrary to popular belief, women have not always been the underdogs of society. Before early settlement arose in North America and the expansion westward began, the natives occupying these vast lands had their own individual political system. Dating back almost 3,000 years, the Eastern Woodland tribe had a “matriarch system [that] was set in place securing power only through the females” (Out of Many 11). This allowed for all power to be sent through the mother, not the father. A system such as this would be unheard of in early colonial times; as the power hungry men were making great strides in making a free nation, woman were only praised for their ability to populate it. Those tribes were very successful in their means of productivity: establishing specialized jobs, obtaining shelter and food and maintaining peace between other natives. They also practiced “open promiscuity and nudity” partly due to a lack of resources and clothing, but also for simplicity purposes that allowed for “complete equality among all” (Out of Many 13). A while later, during the American Revolution, women regularly took over their family farms when their husbands went off to war, which was a new and revolutionary idea in itself. Women like Abigail Adams were very successful in organizing the finances of their farms as well as keeping up with their household duties. Women also became active in war efforts by becoming nurses, seamstresses, cooks, spies and some even disguised themselves as men and enlisted. However, these efforts for women to establish themselves as able and competent were short lived after America won its independence from England. When the Declaration of Independence was signed and the nation made official, the opportunities and rights for women went downhill fast.

Now, well into the second decade of the 1800’s, social reform was imminent. The nation, still an infant, was in need of serious intervention. Major issues such as abolishing slavery, religious revival, a discovery of alcoholism, and especially women’s right were at the forefront of society. Women heavily participated in these reforms and early movements, advocating for universal equality not just with themselves but with the entirety of American citizens. The Grimke sisters, born in the South on a wealthy slaveholding farm, moved to the North and joined the anti-slavery movement. They were considered the first female public speakers who held small private meetings to preach their ideals. Soon they had a mixed gender audience that was not only listening but agreeing.

Sarah Grimke, a Quaker, challenged the deeply rooted social restriction by educating women who were “taught to regard marriage as the one thing needful and the only avenue to distinction” and to avoid the notion that “where any mental superiority exists, a woman is generally shunned and regarded as stepping out of her appropriate sphere” (Grimke 223). The idea of women stepping out of their proper sphere and into the cut throat ways of society was unheard of. Sarah Grimke took it a step further and spoke out against slavery as well, punishing those who enslaved men, women and children. She also thought that the “moral purity of the white woman [was] deeply contaminated [if], in the daily habit of seeing her enslaved sister sacrificed, [was done so] without hesitancy and remorse” (Grimke 225). Women were in a constant struggle to be heard and acknowledged for their thoughts and opinions because they were not only fighting for their freedom, but also for those even less fortunate. During this time it was believed that a man represented the entire interest of the household, therefore the women’s voices were irrelevant. Even though women constituted the majority of most of these small scale movements calling for justice, they were still seen as the minority and therefore still inferior in the majority of society’s eyes.

The first large scale meeting that essentially launched the women‘s rights movement was the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. These fearless women wanted to end gender discrimination and have a complete political and social reform of women’s rights. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, daughter of a New York lawyer, was extremely well educated, but never seemed to win the admiration of her father compared to her 5 siblings, particularly her brother. Constantly being told by her father that he wished she was born a boy, Stanton set out on a mission to erase the stereotypes of females. When she was finally wed, she had the word “obey” dismissed from her wedding vows and preferred to be called Elizabeth Cady Stanton instead of Mrs. Stanton at all times. Persistent women like Stanton argued that women’s right to vote will at least start to place them on an equal playing field with males. The outcome of the convention produced a document that paralleled Thomas Jefferson’s plea in the Declaration of Independence for justice as an independent nation from Great Britain. In her “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions”, Stanton deliberately and sarcastically copied Jefferson’s rhetoric in order to convey the importance of a female revolution in America and to declare “that all men and women are created equal” (204). Now that the nation had become independent and self sufficient, it was time to see the change in attitude towards the second gender. The rights guaranteed and protected to the citizens of this newly freed nation were only indirectly implied for free white males while women were left with “no voice...without representation…and [essentially] civilly dead” (Stanton 205). Stanton sought to point out the flaws of the American political system and show the true colors of the nation that appeared to have equality under the law and justice in its means, but fell short along its way. Ending her declaration, Stanton proclaims that what has been stated will be “resolved, that woman is man’s equal-intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such” (207). Slowly but surely higher education and jobs were opened to women, property laws were passed and divorce laws were altered. Nevertheless, the fight against sexual discrimination and the popular existing notion of two independent and unequal spheres of gender was still under heavy attack by those who believed women were being held to lower standards. Unfortunately, they had to wait a long time. Women received the right to vote by the 19th amendment in 1920, seventy two years after the convention took place.

