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Where's the Feminism for Older Women?
Philly.com ^ | 5/11/04 | Rosemary C. McDonough

Posted on 05/11/2004 6:35:01 AM PDT by 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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: abortion; babyboomers; feminism
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To: qam1
...they've left our generation out in the cold.

We'd like the women's movement to show us the way.

Lady, are you too stupid to think for yourself?

21 posted on 05/11/2004 7:37:10 AM PDT by DumpsterDiver
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To: cyborg
I'm of child bearing age and the only thing feminists have done is to scare American men away from us girls.

You speak the truth. I have three sons and my advice to them on getting married is "Don't". Why engage in an activity where the risk of and price of failure for a man is so high. Stick to bungee jumping and rock climbing.

22 posted on 05/11/2004 7:43:28 AM PDT by Timocrat (I Emanate on your Auras and Penumbras Mr Blackmun)
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To: Timocrat
Plus with all the sluts giving up for free, why bother roping oneself to one woman for life?
23 posted on 05/11/2004 7:49:14 AM PDT by cyborg
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To: cyborg
Plus with all the sluts giving up for free, why bother roping oneself to one woman for life?

Interesting that you should use that collective noun. My sixteen year old son uses the exact same word for his female contemporaries - which even shocks me somewhat.The feminists appear to want to turn women into pseudo-males which not suprisingly is not appealing to heterosexual males.

In an ideal world, lifelong monogamy yields the most psychological, emotional and spiritual benefits to both partners but thanks to the feminists, women have been awakened to the danger of male oppression and can now live "liberated" lives.( The fact that women own a substantial majority of the assets in the USA seemed to have escaped their notice)

24 posted on 05/11/2004 8:17:53 AM PDT by Timocrat (I Emanate on your Auras and Penumbras Mr Blackmun)
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To: RedBloodedAmerican
;-)
25 posted on 05/11/2004 8:24:24 AM PDT by Neets (The bottom of the ocean is reserved for Whale Feces...if the shoe fits, step in it.)
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To: Timocrat
I wrote a very hostile letter to the editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine demanding to know WHY their American edition is so filthy but British edition Cosmo isn't. Sex in the City was supposed to be liberating? GIVE ME A BREAK. I feel sorry for young people today. It's so blatant and in your face.
26 posted on 05/11/2004 8:25:46 AM PDT by cyborg
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To: ohioWfan
The same can be said of all Liberal groups like the Environmentalist, NAACP, Unions, MADD, etc. When the started they may have initially done some needed good, but then they went to far and now all the leaders care about is making themselves rich and they could give a rat's @ss about their members usefull idiots.
27 posted on 05/11/2004 8:49:17 AM PDT by qam1 (Tommy Thompson is a Fat-tubby, Fascist)
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To: cyborg
Sex in the City was supposed to be liberating?

Not necessarily -- I actually think it is subversively conservative. The irony of that show was that by the end of the series, all the girls had basically grown sick of their "glamorous" lifestyles, gotten married to a more-or-less normal guy, settled down, and started having children. At the beginning to the series, these girls were ultra-liberal Manhattan sluts, and by the end of the show they had all discovered that a much more conservative family-oriented lifestyle was their path to true happiness. No, they don't become bible-thumpers, but they all strongly gravitate toward more conservative family values as they realize it is their promiscuous ultra-liberal lifestyle that is making them unhappy.

I watched the show off and on over the years. I know the show is lambasted here regularly, but it was actually a slow motion deconstruction of the supposedly glamorous lifestyle of these women and how unhappy it actually made them. The story line was basically all four of those girls discovering how profoundly unhappy they were with their freewheeling, care-free city lifestyle, and finding real satisfaction in mundane tasks and building families.

I don't know if it is intentional, and you have to watch quite a bit of it to see the clear trend. For regular watchers of that show, I've seen positive influences on the way they think about such things, as it showed the real negative consequences of these women choosing to live the way they did.

