Where's the Feminism for Older Women?

Philly.com ^ | 5/11/04 | Rosemary C. McDonough

[qam1]

WHAT HAS the women's movement done for you lately? If you're a woman past childbearing age, the answer is: not much.

As the April 25 march in Washington demonstrated, the primary focus of the women's movement is still what it was over 30 years ago: abortion rights, or reproductive freedom.

But what about the growing number of older women who are finally free from reproduction?

A generation ago, as a budding feminist, the women's movement introduced me to a world that my mother could scarcely have imagined. Marriage as an equal partnership? Equal pay for equal work? Choosing when to have children? It sounded like a great plan to me.

And it has been. During my 25-year marriage, I've had more choices than I can count. Choice: Wait a few years to have children. Choice: Launch my career, full speed ahead. Choice: Design a second career to work from home around my family.

All these ideas about choice, about fashioning a life tailored to my needs, were planted in my head by the women's movement. But as I enter a phase of life that requires new choices, I find only one has captured the attention of prominent feminists, and that's when "choice" means "abortion."

Let's face reality. For fifty-something first-generation feminists like me, pregnancy - planned or unplanned - is no longer on the radar screen. Now my friends and I worry about making choices that will help us lead healthy, productive, vigorous lives into middle age and beyond. We'd like the women's movement to show us the way.

But as long as the movement focuses on perceived threats to abortion, they've left our generation out in the cold.

Case in point: A few years ago, I learned that I had a common, serious and asymptomatic condition which disproportionately affects women. That condition, osteopenia, puts certain women at risk for hip, back and other fractures. Finding out that I had this condition, and taking the steps to address it, may have saved my life. I did not learn about this condition through any of the feminist mailings I receive regularly. I learned about it through my male gynecologist.

Case in point: When my friend's mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, he just shook his head. "That woman hasn't had a pap test since the Kennedy administration," he declared. "She doesn't take care of herself." We all nodded wisely.

But a month later, I didn't feel so wise. That's when I learned that pap tests screen for cervical cancer, not ovarian cancer. There IS no test for ovarian cancer. Did I learn this through a feminist march or public service campaign? No. A nice kid at Border's taught me, when she was handing out literature for her bat mitzvah service project.

Case in point: The women's movement coined the phrase "feminization of poverty." But as baby boomers age, that term won't only be about unwed mothers or pink-collar jobs. It'll be about a Social Security system that's going bust - and women, who outlive men, will suffer more. I don't want to live to be 100 if my Social Security check is only going to make it to 85. Feminist economists, where are you?

Sometimes, in their zeal to preserve reproductive freedom, today's feminists look just plain silly. A recent news story reported that a music critic, while reviewing a light-hearted 18th-century opera, described it as "joyous and pro-life." But Big Sister was watching. The review was edited to say that the opera was "joyous and anti-abortion." Way to go, girls! We don't need Spell Check, we need Think Check.

It's time for the women's movement to replace abortion rights as its centerpiece. We need a feminist agenda that speaks for women of ALL ages. That's what the women's movement can do for me now. That's the one "choice" we simply must make.

[Rytwyng]

there was just an aura of "all the women are dumb/asinine" while men apparently get a free pass and are not responsible at all for their sad stories.

Perhaps we do go a little overboard, but if so, we're overreacting to a culture where nearly all relationship problems are blamed on men. Christian books, radio, and sermons largely mirror the secular attitude on this -- it's all about the men needing to repent, the women are very rarely criticized for anything.

Yet legions of good men have learned the hard way that this just isn't true. Quite the reverse, in many cases. Here in Lost Angeles, at least, the women are, as a group, just horrible towards men, and the nicer a man is, the worse they'll hurt him.

They make choices, too

Ah, but -- speaking from experience -- even the guys who make righteous choices, still get hit hard with this stuff. Being honorable, "equally yoked", and chaste in one's dating/courting, is no protection.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Yes, I guess I can see it as a reactionary thing. I just hope it doesn't go overboard all over. The attitude about women, I mean. Like ancient attitudes that they're the cause of all problems, etc. BS.

Well, I'd like to be more optimistic, but frankly I'm very cynical now, about every1. Even those who seem geeky-sweet are "living in sin", etc. I'm shocked to meet people who seem like they could do no wrong - yet there they are.

The pickings are slim now, but OTOH, if people could be led back to the proper attitude and see the error of their ways, there could be more. Like I said, many are good at heart w/all their faults, just that they do some things wrong.

[Rytwyng]

Even those who seem geeky-sweet are "living in sin", etc. I'm shocked to meet people who seem like they could do no wrong - yet there they are.

Agree completely. I could give you a list of people I know, whom I once considered trusted Christian friends and/or leaders, but who have eventually shown themselves to be scoundrels -- sexually, financially, or otherwise. The majority were women but the men on the list were pretty awful too.