Beautiful Thursday in New York with the weatherman alluding to rain coming. Nothing doing. Heat, yes; like summer.
The day. Luncheon at the Mandarin Oriental. For the Center for the Advancement of Women. Honoring outstanding woman “who have demonstrated vision and leadership for the advancement of rights and opportunities of women.”
It was a fundraiser. Faye Wattleton is the head of this organization which was started four years ago. Part of the mission of this organization is to honor certain women to raise awareness about how far women have come, and what is required to create the landscape for realizing all women’s full potential. Another part of the mission is to conduct and sponsor research to identify issues that are important to women, and to understand how women’s daily experiences in their daily lives affect their larger worldview and place in society. The mission is mainly to promote women’s rights and improve the lot of all women not only in the workplace but in academia and in the home.
They honored Suzanne de Passe, the Hollywood producer who started out life working for Berry Gordy at Motown Records, Eleanor Smeal, Women’s rights leader, political analyst, grassroots organizer and editor of MS. Magazine; Helen Thomas – we all know Helen Thomas from the White House press room, the only reporter consistently Man Enough to take on the President’s men and ask the hard questions. Only Woman Enough too; and Cicely Tyson, the actress who has used her career and her roles to stress the power and humanity of not only black women, but all women.
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| Princess Firyal of Jordan, Faye Wattleton, and Lesley Stahl |
Hearing about Women’s Rights is tricky these days, at least for many men; and quite a few women too. The Feminist Movement created so many changes for women that their achievements, which were really great at the time, are now considered a matter of course. They are taken for granted. Helen Thomas talked about how she got into the newspaper business as a reporter in 1943 (and she’s still working!) because of the War (WWII) which took so many men away from the workforce. It was then, she said, that women first started doing jobs that men had previously done, proving a very important point. She then pointed out that we now have women on the Supreme Court, women who are and have been Secretary of State, and even a woman who is considered a very serious contender for the Presidency. Sherry Lansing, the first woman to head a movie studio – first 20th Century-Fox and then Paramount – was there yesterday. Suzanne de Passe referred to her because she was the trailblazer.
I know a lot of women who are very successful in their careers and their lives. Many of them wield real power in their fields. I often think of my mother who had to work to support us since my father was less than dependable and cooperative about that. She had a high school education. She read. She led a full life domestically with great interest in food, health, gardening, sewing, interior decorating. Her interests were severely limited by her economics, however, and she came from a generation where a woman of her (middle)class was embarrassed to have a partner who did not “provide.” So all her life she suffered from the idea that success was a man who “provided,” and therefore her failure.
Furthermore, the man had his frequent moments of verbal and physically threatening abuse. Another mark against her. Nevertheless she triumped in her own way (she was 82 when she died). Having worked her entire adult life, in her old age she was self-sufficient and self-supporting, working until the last year of her life, and loving working. Because she was free and independent. Nevertheless I’ve often thought that had my mother been born in my generation, or even better, the generation following me, she might very well not have bothered with the man who didn’t provide, but have gone on and pursued her interests professionally, and with pride. She certainly had the drive and the capacity for work and curiosity.
I tell this story because I often think of my mother when I attend these events for women’s quality of life. I am always reminded at an event such as this that, in truth, the life my mother had as an adult woman is very much like the life that a lot of young and not so young women still have to this day, despite the great strides that have been made in the Women’s Movement.
The difference my mother’s time and now, however, is, we know that the Possibilities can become realities. It has been demonstrated, as it was yesterday when they honored the four women at the luncheon. What has not been demonstrated is the ability of everybody, men and women, to provide roles and pathways for others to improve their lives and the lives of all of us.
This is very idealistic thinking on the face of it. Almost Pollyana. Except, when you measure how far we’ve come, and we consider that women are 50% of the population of the world, we can see the Possibility is now very much with us. |