In some ways, it is like South Park in that you won't see the subversive nature of it if you only see a small snippet of it and it will come across as profoundly liberal. But in the big picture, some clearly conservative ideas are being promoted as a common thread throughout the episodes.

28 posted on 05/11/2004 10:07:04 AM PDT by tortoise (All these moments lost in time, like tears in the rain.)
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To: Timocrat
You speak the truth. I have three sons and my advice to them on getting married is "Don't". Why engage in an activity where the risk of and price of failure for a man is so high. Stick to bungee jumping and rock climbing.

You're not making it easy for an 18-year-old who has recently escaped one sexual pitfall and wants to do the right thing now. *Smirks*

29 posted on 05/11/2004 10:17:13 AM PDT by Luircin (Saved by grace, only grace, purely grace, and very insistent grace)
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To: cyborg
Where are they? No matter how hard I try I can never find them.....

I agree with your assessment of the Feminism Movement. I am now at a point in my life where marriage would be more punitive than rewarding. All because of that friggin movement.....
30 posted on 05/11/2004 10:20:03 AM PDT by CSM (Vote Kerry! Boil the Frog! Speed up the 2nd Revolution! (Be like Spain! At least they're honest))
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To: qam1
feminism is a revolt of the parasites.

go to any shopping mall during the day. malls are full of women shopping while their husbands are working.

ditto, city parks, women playing tennis.

ditto, national parks, legions of women pull up in suv's with horse trailers, to go riding.

etc.

by late afternoon they're back on their sofas watching ophra's "oppression of women".
31 posted on 05/11/2004 10:22:11 AM PDT by no_problema
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To: Citizen Tom Paine
Visit a local nursing home. They are filled with women

Because the men worked themselves to death.

32 posted on 05/11/2004 10:51:51 AM PDT by Rytwyng (we're here, we're Huguenots, get used to us)
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To: Luircin
You're not making it easy for an 18-year-old who has recently escaped one sexual pitfall and wants to do the right thing now.

Parents have been known to give misguided advice and children to ignore it. My eldest son is a knock-off of Brad Pitt except he's into scuba, boxing and weight-lifting so is a bit beefier and he regularly ignores my advice, but not on marriage, so far!

33 posted on 05/11/2004 10:56:39 AM PDT by Timocrat (I Emanate on your Auras and Penumbras Mr Blackmun)
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To: qam1
I don't want to live to be 100

No worries, honey, since you've convinced everyone it's OK to kill babies if their birth is inconvenient it won't be much of a stretch to off gram once she becomes a burden. Reap the wind, sow the whirlwind..

34 posted on 05/11/2004 11:04:48 AM PDT by justanotherfreeper
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To: tortoise
they all strongly gravitate toward more conservative family values as they realize it is their promiscuous ultra-liberal lifestyle that is making them unhappy

Great realization, however, it's still not conservative enough. The "happy ending" of the series belies the fact that the "promiscuious ultra liberal lifestyle" often makes it difficult to impossible for women to transition to to family values when they are older.

Several reasons come to mind --
a)Most of the good guys of their generation will be taken.
b)Women who waste their youngest, best years slutting around may find that as they get older and try to settle down, they're no longer as attractive as they once were -- the few guys their own age who are still looking, now want younger women.
c) Fertility may be compromised by both advancing age and by the consequences of sluttery (abortion scars, STD damage).
d) Worst of all, having become psychologically attuned to wild adventures with dangerous jerks, they may find it almost impossible to settle down to with a stable, decent, "boring" guy of the sort they've been studiously avoiding all these years. In fact they may not even realize they need to make the switch, and instead of grabbing one of those nice guys they may go through the fires of hell trying IN VAIN to manipulate some wild, lawless jerk into settling down and being monogamous.

So even if women who follow the Way of the Slut, eventually figure out how wrong it is, often it's too late to have a "happy ending." It would be better advice to a woman, to attract the best husband you can get, while you're still young and attractive, and do your best to hang onto him.

