Today is Women's Equality Day, the anniversary of the day that women first got the vote.Last night, watching Michelle Obama, I couldn't help but think about how far we've come from the vision of the suffragettes who won the vote. Could they have imagined her?
Ten years younger than I am, I thought, "she is the woman that the second wave of feminism created" -- a woman with a full time brilliant career serving others, a working mom devoted to her school age children, a partner in a peer marriage -- a woman who was basically unknown to me when I was growing up in the sixties, but the woman I hope today's girls will know they can become. And tonight the convention will feature the first woman candidate for President and many female Senators , Congresspersons, and Governors.
Change is happening, has happened.
The evening would have been perfect except for the benediction, offered from this UU minister's perspective, without regard for the diversity of religious belief in the convention hall or across America. Note to the others offering invocations and benedictions: your remarks not only have to be non-partisan, they need to speak to all of us. Your language of the divine and what is most sacred needs to include all of us -- even nonbelievers, no less those who don't call Jesus Lord. Let's hope the rest of the clergy involve don't make the same mistake.
2 comments:
My question would be more: Could Viola Liuzzo have envisioned her or her husband?
I also think of Susan B. Anthoney, her racist approach to getting the vote (an approach which I believe caused Harriet Tubman to split with her), and I remember how the media, women pundits, and too many Hillary supporters equated feminism with white women. I also remember how few white women "feminists" have really worked that hard to bring feminism to African American women.
Then I look at Michelle, and I think of Tubman, Queen Lattifa, Dorothy Dandridge, Leena Horn, Billy Holiday and her anti lynching song, and Mary Elizabeth Bowser, and I think:
"Michelle, You Go Girl!"
michelle's speech was wonderful, and it was really exciting to think about young kids in the white house.
but i also was dismayed by the closing prayers. i'm also a UU and i felt very excluded and hurt for the millions of others who must as well. and i was just disappointed, it seems that an opportunity to address the nation like that needn't have been squandered.
happily last night's closing prayers (gosh, and hillary!!!) were just wonderful...two korean methodist ministers who invoked god of peace, god of justice, god of freedom (etc) without once invoking a particular religion. they called for the honoring of differences and diversity. was a powerful, important prayer that had meaning for everyone. good stuff.
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