Day 22
Today’s essay is one that has been in the works for some time; it just took waking up early this morning for it to formulate completely. Prone in bed with no lights on can help focus your mind, and it did me a world of good. I present you an essay about changes.
CHANGES
I’ve seen a lot of changes during my life, some good, some not so good. Many changes I experienced were the result of work done by the women’s movement. Thanks to the courage of the women who came before, we were able to make the changes we wanted to see...and few of us ever thought we would lose them again.
At the time I was born, women had the vote, but that had not won us all the other rights we wanted. Women at that time did not have the right to contraception; some states, some providers, would give it, but many wouldn’t. It wasn’t until I was five years old that married women won the right to contraception. I would love to say I remember it, and celebrated, but I was five. I didn’t even know what contraception meant yet. I was precocious, but not that precocious. My mother knew, though, and attempted to make use of it; her doctor was Catholic, and would not prescribe. As a result, my mother got pregnant again and nearly died.
As for abortion, I was in my teens before the right to abortion was upheld by the Supreme Court. Roe v. Wade was a godsend for women. Even if you never used the right to an abortion, it could be a real game changer knowing that option was open to you. By then, unmarried women also had access to contraception, and the combination allowed women to move into fields they had been shut out of forever because of their reproductive cycle…at least, that’s the stated reason. “We can’t afford to have you leave to have a baby; we need someone we can count on.”
A year after Roe, women finally gained the right to have credit in their names, thanks to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. Yes, some women had credit prior to that, but it was a crap shoot. States could set the rules, banks could simply refuse to loan the money. For married women, it was often difficult, if not impossible, to get credit without permission from your husband. If you wanted to save up to get away from his abuse, that would nix all your dreams.
Another problem with leaving Mr. Abusive was divorce law. Divorce law was complicated and messy; grounds were required, which often meant you had to go through hiring a detective (money, again!) and catch him in something…unless he also wanted a divorce, in which case he might act out adultery to give you grounds. California was the first state to pass a no-fault divorce act, which wasn’t until 1969…the same year we put a man on the moon! It was easier to get to the moon than to get a single state to enact sensible legislation. This was, again, a state-by-state thing, and it wasn’t until 2010 when all fifty states had no-fault divorce; New York was the last state to get it, and divorces were difficult and messy until then.
Almost from the first moment no-fault divorce existed, forces were trying to repeal it, and they have not ceased. People worry about tearing apart families, leaving kids with only one parent, etc. There are downsides, yes, but are the kids better with two parents who hate each other? Is it really a family when the house vibrates with hate? The idea of staying together “for the children” has never been a good one.
Marital rape. That was considered impossible at the time I was born. In fact, I was well into my thirties by the time it became a crime in 1993. I watched that happen, understanding completely this time legislation that could affect millions of women. Not me – by the time it happened, I was divorced (a no-fault divorce, yes). But I have known and cared about women who had to deal with it, and had no legal recourse because a woman was considered to have said ‘yes’ when she said ‘I do’…then and forever. If her husband forced her when she didn’t want it, too bad. She was his property. He had the right.
By the time we entered the twenty-first century, many women took rights for granted, including the right to not marry, the right to work at a job, the right to have her own paycheck and not have it sent to her husband, the right to credit, the right to choose (or not choose) sex, and of course the right to control her own reproduction. In my experience, few women thought these rights could go away. “The arc of history bends toward justice”, right? Wrong. The arc of history isn’t an arc at all; it’s a pretzel…or maybe it would be more correct to say it’s a Rube Goldberg machine…or a kluge. Things gained can be lost. Things lost can be gained. Nothing is set in stone…except some monoliths and statues that don’t have any real impact on how the law works.
As late as 2022, women were telling me, don’t worry, nothing will happen. The right to an abortion is there, and will be there. Sure, right. I was never sanguine about it, from the date it was upheld to the date it was overturned. I grew up in the middle of anti-abortion central, and I knew how determined they were to have it repealed. They wouldn’t stop until…well, I guess until death took away their ability to shout and hold up a sign. About three weeks before the Supreme Court announced their decision, a woman was telling me Roe was safe. Two weeks later, she was telling me the same thing. She isn’t saying that anymore. Roe was not safe; Roe was never safe.
In fact, the courts from the beginning had been permitting restrictions on abortion, more and more each year, as long as the ‘right’ remained. The ability to get an abortion might not be there, but the right to have one, if you could find an abortion provider you could get to, and afford the fees, was protected by the Supreme Court…but you might have to foot additional expenses for motels because of waiting periods, or additional costs because of required ultrasounds. You might have to sit through a litany of lies that the providers were required to tell you, such as abortion increases cancer risk, and an abortion could render you infertile.
Other rights are up for grabs. There are people who would like to see the equal pay act go away, and would like to take away the right to contraception. There are even some who call for an end to women’s suffrage, believing women should not have the right to vote. At this point, this idea is a fringe idea, but before you get too comfortable, remember that at one point the anti-abortion position was fringe…and so were a lot of other things we’ve seen happening over the past few years.
Yes, I’ve seen a lot of changes in my life. Women have gained a lot of rights, and have been using those rights in great numbers. The more women use those rights, the louder the calls to take them away. Women are succeeding in school, and this scares many people. Women are voting, which scares a lot of the same people. But nothing scares people more than to have women in charge of their reproductive lives…starting with the right to say no, and moving through various other rights all the way to the right to an abortion. The backlash will continue, but remember: backlash only exists because we were successful in so many ways.
So celebrate the rights you already have, but stay alert. You may need to roll up you sleeves and get your hands dirty in the political world to protect those that still remain.