Suffragette City

One of my students did her informative essay and presentation on the impact that birth control pills have had on women's rights and choices. I couldn't have been more proud of her, and I was also gratified to know that young women today really do understand that women who came before them paved the way in many areas of life. She was truly well-informed; I learned a few things myself, and I was actually alive in those early days. I hadn't known that in the early days of The Pill, the FDA approved it only for "regulating cycles." I did know that the Catholic Church prohibited its use for quite a long time. I told my students about The Rhythm Method, which wasn't explained to me in CCD (of course, good girls in the sixties weren't supposed to be thinking about sex), but rather discovered as I rooted through my parents' bookcase. I found a lot of good stuff in there although I didn't understand all of it. I always read everything I could get my hands on, and if it was tucked into a bookshelf in my parents' room, then I knew it must be really good! But I digress.

As far as we have come, there is still so much further to go. When I hear straight white men say that they are the only people it's okay to discriminate against, my eyes do that thing where they couldn't roll any farther back in my head. We do not have a color-blind society, or a gender-blind society, or an ethnic-blind society. No matter how many laws we pass, we can't legislate acceptance, compassion. and fairness. But maybe with the laws, someday people who haven't quite gotten it yet will begin to, and/or maybe as we move from one generation to the next, our society truly will become blind to all of those things. I would love to see a world where, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, people are judged only on the content of their character.

When I see and hear people making a stink about transgender bathroom use, I roll my eyes yet again. First of all, gender identification isn't always a choice. (Check out some eye-opening info over at WHO's website: http://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/) Secondly, the odds are good that you've shared a bathroom with a transgender person and never known it. Thirdly, why would anyone go through the ordeal that being transgender must entail just to get into a bathroom with a person of the opposite sex, or to molest children. (These are the most common concerns I hear.) I know there are still people who think all homosexuals are pedophiles, so I shouldn't be surprised to hear their fears about transgender people. I remember when my son was in fourth grade and had a teacher who was gay (and also had been a friend for years). Other parents would ask if I was afraid the teacher would molest my child. Why would I be any more afraid that a gay man would molest my child than I would be that a straight woman would.

I suppose the moral of the story here is that fear breeds hatred and "otherness". In my view, life is hard enough without any of us trying to tear down others. I'm going to keep my eyes open, not rolled back in my head, and hope that I live to see the day when we all accept each other. It may not happen, but it's a nice thing to think about.