My previous post, “Take Back the Tit,” elicited some very interesting, insightful comments. I received the following response as an email, and I am publishing it with the author’s permission because I think it brings up some controversial ideas.
In my post, I suggest that it is sometimes the female voice that tyrannizes other women. This writer responds:
“As a child of the seventies, I never quite “got” the whole women’s movement ethos. I was reared in the deep South in a house full of women, my father having died when I was three, and went to a girls’ school from the 7th to the 12th grade. I never DIDN’T see women in positions of authority and was stunned to learn that our sex was so miserably oppressed. The more I observe and the older I get the more convinced I am that women have always been deeply complicit in their own destinies, and if they’re put-upon doormats, the vast majority of them have no one to blame but themselves. My grandmother, born in 1898, would never have allowed herself to be treated disrespectfully by anyone, man, woman, or child. Most of the disagreeable social and cultural “rules” complained about so vociferously by women, seem to be established by women themselves. What’s up?
I read a funny, accurate novel years ago by Florence King called When Sisterhood Was In Flower. It’s probably out of print now, but I highly recommend it.”
To an extent, I do agree. However, in researching and writing some of my books, particularly STEALING ATHENA, which takes place in both classical Athens and the Napoleonic era, I learned that unless the law supports women, we will suffer, no matter how strong we are or how much respect we demand. Therefore, we need more than self-esteem to counteract oppression. We need legal parity.
“Why did Lady Elgin (one of STEALING ATHENA’S two protagonists) put up with that monster of a husband?” readers often ask, not realizing that throughout most of history, women were legally classed as the PROPERTY of their husbands and could not easily procure a divorce. Moreover, divorce almost always came with the punishment of losing one’s children, who were legally the PROPERTY of the father. So it doesn’t matter how strong a woman is, or how much respect she demands, if she cannot get justice in a court of law, she will be victimized.
On the other hand, throughout history, women have been complicit in the oppression of their own sex. As I learned in researching DRACULA IN LOVE, Queen Victoria, the most powerful woman of her era (an era named for her, by God!), thought that suffragettes needed a good spanking! Often it is women who fight for and uphold the very customs that keep the female sex in a second-class category. The pressure women put on other women to be perfect mothers is one such example. Another example is imposing the sexual double standard. I find women as guilty of this as men, if not more.
I’d love to hear some of your thoughts. What are the ways in which women oppress other women, and what can we do to encourage woman-to-woman support?