Similarly, Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist and strong advocate for nature, believed that disobedience was justified if it served the purpose of neglecting unjust laws. Born just two years after Stanton, he believed that any law which hinders, disrespects, or negatively influences another is an unjust law that need not be obeyed. Stanton proved Thoreau’s assertion that just because a law is a law, doesn’t mean it is just. Stanton felt the disregard and misconduct of women was outrageous and not justified. By head starting the feminist’s rights movement and spreading the word that women no longer needed to sit at home and suffer the inequality, she is responsible for sparking the desire for change. Thoreau outlines in his piece “Civil Disobedience” that the wise minority will most certainly outwit the ignorant majority because “a government in which the majority rules in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it” (178). He asserts that mankind is reduced to machines operating only for the functioning of the governmental heads when unjust laws are obeyed, because “[the] wise will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority” (Thoreau 182). He also states that anyone willing to stand idly by and watch the injustice they condemn, should also belong in prison for a “minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority” (187). By not resisting the unjust laws, the minority is conforming to the ignorant majority. The intelligent minority have a responsibility, more an obligation, to directly disobey injustice because without civil disobedience, justice will never be attained. Thoreau, while in prison for not paying taxes to the government, revealed that he “did not for one moment feel confined, [that] the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar” compared to the wall his townsmen needed “to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as [he] was” (189). This statement speaks far beyond the simple fight for equality and further suggests that even while confined to the sufferings of injustice, Thoreau felt freer in his moral honesty to himself than in the streets of unequal society. The “progress towards a true respect for the individual” above all was never ending in the eyes of revolutionaries such as Thoreau and Stanton, who would stop at nothing to achieve it. Stanton, and so many other important women, answered Thoreau’s call for disobedience when they refused to submit their beliefs to the majority, which in this case was immoral. By believing in one’s own conscious, willing to accept punishment and not waiting for the majority to have complete domination, true progress could occur.

Germaine Greer, a long standing feminist, received her Ph. D from Cambridge and has largely been regarded as a controversial advocate for women’s rights. She traveled abroad speaking out against anyone opposing her views of equality for women;

“A man is supposed to be unflinching, hard in every sense. Real men do not fuss or scurry. It is not women who have foisted this requirement upon men but other men, who prove their own hardness by constantly challenging other men to repeated trails of physical and mental strength” (Greer 896).

She became an international icon and celebrity when she documented the occurrence of soldiers raping women in Bangladesh. Known for her exuberant public speaking, she sparked yet again the need for equality of women in the later part of the 20th century. Many other feminists have joined the fight not only for women’s right, but rights for all unjustly placed under the law. Susan B. Anthony worked closely alongside Stanton in the fight for woman’s suffrage, founded the National Woman’s Suffrage Association (NWSA) and worked tirelessly for the equality for women. Her last public words were “failure is not an option”. Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks were two prominent leaders in the civil rights movement along with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks, famous for not giving up her seat for a white man, was very influential in sparking the non-violent protests in the south. Likewise, Harriet Tubman, also an avid activist, founded the Underground Railroad, that helped over one hundred thousand slaves escape to freedom in the north. Dorothea Dix, an enthusiastic reformer, “made great strides in changing public attitudes towards the mentally ill” (Abnormal Psychology 15). In poverty herself, she sought to correct the inhumane treatment and experimentations of mental ill patients during the mid 1800’s. As a large part of the mental hygiene movement and humanitarian reform, she worked to uncover the harsh condition these people were suffering through and eventually opened new asylums in Canada as well as completely reforming institutions in America and abroad. In 1901, at the end of her long and astounding career, the U.S. Congress “characterized her as among the noblest examples of humanity in all history” (Abnormal Psychology 16). It is important to note that women were increasingly becoming well known on a national level as well as popular among small towns and cities as they influenced the world with their actions.

