http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/19/AR2010021902049.html?wpisrc=nl_pmopinions
For women in America, equality is still an illusion
By Jessica Valenti
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Every day, we hear about the horrors women endure in other countries: rape in
Darfur, genital mutilation in Egypt, sex trafficking in Eastern Europe. We
shake our heads, forward e-mails and send money.
We have no problem condemning atrocities done to women abroad, yet too many of
us in the United States ignore the oppression on our doorstep. We're suffering
under the mass delusion that women in America have achieved equality.
And why not -- it's a feel-good illusion. We cry with Oprah and laugh with Tina
Fey; we work and take care of our children; we watch Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice proudly and sigh with relief,
believing we've come so far. But we're basking in a "girl power" moment that
doesn't exist -- it's a mirage of equality that we've been duped into believing
is the real thing.
Because despite the indisputable gains over the years, women are still being
raped, trafficked, violated and discriminated against -- not just in the rest
of the world, but here in the United States. And though feminists continue to
fight gender injustices, most people seem to think that outside of a few
lingering battles, the work of the women's movement is done.
It's time to stop fooling ourselves. For all our "empowered" rhetoric, women in
this country aren't doing nearly as well as we'd like to think.
After all, women are being shot dead in the streets here, too. It was only last
year that George Sodini opened fire in a gym outside Pittsburgh, killing three
women and injuring nine others. Investigators learned from Sodini's blog that
he specifically targeted women. In 2006, a gunman went into an Amish
schoolhouse in Pennsylvania; he sent the boys outside and opened fire on almost
a dozen girls, killing five. That same year in Colorado, a man sexually
assaulted six female students he had taken hostage at a high school before
killing one of them.
And it's not just strangers who are killing women; more than 1,000 women were
killed by their partners in 2005, and of all the women murdered in the United
States, about a third are killed by a husband or boyfriend. A leading cause of
death for pregnant women? Murder by a partner.
In Iraq, women serving in the military are more likely to be raped by a fellow
soldier than killed by enemy fire.
Even the government underestimates the crisis American women are in. Last year
the Justice Department reported that there were 182,000 sexual assaults
committed against women in 2008, which would mean that the rate had decreased
by 70 percent since 1993. But a study by the National Crime Victims Research
and Treatment Center showed that the Justice Department's methodology was
flawed. Instead of behaviorally based questions, such as "Has anyone ever
forced you to have sex?", women were asked if they had been subject to "rape,
attempted or other type of sexual attack." Victims often don't label their
experience as "rape," especially when someone they know attacked them. The
center says the actual number of U.S. women raped in 2008 was more than 1
million.
The distressing statistics don't stop with violence: Women hold 17 percent of
the seats in Congress; abortion is legal, but more than 85 percent of counties
in the United States have no provider; women work outside the home, but they
make about 76 cents to a man's dollar and make up the majority of Americans
living in poverty.
This is a far cry from progress; it's an epidemic of sexism. So where's the
outrage? When my co-bloggers and I write at Feministing.com about the hurdles
American women face, a common criticism is that if we cared about women's
rights, we'd focus on countries where women are actually oppressed -- that
women here have it too good to complain. When I speak on college campuses, I'm
sometimes asked the same question (generally by a male student): What are you
complaining about? Women are doing terrific!
In her upcoming book, author Susan Douglas calls this "enlightened sexism." She
writes that the appearance of equality -- from "girl power" to "Buffy the
Vampire Slayer" -- is a dangerous distraction from the pervasiveness of sexism.
So why the blinders? Most women know that sexism exists. But between the
glittery illusion Douglas refers to and the ongoing feminist backlash, it's not
surprising that so many women don't realize how dire their situation is.
Organizations such as the Independent Women's Forum, for example, exist to tell
women that equality is actually bad for them. In a 2007 opinion article in The
Washington Post headlined "A Bargain At 77 Cents to a Dollar," the forum's
Carrie Lukas wrote that the wage gap is simply "a trade-off" for holding jobs
with "personal fulfillment." The organization's campus program argues against
Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination at educational
institutions. Between pop culture and politics, women are being taught that
everything is fine and dandy -- and a lot of us are buying it.
Part of this unwillingness to see misogyny in America could be self-protection
-- perhaps the truth is too scary to face. Or maybe American women are simply
loath to view themselves as oppressed, and it's easier to look at women in
other countries as the real victims. This isn't to say that international
misogyny isn't a problem; of course it is. And many women in America do have it
easier than women in other parts of the world. But this isn't a zero-sum game,
and we can fight for our rights while fighting for women internationally as
well.
In fact, our successes could help women abroad. The recent increase in the
number of female ambassadors globally has been dubbed the "Hillary effect" --
the idea that our secretary of state's visibility has opened doors for women in
other countries. And perhaps if the pay gap here were closed, women would have
more money to spend on causes overseas. It's time to do away with the either-or
mentality that surrounds domestic and international women's rights.
Fortunately, a vibrant feminist movement is still at large in the United
States, taking on issues from reproductive justice and racism to pay equity and
motherhood. But feminists cannot pick up the sexist slack on their own, and
recent mainstream conversations -- such as when singer Rihanna was assaulted by
her then-boyfriend Chris Brown, or when Clinton and Sarah Palin were the
targets of sexism during the 2008 campaign -- have been far too civilized for
the mess that we're in.
We act as if the hatred directed at women is something that can be dealt with
by a stern talking to, as if the misogyny embedded in our culture is an unruly
child rather than systematic oppression. Yes, women today fare better than our
foremothers. But the benchmarks so often cited -- the right to vote, working
outside the home, laws that make domestic violence illegal -- don't change the
reality of women's lives. They don't prevent 1 million women from being raped,
female troops from being assaulted or the continued legal discrimination
against gay and transgender people. And seriously, are American women really
supposed to be satisfied with the most basic rights of representation? Thrilled
that our country has deigned to consider us fully human?
There is so much more work to be done. The truth is, most women don't have the
privilege of being able to look at gender justice from a distance; they have no
choice but to live it every day. Those of us who are lucky enough not to have
to think about sexism, racism, poverty and homophobia on a daily basis -- those
of us who have the privilege of sending money to an international cause via
e-mail while ignoring the plight of women here at home -- have a responsibility
to open our eyes to the misogyny right in front of us. And then to stop it.
Jessica Valenti is the author of "The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with
Virginity is Hurting Young Women" and the founder of Feministing.com.
This Story
a.. For women in America, equality is still an illusion
b.. When young women don't vote for women
c.. With money, came power
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