THANKSGIVING: The Freedom to Say I Am Not Yet Free

Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Peace Prize strikes a note for freedom in a world where equality is denied to women.  Not long ago I wrote a column addressing our daughters and grand daughters lack of awareness of the battles their mothers and grand mothers waged on behalf of equal rights for women.  Issues of gender equality and the principles of feminism are not discussed in working class, poverty-laden or conservative religious school and home environments.  While a fairly large percentage of teen girls in the U.S. begin using alcohol and become sexually active by the age of fifteen, few of these same girls understand how these behaviors can enslave them in a land where gender inequality exists.  Today, in the United States the halls of government, our corporations and financial strongholds and our religious institutions are male dominated.  Our daughters grow up hearing theirs is a free country and learn too late that the freedom that applies to men does not apply to women. With out reproductive freedom, gender equality cannot exist.  In the United States as in the world at large, it is the men who decide the fate of women.

When this column goes to press we will be days away from exercising our power to vote for the leaders who best reflect our deepest wants and hopes.

I talk with many of you throughout my day-to-day life.  Some of you are conservative, some liberal, and some moderate in your political views. I would guess, whoever you are, you’ve had sorrow visit your life.  I would guess you’ve probably had some health scares, some financial woes—worries about your folks or the kids.  Your grand daughter is trying to raise a child on her own.  Your dear friend got caught up in addiction and it’s taking her down. A neighbor or son was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and the co-payment for chemotherapy seems insurmountable.   There are many of you impacted by the increasing division between the poor and the wealthy in our society.  Each of us would like this world to hold a place for us where we are welcome, safe and have the potential to thrive.

For many of us without great wealth or the power that comes from wealth, there exists a sense we cannot easily effect change.  Even the candidates for office who decry the power of big money constantly seek financial contributions because it is only the almighty dollar that wins the race.  But your vote can make a difference even if your wallet cannot.  Voter turn out in the U.S. is abysmal.  But if ninety-nine percent of eligible voters show up at the polls and vote, the one percent whose money rules the world will not be able to buy power.    

I dreamed the generation of women following mine would embrace the gains made by their mothers and move further in the direction of equal rights for all people. The high cost of education and childcare inequitably affects women of childbearing age.  Women continue to receive less pay than men for the same work.  The unequal representation of women, by women in leadership roles results in laws repressive to women’s freedom to claim their own destiny in and out of roles of child bearing and child rearing.  Declaring oneself a feminist is now an unpopular stance.

I want to see women and men of faith resist a church/religion or belief system that keeps women from equality. All over the world and in every existing religion people are confronting these principles of inequality and creating churches and ways of living in relation to their beliefs that recognize woman as man’s equal.

Let’s give our girls—these emerging women—depth beyond the ability to attract men, have babies and raise children. Beyond teaching our daughters and granddaughters to be devout, attractive, homemakers, child-bearers and nurturers let’s teach them the history of women in the world.  Let’s urge them toward independence and self-sufficiency and give them equality along with the potential to be second to no one.  When equality is achieved a woman has the freedom to choose for or against abortion, for or against childbirth, birth control, adoption, divorce, marriage, education and employment.  As with the remarkable Malala, women are putting their lives on the line for freedom. We cannot effect change without letting our voices be heard.  Our vote is our voice.   In this month of Thanksgiving, let us raise our voices in praise of our hard won freedom to vote.