Raising the Revolution: A Father’s Perspective (plus a short history lesson and a list of places where I would breastfeed my children)

I have two daughters. When I look at them I try not to think about the world they might have been born into not too long ago. I also try not to think about the troubling aspects of our current world, one in which women are still treated differently than men. Even in America. If you can’t see why this problematic you

A) Are probably not a woman

or

B) Are a woman who accepts the limitations placed on you by the people around you as a priori conditions

or

C) A man or woman who doesn’t understand how drastically different (and just how clinically insane) things used to be and how progress is not automatically permanent

or

D) You are just not paying attention

Admittedly, I was in this fourth category for part of my life. But having daughters changes everything. Although I suspect there’s a reason why I married a genius, someone who represents and actively models the best aspects of feminism and proud motherhood (not sure why these are regarded as separate spheres but they seem to be). I also suspect that steadfast misogynists surround themselves with women that reinforce the stereotypes about women that they have convince themselves are true. Mostly because it inflates their sense of self-esteem. It is the same reason so many dumb, incapable failures tend to endorse racist views.

So while I don’t love thinking about what things use to be like, as a history teacher it is unavoidable. And as a human being, the reminders are profitable. It is the ONLY way to prevent backsliding.

Not far from our hometown of Syracuse, NY there is a place called the National Women’s Hall of Fame, in Seneca Falls where in 1848 hundreds of women (and men) held the first major convention to call attention to the unfair treatment of American women. Most high school graduates can tell you that the attendees wrote and signed a document modeled after the Declaration of Independence called the Declaration of Sentiments and that eventually (over 70 years later and not even 100 years ago) this led to women obtaining the right to vote. But what we should really focus on and what should really blow our minds, were the conditions women in this country were calling attention to in the middle of the 19th century. (Keep in mind that this does not even scratch the surface of the absolute horrors that black women were subjected to).

Here are some highlights (by which I mean lowlights):

In a nation where even the stupidest, most ignorant, racist, deranged turd of a white man could vote, even the most brilliant woman could not cast a ballot but was then expected to follow the laws that were made for her even though she had no legal right to influence the lawmakers and in the rare cases women could actually own property they were also taxed without any representation in the government that created the taxes. Reason why? No penis. Seems sensible.

Women were “civilly dead” if married. Translation? According to William Blackstone, the “legal existence of the woman [was] suspended during the marriage, or at least [was] incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband.” Basically, under law, she had no life of her own. If her husband let her work, her wages belonged to her husband. He could use them on booze, brothels, gambling, whatever the hell he wanted. Seems fair.

The divorce laws of the time also treated children as the man’s property, meaning that in cases where women were granted divorces, they had no legal right to the children they carried in their wombs for nine months, and given the culture of the time, almost exclusively reared.

The laws also gave men liberty to “administer chastisement,” essentially allowing, again legally, for all manner of abuse.

No right to education. Not only was this unfair to women individually and collectively, it’s just plain stupid. Imagine all medical advances, philosophical arguments, mathematical and scientific breakthroughs, and architectural wonders that might have been incubated by a nation that allowed both halves of its population the right to reach their full human potential.

Some will argue that these things were all far in the past and no longer apply. Not only do the residual effects of the above still very much impact the United States in 2018, there are several grievances from the Women’s Declaration that have not been completely addressed.

Just about every religious institution did not allow women to preach. Alarmingly, yeah, there hasn’t been much movement on this one. Reason? No penis. Again, seems like a sound argument.

The authors of the Declaration also pointed out that there existed “a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.” Do we not still look at sexually adventurous women, or even women who refuse to be body shamed as committing some great moral evil? This double standard is still so ubiquitous that women are often among the most vigorous enforcers of the code.

Some diehard defenders of male supremacy will of course argue “well, sir, men and women is different.” Yes, right, women can bear children (which should give them more prestige not less) and on average men can lift heavier shit and waste more time watching other men play sports. This has absolutely no bearing on what type of opportunities for intellectual, spiritual and yes even physical fulfilment people should be entitled to.

Look, we need not deny our biological differences or imperatives or even dismiss or repress our sexual attractions or aesthetic appreciation of the human form. We are all free to find each other beautiful, seek sexual fulfillment, express our sexuality, and expose as many body parts as we are comfortable with. But I refuse to live in a country where my daughters are expected to act and look a certain way because they are girls, an intellectually and spiritually crippled society in which they are not allowed to express themselves freely without being judged, not on the merits of their abilities, behaviors and character, but rather because they are not men. I refuse to live in a country where my daughters can’t feed my grandchildren as nature intended ANYWHERE they damn well choose.

Quick aside. Places I would nurse my child if I were a woman:

1. Restaurants in as close proximity to judgmental DINKs as possible.

2. Churches

3. Football stadiums

4. Family reunions

5. Mike Pence’s living room

6. Mike Pence’s office

7. While Facetiming with Mike Pence

8. Mosques

9. At the zoo (just to see if the rest of nature would be as upset as Mike Pence)

I refuse to allow my daughters to grow up in a society that forces them to make the false choice between feminist and cheerleader for her man’s life goals. I refuse to allow my daughters to live in a nation that elects (kind of) a president and vice president who openly practice two different but equally insidious forms of sexism. But more importantly, the young women who we are raising will refuse to allow it. And that is what gives me hope.

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“Are we deficient in reason? We can only reason from from what we know, and if opportunity of acquiring knowledge hath been denied us, the inferiority of our sex cannot fairly be deduced from thence … I would calmly ask, is it reasonable, that a candidate for immortality, for the joys of heaven, an intelligent being, who is to spend an eternity in contemplating the works of Deity, should at present be so degraded, as to be allowed no other ideas, than those suggested by the mechanism of a pudding, or the sewing [of] the seams of a garment?”

Judith Sargent Murray
On the Equality of the Sexes, 1790