I attended the notorious/profitable White Dudes for Harris online fundraiser/rallying cry. The subtle subtext there: Women rule, so the least we feckless guys can do is support them. It mocked whiteness as a kind of disability, given how white men have been subverted to the dark side of human nature. The men on the call gave 4.5 million reasons why they might be able to contribute something or other, after all.
I was thrilled to see the White Dudes for Harris call happening! It gave me extra hope that we might really elect our first female president. My husband was there too. I am plotting a post about how men organized for women's suffrage--"suffragents"--and how they were the ones who had to vote to expand the electorate. This kind of monumental change takes all of us working together :-)
Amen, amen, amen. Susan B. Anthony stood in for the skeleton of the movement--that upon which all other bits and bobs are dependent. I am so grateful for her. In fact, it was when I discovered her that I first learned to appreciate my own name ...
I love this article! Without women like Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt (who was also childless), and Alice Paul, the suffragist movement would probably not have made as many strides as it did. As you pointed out Anthony had the time to travel around the country, give speeches, organize conventions, and babysit so that ECS could have some me time to write.
The Republican VP nominee is also ignoring the facts. Women outnumber men which means that there was always going to be a portion of the female population who aren't married. And many of us choose not to have children, not because we don't like them, but because the world is over-populated as it is. Kids are also expensive. I'm continually amazed that my parents were able to send me not only to public school but also college.
Also: "Women outnumber men which means that there was always going to be a portion of the female population who aren't married." I feel like this should spark a league of superheroines or something :-)
THANK YOU for mentioning Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul! They totally deserve to be mentioned in this too. I totally agree that their ability to devote themselves to the cause really helped us all get the vote.
Maya, I LOVE THIS! I am writing my second novel, where the protagonist is a 19thc author who chose to remain unmarried because her husband would own her work and not only would she have been his chattel at the time and would have to devote the time she would have preferred to spend writing to his care and feeding (and raising the eventual children, much as she adored kids) -- but her WRITING, her work product -- would have been HIS property as well, and if she wrote anything that displeased him, he could forbid her to write (that, or ever again). I chose not to have children for a variety of reasons [I'm allergic to cats, though I like them]. My first marriage was to the son of Holocaust survivors who had a lot of anger and emotional baggage [long after our divorce he tragically took his own life] and I was also often juggling 3 survival jobs while pursing my career as an actress and later, an actor-manager of my own nonprofit professional theatre company. I saw firsthand the sacrifices other actresses (never the actors, somehow) made to schlep young kids (they couldn't afford childcare -- as I would not have been able to do) to auditions and rehearsals and the toll it took on both parent and child (Mommy is making out with a man who isn't daddy!!); or the kid having a meltdown in the middle of rehearsal, so the actress had to leave the room to handle the situation. Impossible for the parent emotionally; confusing, and possibly psychologically damaging for a child too young to understand that it was make-believe; unfair to the rest of the cast and production team that had a finite time in the room they were paying for. Even my mom, who went back to a fulltime job in advertising after my sister and I were old enough to come home from school on our own, and broke some glass ceilings at the very staid J. Walter Thompson, is STILL resented by my sister, who claims she became a "latchkey kid" as a result, while I applauded my mother for claiming the career she always wanted, and put on hold in order to have kids. [My sister cheerfully left her MBA to moulder, quit a high powered job in marketing to have and raise her 2 kids. They're great kids, but she's always been a helicopter parent. All of her friends always had jobs, too, while they raised their kids.]
Thank you! What a conflict for your novel! Good luck to your heroine and her work! Is it a romance?
Omg it's so hard to have kids and to care for them while also being a creative and/or working mom, as your stories show. That's one reason why I think it's so important that we are able to choose whether or not we become parents. And hi, from one latchkey kid of a working mom to another!