Fast forward twenty years to 1928 and Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Another sixty years after that, Dr. Sally K. Ride was the first woman sent to space in 1983. Not two years before, Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court and only two decades after that Madeleine Albright was made the first female Secretary of State, the highest ranking woman in the US government. Meanwhile, overseas in Burma, a woman by the name of Aung San Suu Kyi continuously fought for democracy and freedom giving numerous speeches that inspired people across the country. She was held under house arrest for 14 years by the Burmese authorities for obstructions and uprisings; however during this time she was elected by 82% of the Parliament as the Prime Minister, but was never officially recognized or awarded. In due time she has been recognized and received many prestigious achievements for her efforts including the Nobel Peace Prize and the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom. Furthermore, just twelve years ago in 1998, Lt. Kendra Williams of the US Navy was the first female combat pilot to bomb an enemy target. Equally, two years ago Sarah Palin became the first woman to run for Vice President for the Republican Party, and just this year, March of 2010, Kathryn Bigelow, was the first woman to win Best Director at the Oscars for her work in The Hurt Locker, an Iraqi War film. These women, willing to risk everything, pursued the fight for equality for all, at their own expense and dared to break the boundaries formally set for them.

The popular myth that women were meant to succeed only in the household is an ideal far outdated in the current economy. Women CEO’s, Secretaries of State, and even Queens have blossomed in the past century and “famous firsts” are founded more often than not. Nevertheless, the idea of a nuclear family in the 1950’s imprisoned women and kept them confined as to their duties and responsibilities in society. Raising children, washing clothes, cleaning bathrooms, having dinner on the table at six and being an all around perfect house wife was the aspiration for many women during this time. Award winning writer and accomplished family expert, Stephanie Coontz, says the need for security and social status was imminent as women “moved from their parents’ family into their own family, after just a brief experience with independent living, [then] started having children soon after marriage” (37). In reality women had “a lack of options outside marriage [leading] some women to remain in desperately unhappy unions that were often not in the best interest of their children or themselves” (Coontz 45). Along with restricting women to the household and diminishing any other form of achievement, Jamaica Kincaid describes how her childhood was only a stepping stone to the life she was essentially born to fill. Growing up in the West Indies, her mother taught her the basic female guidelines for her life which was limited to making herself appear proper and maintaining the well being of her future husband. As quoted in her story “Girl”, Kincaid explains her week which boils down to a recipe of chores: “this is how you sweep the whole house, this is how you smile, this is how to behave in the presence of men, this is how you set the table, this is how to love a man, this is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt” (381). Kincaid later immigrated to the United States, educated herself and became a professor at Harvard University. Escaping from the harsh reality that would have been her life back home, she refused to accept her so called fate and choose a destiny far more advanced and rewarding in her eyes. It is women like Coontz and Kincaid that have dedicated their lives to documenting this phenomenon and showing women around the world that anything is possible, even in the most unfavorable conditions.