35 posted on 05/11/2004 11:11:52 AM PDT by Rytwyng (we're here, we're Huguenots, get used to us)
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To: Rytwyng; no_problema; CSM
I hate to sound hypersensitive, but this is starting to sound a bit truly sexist.....

Perhaps you're using extreme hyperbole to make a point, but some of those observations start sounding a bit insulting and have little context (women at the mall?). Never mind implying it's all the woman's fault.
36 posted on 05/12/2004 7:30:16 AM PDT by the OlLine Rebel (Common Sense is an Uncommon Virtue)
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To: the OlLine Rebel
Perhaps you're using extreme hyperbole to make a point, but some of those observations start sounding a bit insulting and have little context (women at the mall?).

All based on my woeful experiences and observations as a nice guy trying to find a decent wife in California -- PARTICULARLY section (d) -- and observing the fates of the women who chose evil men instead of me and my friends. No hyperoble necessary.

In no way should that post be interpreted as an attack on all women -- far from it -- but in Lost Angeles, that post does probably describe the majority. Even among self-proclaimed, churchgoing "Christians".

Never mind implying it's all the woman's fault.

Well... my wife seems to think so! She thinks all those girls were crazy, and that I'm a great guy. And she is a great girl who in no way fits that negative description, either.

37 posted on 05/12/2004 8:11:16 AM PDT by Rytwyng (we're here, we're Huguenots, get used to us)
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To: the OlLine Rebel
Even among self-proclaimed, churchgoing "Christians".

On reflection, THAT probably IS hyperbole - but not as much as you might think. It might however be a statistical residue of the fact that many good women get snapped up at an early age and by ~30, the percentage of those still single is skewed in favor of the "Sex and the City" types.

Plenty of decent guys have asked these women out, hoping for a Christian relationship leading, if all goes well, to marriage --only to find themselves fending off seduction attempts after a few dates! ("But... we met in Bible study, I didn't expect her to throw herself at me!"). I had this happen more times than I care to count, and I'm currently counselling a guy who got blindsided by such a woman shortly after he got saved, and unfortunately gave into her.... sabotaged his spiritual life for 3 years before he broke free.

I've read your freeper profile and we've talked before -- I don't think YOU are one of these. THere's a couple others here (cyborg, rintense) that also come across as great women. In no way do I intend to slam you. In fact, the perfidy of these other women makes your sort look all the better by comparison. But, I am talking about real experiences when I make these rants -- as Rush puts it, "I don't make this stuff up!"

38 posted on 05/12/2004 8:22:38 AM PDT by Rytwyng (we're here, we're Huguenots, get used to us)
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To: Rytwyng
I understand your view, and thanks for the props. (Altho I am over 30 and not taken - yet, altho that may start to happen now, but that's another story. 1 of the reasons I'm not taken - "too picky"; I want interesting as well as moral conservative guys. Too many are too eh, boring to me.)

I certainly agree there are too many idiot women out there - but so are the men. Some are basically good people, but they're stupid. That includes the fact that they desparately want "love" or to have a girl/guy just so they can say they do (so they're not like me!), and will just take anything as long as s/he seems to hang around them. They get married at 23 and are divorced at 33 - so getting married on the younger side is not a sign either of great desirability or interest in marriage per se.

Anyway, I thought your post was pretty well reasoned but 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. They make choices, too, and aren't just commodities.
39 posted on 05/12/2004 11:17:59 AM PDT by the OlLine Rebel (Common Sense is an Uncommon Virtue)
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To: qam1
"But as long as the movement focuses on perceived threats to abortion, they've left our generation out in the cold."

Someone is catching on, albeit a little late.

The feminist movement has long been about hating men and all activities that involve men.

Patsy Ireland is quoted as saying that the mission of NOW was to encourage lesbianism among women.

40 posted on 05/12/2004 11:28:50 AM PDT by nightdriver
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