NO, REALLY: WHY WOULD ANY WOMAN WANT TO BE A TRADWIFE?

I came of age in the early 1980s, when sexual harassment in the workplace was called “kidding around” and date rape was just being named. I worked in male-dominant environments: advertising, tree services, academia, learned to navigate the flirting and the comments. No one took me seriously, commenting on my looks instead of my work. Nothing new, I imagine, for a lot of you reading this.

After I got a job teaching, one of the first major projects I tackled was establishing a women’s center at my college. With the help of two colleagues and the Junior League of Norwalk-Stamford, we got funding and a space—this despite the college president at the meeting of the foundation board that would OK it suggesting that I had “persuaded” him by making a gesture that seemed to indicate a broom handle up his butt. When I was director of that short-lived women’s center (shut down, no less, by a female dean), we had a guest speaker from the Domestic Violence Crisis Center in Stamford, CT. She told a story of a women who pretended to be dead so her husband would stop choking her and leave. Pretended to be dead.

I want to give those men my vote?

In Chapter Four of the Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, Douglass reflects on the change in his mistress once she had a slave under her control. While she began as a “woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings,” he notes that soon “the fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work. That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made all of sweet accord, changed to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon.”

None of us are immune, not even the kindest husband on the planet. And it is not a personal problem. It is a social problem with national and international implications. Whom we elect impacts the number of people dying in wars around the world. It impacts how many people die of Ebola and how many people die from severe heat waves or floods or hurricanes. It determines who lives in rat-infested houses and who lives with gold-leafed ballrooms. Women died to create the opportunity for other women to vote, to have a voice in their own government, to have control over their money, their bodies, and their children’s lives. They fought for our ability to walk away from an abuser and be protected financially and physically. They fought for us to be able to own a home, not to have children if we didn’t want to, to name our rapists and be heard, to sit at the head of the boardroom table. They fought for men, too, so that providing and caring for a family became a shared load.

Power is a desperate animal, always hungry. One way to keep it in line is to remember that it must be used in the service of others. Another is to never give up any power that has been gifted through the love, blood and sacrifice of others.

Women deserve the dignity of their own voices. Legislating powerlessness for any woman isn’t “progress.” That’s the difference between personal choice and personal choices forced on others. According to the United Nations, “It is estimated that closing the gender gap could give the global economy a USD 7 trillion boost” (1). There’s a way to bring prosperity and stability to society. Let’s move forward, not back.

Thanks for reading. As always, I’m happy to hear from you.

1. https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/economic-empowerment/facts-and-figures

COMING IN JULY:

Stephen Antoine Willis is coming to Factory Underground this summer on July 15 from 6 – 8 PM. Stephen is a fantastic spoken word poet. Opening for him will be Jerry Johnson and Christine Kalafus. Check Stephen out here:

https://www.stevenwillispoetry.com/

. Register for free on Eventbrite! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-of-poetry-featuring-steven-antoine-willis-special-guests-tickets-1985389126322 Hope to see you there!