I just got done reading Soup's blog "The Abused Woman". Sadly, I have known several women who were or are in that situation, and yet, despite more options for women than ever, choose to stay in such relationships. What really boggles me is that most of these women are young women, in their 20's.
When I was growing up, there were NO options for a woman who found herself in an abusive relationship. She had nowhere to turn. Public support was against her. It was her fault if she was abused. Yes, really, that was the thinking then. But things have changed now--or haven't they?
Why are so many young women--who ought to know better--throwing their lives away on men who do not deserve them? It isn't like we are living back in the days of Jane Austin where marriage was a woman's only option. Women no longer have to depend on men.
I think it is because women have been sold a bill of goods that they have eagerly bought without questioning. And, while I consider myself a feminist, I do think that feminism is partly to blame. Both from what we have told ourselves and other women and what we have NOT told them. There is a message that isn't getting through.
What feminism has been very successful in doing is telling women that they don't have to follow obsolete rules about having sex, that they need not bear a child that they have conceived. This message has been eagerly embraced to the point where we see girls just barely past puberty experimenting with sex. They have been raised to believe it is their birthright.
But where feminism hasn't been so successful is in the area of female empowerment. And let me make it clear, sexual empowerment isn't empowerment. True empowerment has nothing to do with sexual activity or lack of sexual activity.
A while back I was getting out of my car at school when a young couple walked by. To my shock, the man said to his girlfriend, "Hurry up, *****, I gotta pee." My mouth just dropped open as she meekly followed behind. I thought, Oh Hell No. If ANYONE had said that to me, I would have said go pee your pants then, I am not your ***** and never will be. We are DONE. Because I was not put on this earth, my mother did not have me, to be someone else's *****, ho, or whatever.
We feminists have been so focused on reproductive issues that we haven't really started to address the larger issue of empowerment. We have told our daughters and sisters and peers that we have the right to sexual fulfillment, but we have not told them that they have an even greater right to be treated with dignity and respect. But of course that is not as fun a message as sexual emancipation.
The tragedy is most acute among lower-class women who have bought into this message of sexual freedom because all too often they are the ones who become trapped in abusive relationships simply because they lack a sense of empowerment and pride. This is not surprising. Historically, the feminism of the 1970's was an upper-middle-class to upper-class movement. When these women talked about liberation they were talking about liberation for themselves. It was all right if poorer women did the drudge work that they were now freed from. As a result, feminist philosophy (except for sexual freedom) did not catch on much among lower class, uneducated women who did not feel those ideas relevant to their lives.
I don't know what it will take to get the message out to our daughters, our sisters, our peers that they do not need a man to define themselves; that relationships should be between equals and should be founded on respect, and that if that respect is lacking they should terminate it just like an unwanted pregnancy. That women are strongest when they know who they are and not who they are defined to be.
When I was growing up, there were NO options for a woman who found herself in an abusive relationship. She had nowhere to turn. Public support was against her. It was her fault if she was abused. Yes, really, that was the thinking then. But things have changed now--or haven't they?
Why are so many young women--who ought to know better--throwing their lives away on men who do not deserve them? It isn't like we are living back in the days of Jane Austin where marriage was a woman's only option. Women no longer have to depend on men.
I think it is because women have been sold a bill of goods that they have eagerly bought without questioning. And, while I consider myself a feminist, I do think that feminism is partly to blame. Both from what we have told ourselves and other women and what we have NOT told them. There is a message that isn't getting through.
What feminism has been very successful in doing is telling women that they don't have to follow obsolete rules about having sex, that they need not bear a child that they have conceived. This message has been eagerly embraced to the point where we see girls just barely past puberty experimenting with sex. They have been raised to believe it is their birthright.
But where feminism hasn't been so successful is in the area of female empowerment. And let me make it clear, sexual empowerment isn't empowerment. True empowerment has nothing to do with sexual activity or lack of sexual activity.
A while back I was getting out of my car at school when a young couple walked by. To my shock, the man said to his girlfriend, "Hurry up, *****, I gotta pee." My mouth just dropped open as she meekly followed behind. I thought, Oh Hell No. If ANYONE had said that to me, I would have said go pee your pants then, I am not your ***** and never will be. We are DONE. Because I was not put on this earth, my mother did not have me, to be someone else's *****, ho, or whatever.
We feminists have been so focused on reproductive issues that we haven't really started to address the larger issue of empowerment. We have told our daughters and sisters and peers that we have the right to sexual fulfillment, but we have not told them that they have an even greater right to be treated with dignity and respect. But of course that is not as fun a message as sexual emancipation.
The tragedy is most acute among lower-class women who have bought into this message of sexual freedom because all too often they are the ones who become trapped in abusive relationships simply because they lack a sense of empowerment and pride. This is not surprising. Historically, the feminism of the 1970's was an upper-middle-class to upper-class movement. When these women talked about liberation they were talking about liberation for themselves. It was all right if poorer women did the drudge work that they were now freed from. As a result, feminist philosophy (except for sexual freedom) did not catch on much among lower class, uneducated women who did not feel those ideas relevant to their lives.
I don't know what it will take to get the message out to our daughters, our sisters, our peers that they do not need a man to define themselves; that relationships should be between equals and should be founded on respect, and that if that respect is lacking they should terminate it just like an unwanted pregnancy. That women are strongest when they know who they are and not who they are defined to be.