I attended the notorious/profitable White Dudes for Harris online fundraiser/rallying cry. The subtle subtext there: Women rule, so the least we feckless guys can do is support them. It mocked whiteness as a kind of disability, given how white men have been subverted to the dark side of human nature. The men on the call gave 4.5 million reasons why they might be able to contribute something or other, after all.
I was thrilled to see the White Dudes for Harris call happening! It gave me extra hope that we might really elect our first female president. My husband was there too. I am plotting a post about how men organized for women's suffrage--"suffragents"--and how they were the ones who had to vote to expand the electorate. This kind of monumental change takes all of us working together :-)
Suffragents! Love it! Sign me up!
Amen, amen, amen. Susan B. Anthony stood in for the skeleton of the movement--that upon which all other bits and bobs are dependent. I am so grateful for her. In fact, it was when I discovered her that I first learned to appreciate my own name ...
Cheers to all Susans! :-)
I love this article! Without women like Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt (who was also childless), and Alice Paul, the suffragist movement would probably not have made as many strides as it did. As you pointed out Anthony had the time to travel around the country, give speeches, organize conventions, and babysit so that ECS could have some me time to write.
The Republican VP nominee is also ignoring the facts. Women outnumber men which means that there was always going to be a portion of the female population who aren't married. And many of us choose not to have children, not because we don't like them, but because the world is over-populated as it is. Kids are also expensive. I'm continually amazed that my parents were able to send me not only to public school but also college.
I meant private school, not public school!
Also: "Women outnumber men which means that there was always going to be a portion of the female population who aren't married." I feel like this should spark a league of superheroines or something :-)
THANK YOU for mentioning Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul! They totally deserve to be mentioned in this too. I totally agree that their ability to devote themselves to the cause really helped us all get the vote.
It's historical fiction but my heroine has to care for her family...she's the sole breadwinner.
Maya, I LOVE THIS! I am writing my second novel, where the protagonist is a 19thc author who chose to remain unmarried because her husband would own her work and not only would she have been his chattel at the time and would have to devote the time she would have preferred to spend writing to his care and feeding (and raising the eventual children, much as she adored kids) -- but her WRITING, her work product -- would have been HIS property as well, and if she wrote anything that displeased him, he could forbid her to write (that, or ever again). I chose not to have children for a variety of reasons [I'm allergic to cats, though I like them]. My first marriage was to the son of Holocaust survivors who had a lot of anger and emotional baggage [long after our divorce he tragically took his own life] and I was also often juggling 3 survival jobs while pursing my career as an actress and later, an actor-manager of my own nonprofit professional theatre company. I saw firsthand the sacrifices other actresses (never the actors, somehow) made to schlep young kids (they couldn't afford childcare -- as I would not have been able to do) to auditions and rehearsals and the toll it took on both parent and child (Mommy is making out with a man who isn't daddy!!); or the kid having a meltdown in the middle of rehearsal, so the actress had to leave the room to handle the situation. Impossible for the parent emotionally; confusing, and possibly psychologically damaging for a child too young to understand that it was make-believe; unfair to the rest of the cast and production team that had a finite time in the room they were paying for. Even my mom, who went back to a fulltime job in advertising after my sister and I were old enough to come home from school on our own, and broke some glass ceilings at the very staid J. Walter Thompson, is STILL resented by my sister, who claims she became a "latchkey kid" as a result, while I applauded my mother for claiming the career she always wanted, and put on hold in order to have kids. [My sister cheerfully left her MBA to moulder, quit a high powered job in marketing to have and raise her 2 kids. They're great kids, but she's always been a helicopter parent. All of her friends always had jobs, too, while they raised their kids.]
Thank you! What a conflict for your novel! Good luck to your heroine and her work! Is it a romance?
Omg it's so hard to have kids and to care for them while also being a creative and/or working mom, as your stories show. That's one reason why I think it's so important that we are able to choose whether or not we become parents. And hi, from one latchkey kid of a working mom to another!
Love this article!