American Girl in Italy, Florence, 1951. Copyright 1952, 1980 Ruth Orkin. Courtesy of Ruth Orkin Photo Archive.
Women’s History Month began without much attention and certainly without fanfare on March 1, 2024 and will end in deafening silence on March 31 leaving the question once again unanswered: why do “they” only let us have one month out of the twelve? And why does it receive so little attention?
In this year, 2024, there are 169 plus million women in the United States, 51.1 percent of the total which has held steady since 2013. So in fact we are the majority—but never was a majority so quiet and so poorly represented in the corridors of power, our national government, universities, military, and corporations.
I believe our silence is based on denial and fear.
A lot of us probably would prefer to deny, or at least cover up, the fact that we are the majority especially in this fractured time when—finally— long-overdue attention is being paid to our minorities. And to claim the power inherent in a majority is so jarring to the system as a whole that we may be frightened; no one wants to take responsibility for a social and political earthquake.
That earthquake would result if all the disparate groups of women were able to join forces and insist on Congress passing the ERA (the Equal Rights Amendment) to be followed with Equal Pay for Equal Work, protection for abortion access, family leave, subsidized childcare, universal health care—making life possible for the many women who work and often support their families.
Instead, it seems to me we are more likely to be portrayed as victims as the number of sexual abuse cases reaching the courts continues to rise. And yes in certain situations, where physical brawn decides the outcome, we might be considered and even consider ourselves victims—but this leaves out the power of common sense (don’t go into a store dressing room with a man), cunning, the uses of fingernails and teeth and loud screams. Is it possible that at times when we are abused we are disarmed by thinking we had it coming?
Another disabling factor which many have noticed is that we women don’t always support each other and sometimes attack each other ferociously, or, more politely, undermine. I’ve noticed this obnoxious tendency in myself and in other women, currently in the dismantling of the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which I founded with a ten million dollar gift in 1985. It has always been run by women who in the past understood my goals: to support and encourage women artists who use our art for social change; in 1985 we were called and called ourselves feminists. That gift has now grown to sixteen million but the uses I intended for the income seem to have been eliminated or at least reduced. And this mean that a light has gone out in our world.
I’ve noticed and so have others of my generation that the causes we’ve fought for as feminists do not seem to merit the attention of our granddaughters. They live free of what restricted us in the 1950’s, harassment in public and closed doors to power in many institutions. I was startled when a young woman of my acquaintance insisted that the photograph above was posed; I explained that I’d had this experience dozens of times, especially in Italy but also in the US—but that may have seemed to her to be a fabrication.
Anger is one of the best tools for fighting oppression, but how many of us never move beyond irritation? And how much of our energy is still spent and perhaps wasted “supporting” young men, middle-aged men, and old men?
The Puer Aeternus still exists, even if he is eighty years old—but still we go on encouraging, supporting, even loving.
And in the end, what good does it do?
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