Friend Laura and I were listening to Hillary Clinton’s remarkably moving speech on Tuesday after she effectively clinched the Democratic nomination for president. We both unexpectedly had tears in our eyes as Clinton talked about the long, hard-fought battle to be the first woman nominee of a major American political party.
We were, we agreed, particularly touched by Clinton’s salute to her late mother, whom she has repeatedly referred to as her rock and biggest influence and who did not live long enough to see her daughter’s political triumph – which is also, at long last, the triumph of an American woman in the toughest political arena on earth.
And then . . .
“It’s about damn time! Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir – here and gone a long time ago,” Laura snapped.
And she is so right.
After all, to the rest of the world the notion of women as top political leaders has long been accepted. Gandhi became prime minister of India in 1966, Meir was elected to lead Israel in 1969 and Thatcher – Britain’s Iron Lady and, famously, a person deeply admired by our own Ronald Reagan – took power in 1979. Today the world is full of female heads of state, including Europe’s single most powerful leader, Angela Merkel.
But the United States? Well, we’ve been waiting for 240 years, since at least 1776, when Abigail Adams – who can justly be described as one of America’s Founding Mothers – stayed in Braintree, caring for the household and children and running the family farming business while her husband, John, went off to Philadelphia with the rest of the Founding Fathers to put together the documents that would shape the future of a new country.
On March 31, Abigail wrote to her husband to say that she longed to hear “that you have declared an independency.” And then, in considering the laws they were writing, she beseeched him to “Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.”
Well, John and the rest of the guys did not “Remember the Ladies.”
So at the time of the nation’s founding, women had very few rights. They were essentially the property of their fathers or husbands. Their ability to own property, get loans and open and run businesses were almost non-existent. Even their opportunities to work were sharply limited to “womanly” jobs – teaching, nursing, child care, housekeeping. The notion of a woman voting, much less actually holding public office, was beyond comprehension. Education for many women was limited to simple reading, writing and arithmetic, along with training in the so-called domestic arts. And yes, that is what it sounds like. Cooking. Cleaning. Sewing.
All of which, I hasten to add, are laudable talents. But what about, oh, say, medicine? Or the law? Or engineering, chemistry, biology, all of those things we might call the physical sciences? With some rare exceptions, women were not wanted.
In fact, for about 100 years, women just sort of treaded water, rights-wise, even as they worked – worked hard – for the rights of others. They were invaluable foot soldiers in the battle to abolish slavery. And after the Civil War, they worked tirelessly for passage of the 15th Amendment to ensure voting rights for former slaves – male slaves, that is. Voting for women – white or black, of any race or nationality – was still off the table. The practice of politics was just too coarse for the delicate sensibilities of the fairer sex. We were too good to vote.
Women – a lot of women – tried to fight against this idiotic idea. Their most memorable effort was the Seneca Falls Convention, the first organized attempt “to discuss the social, civil, and religious conditions of woman,” held in Seneca Falls, N.Y., for two days in July, 1848. It led to . . . Well, really nothing. Sadly.
It wasn’t until 1920 that the 19th Amendment, granting women suffrage – initially introduced in 1878(!) – was finally ratified. Women could, at last, vote anywhere in the country. And, achingly slowly, women began to run for and win office and to attain high level governmental appointments. But by 1947, when Hillary Rodham was born, women in politics were still rare, particularly on the national scene. It took the advent of the 1960s for women to start to shed their second class citizenship.
The passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was one key factor. It was intended to remedy the vast injustices suffered by African Americans – who were still victims of onerous Jim Crow laws in the South and de facto segregation throughout the country – but the inclusion of women among those covered, added almost as an afterthought, proved over time to be monumental.
(Some say the word “sex” was added to the protected classes as a poison pill by a Southern segregationist, but the evidence is mixed on the lawmaker’s intent. However it got there, it was game-changing.)
Another major reason for women’s advancement is both medical and legal: Access to safe, reliable birth control, thanks to the pill. An almost foolproof method of birth control and – as important – one solely controlled by women themselves, the birth control pill was invented in 1957 but came into general use only in the ‘60s.
Coincidentally, in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time recognized a right to birth control for married people, which until then was broadly illegal. It probably is almost unknown by younger Americans, but not until 1972 was the right to contraception extended to unmarried people, just one year before the Supreme Court recognized a woman’s right to abortion throughout all 50 states. (Access to both birth control and abortion are under serious threat today, thanks primarily to Republicans, but that’s another topic for another day.)
For the first time in human history, biology ceased to be destiny for half of the human race.
And American women began to move inexorably into the worlds of education, medicine and science, business and politics. The sky – or, more accurately, that dratted glass ceiling – seemed to be the only limit. Until now.
There is one more glass ceiling for an American woman to smash. Maybe Hillary Clinton will succeed. If not, there is a small army of tough, smart and ambitious women waiting in the wings.
But for those who think this achievement is not worth celebrating, I can only quote that well-known American philosopher, Joseph Robinette Biden. “This is a big f—— deal!” It is. And we should all rejoice.
(“Monitor” columnist Katy Burns lives in Bow.)