More recent examples of women being held to a lower standard or simply dehumanized is media and advertising. First, women were praised for their purity and innocence, then confined to household chores and denied basic rights, then finally, in today's society, portrayed as sex appeal for magazine products and fashion trends. The exploitation of women has spanned a vast spectrum over the centuries, but has recently landed in a very crude and vulgar niche. Ads that promote fragrances and underwear are matched with violence and male dominance so that “most of us become numb to these images, just as we become numb to the daily litany in the news of women being raped, battered, and killed” (Kilbourne 428). The visuals that men and women see are contagious and instilling to the audience who catches on to the bright colors and strategic placement. Sex sells. The once natural beauty of a woman is out the window. Spray tans, plastic surgery, and makeup are all mass produced and glorified to women of all ages. The real intimacy that a woman and man are suppose to share is forever altered; while men are taught to disregard a woman’s opinion, woman are often encouraged “to be attracted to hostile and indifferent men” (Kilbourne 420). The media is essentially killing off all the good guys and making the women even more subject to danger and abuse. Jean Kilbourne, a teacher at Wellesley college and widely acknowledge documentarian, reports that “battery is the single greatest cause of injury to women in America” and that “the biggest problem for most women is simply surviving at home” (428). Regrettably, Kilbourne also states that “it is hard [for young girls] not to learn self-hatred in an environment” which promotes these kinds of ideals (438). Low self-esteem is increasing becoming a problem in even younger girls who then turn to drugs and alcohol to deal with their body image issues thus creating an even more negative and consequential effect. Women have to be acutely aware of their surroundings because they are constantly the victims of rape and sexual assault worldwide. Women carry mace and pepper spray when walking at night to their cars. Men don’t have to worry about their safety on a daily basis like women do.

Another form of media that is also currently used as a way to demean women is music; rap and hip hop in particular has produced lyrics that are the most deteriorating and disgraceful in their means. This genre has made its fortune on subjecting women as things and seeing them for their desirable body parts instead of intellectually capabilities or personality. A feminist and music writer, Joan Morgan, points out that we “clearly have a very difficult time loving one another” and thus chose to express our inner pain at the expense of other’s agony and embarrassment. A main point in Morgan’s piece, “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hoes”, emphasizes that “one of the most important lessons [we] will ever learn in life and love, is that [we’ve] got to love people for what they are-not for who [we] would like them to be” (446). By accepting women as they are, inside and out, society will return to natural beauty with more respect towards the female gender and embrace all her attributes.

In the process of progress toward equality, female figures have erupted throughout history and are still studied today as influential symbols of justice and peace. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Dorothea Dix, Abigail Adams, Sarah Grimke, Germaine Greer and many others have sacrificed everything of themselves for the betterment of women and those in society unjustly hindered. In all aspects of society including education, science, politics, social reform, labor laws, religion, slavery, and most of all women’s rights, women have fought and defended their ideals in the hopes of change. The world we live in today would not be the society we know it as if it weren’t for these revolutionaries. It took learning to read for Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass to become free and inspired to help others. It took the assassination of Martin Luther King for African Americans to gain equal rights and end discrimination. What will it take for women to have the same equality? Not separate and equal, but all together as one. Despite being criticized and belittled in their efforts, these women relentlessly surged on, making today a different and more equal world. Maya Angelou, one of the great voices of contemporary literature and well known civil rights activists, once said “when we know better, we do better”. People need to come out from under the clouds of ignorance in order for true and long standing change to occur.

Works Cited

Butcher, James N., Mineka, Susan, Hooley, Jill M. Abnormal Psychology. Boston: Pearson, 2008.

Coontz, Stephanie. “What We Really Miss About the 1950’s”. Rereading America. Ed. Gary Colombo, Bonnie Lisle, and Robert Cullen. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007. 32-47.

Faragher, John Mack, Buhle, Mari Jo, Czitrom, Daniel, Armitage, Susan H. Out of Many: History of the American People. New Jersey: Pearson, 2009.

Greer, Germaine. “Masculinity”. World of Ideas. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. 893-900.

Grimke, Sarah. “Letters on the Equality of the Sexes”. Reading the American Past. Ed. Michael P. Johnson. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2009. 223-225.

Kilbourne, Jean. “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”. Rereading America. Ed. Gary Colombo, Bonnie Lisle, and Robert Cullen. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007. 417-441.

Kincaid, Jamaica. “Girl”. Rereading America. Ed. Gary Colombo, Bonnie Lisle, and Robert Cullen. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007. 381-382.

Morgan, Joan. “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos”. Rereading America. Ed. Gary Colombo, Bonnie Lisle, and Robert Cullen. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007. 444-449.

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions”. World of Ideas. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. 204-208.

Thoreau, Henry David. “Civil Disobedience”. World of Ideas. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. 177-197.