Once upon a time there lived Susan B. Anthony, one of those women who made it possible for the rest of us today to participate in democratic rituals designed to select represenatives who then govern our future. During her lifetime, on November 5, 1872, the then 52-year-old was arrested on the basis of a crime she had committed because she was convinced she could vote in the presidential election herself. Although she was a woman. She voted illegally because she insisted on the interpretation of Article 14 of the US Constitution, which grants the right to vote to all citizens – regardless of their gender. She voted, even though she lived in a time when women were not only without the right to vote but were not allowed to own property, they were not allowed to inherit it, everything they earned by working outside their home automatically became husband’s, they could not prosecute anyone in the courts, nor did they have custody of their children.
Susan B. Anthony knew that in order to achieve women’s equality and gender equality in society, it was crucial for women to gain the power of a political voice that would enable them to make the necessary social changes. The atmosphere in which Anthony has struggled with her contemporaries all her life so that women can finally become someone with rights and no longer be perceived as someone to whom you can do what you want whenever you want, has been permeated with antifeminist, vulgar sexism and machismo, which fed male gods and judges with supposedly indisputable truths, such as that women simply do not have the necessary wisdom given to men which makes the latter make wise, rational – you know, without impulses, always weighty, without childish resentment at all, without revenge – decisions. In addition to the universal truth that we as women are inferior (as worthy workers, work was already possible at the time, but decision-making was something else), there was also fear among people about what such changes could bring – if women realized that they cannot be represented by men, where will their demands stop, what else will they want? Or what else they will get.
How did the ideas of women who changed the course of history age? Isn’t it downright creepy that the usual reaction of one who reads and thinks about the things they fought for is actually frustration, because of the events of recent years, because of completely overt, shameless calls to return to a time when society and family are supposed to be ruled by order. An order that perceives women as a gender that needs to be tamed, controlled and commented on their every step and decision, while threatening them to dare too much, think too much, talk too much. We may be frustrated that we are still fighting for equality and this fight is far from over (but the epidemic has prolonged it), that an effort is needed to convince people that it is right to have the same opportunities, treatment and rights as men. Achieving gender equality, which is the fundamental basis of any democracy, is what those who are so intimidated by equality want to make impossible by invoking equality, which allows us only equality before the law. Instead of making a qualitative leap in thinking as a society and accepting equality to reflect on all practices that perpetuate female inferiority in everyday life, we are witnessing completely open calls to take away our fundamental rights, including the opportunity to vote and be elected, the right to decide if and when we will become mothers and, last but not least, the right to set our own order of values and priorities in life, which may be different from the roles that others think they should play.
So today we women live in a world that many believe has given us too many rights, that we are too sensitive, and that all the hardships that befall us in this world of sublime equality are to blame for us (including the rise in the murder of women by their partners we are witnessing this year)! The reality is different: violence against women is still not banned in 35 countries, the same applies to rape in 34 countries and female genital mutilation in 41 countries, while women’s lives in the beautiful Western capitalism are far from freedom, which is still conditioned with various forms of capital. The epidemic has undoubtedly affected women more than men, but even among women, there are in fact differences between the boats in which we navigate over the inequality into which we were born. Some of us will never in our lives face a glass ceiling or a men’s club of a political party that would prevent them from being elected. They will remain at the bottom as victims of all possible austerity measures that still follow us, as prisoners of dependence on another, for the sake of survival, ready for anything. Who represents them in the advanced political system we call democracy? What are their rights? Are they really to blame for not doing enough or are they victims of systemic inequality?
Others will be told that they are sensitive, gentle, that they bring delicacy and empathy to the table in the form of feminine energy, and thus deserve their place in deciding to sit still, in the spirit of feminine energy their role is representative, listening to them anyway there will be no one. They will be allowed to sit at the most important table, to fill quotas and reassure activists who count men and women, make decisions anyway about nothing important, maybe soften some conflict and calm someone down. They will tell the third party, because your partner helps you when he takes the child to the park and for a walk, that you can clean and cook in peace, while taking the fame of the most advanced man in the village. Is it true that our gentler sex, with this dreamy feminine energy, is less capable and fragile, but when it does more than 66% of the world’s work, it produces more than 50% of its food, but at the same time earns only 10% of the world’s income and owns 1% of the property? But with everything we (un)knowingly do, say and create today, we are actually shaping the world and setting boundaries in which those who come after us will be able to live. Let us keep in mind that there was already an idea among our ancestors that life could be (re)lived in another way and that, in the words of Emmeline Pankhurst, who fought similarly in the UK with her allies – it is impossible that we would not succeed!
The text was made for the project “American political thought”, sponsored by the US Embassy in Slovenia.
