Meanwhile: The year
in setbacks for women
By Ellen Goodman,
Opinion iht.com from the Web, August 26, 2007
This Sunday, we Americans will gather
once more to pay homage to our foremothers by celebrating the Aug. 26
anniversary of the passage of suffrage. What a year it's been since we
last met. We've seen the first woman speaker of the House, the first woman
president of Harvard University, and who can forget Bill Clinton, striving to
become the first "first laddie"?
Nevertheless, we continue our time-honored tradition, celebrating this day by
announcing the cherished Equal Rites Awards to those who have labored over the
last 12 months to set back the cause of women. As always, our one-woman
committee worked hard to sift through all the candidates. Thus, without
further ado, the envelopes please:
We begin by looking to Japan where Shinzo Abe's government wins the Knights in
(Tarnished) Armor Prize. There, the prime minister refused to apologize
for the Japanese Army's use of "comfort women" as sexual slaves in World War II.
That was after his health minister called women "baby-making machines." We
send the land of the rising sun a sunset clause.
What can we give the winner of this year's International Ayatollah Award?
Our man is Ezzat Attiya, the creative Egyptian cleric who issued a fatwa saying
that there was one way around the religious taboo against unmarried men and
women working together. Women can breast-feed their male co-workers and
legally become family. We would offer Attiya a special breast pump to
accompany his fatwa, but we don't want him to milk the idea.
Ah, but in some pockets of the Middle East, there is progress toward gender
equality. Take Iran, winner of our Dubious Equality Award. Why, just
last month a man was stoned to death for adultery. We send the judges
there an engraved citation for equal brutality.
Unfortunately, we must return home to the United States for the Patriarch of the
Year Prize. It goes with disappointment to U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Anthony Kennedy, whose opinion restricting abortions rested on the retro notion
that women needed to be protected from "regret," "grief," and "sorrow," even if
it meant protecting them from their rights. We send the paternalistic
justice a hook to bring him back to the 21st century.
So many judges, so few blindfolds. The Blind Justice Award is winging its
way to Carson City, Nevada, District Judge Bill Maddox. While sentencing a
man on kiddie porn charges, he opined: "It's my understanding that most
men are sexually attracted to young women. ... I mean women from the time
they're one all the way up until they're 100." That blindfold should be
placed carefully over his mouth.
Sex, crime, and politics? Our Fashion Victimizer Award goes to The
Washington Post's Robin Givhan for looking deeply into Hillary Clinton's V-neck
shirt and finding cleavage -- EEEK! -- which she labeled a "teasing display" and
a "provocation." For fashionbabbling without a license, we send her a chic
uniform: Paris Hilton's orange jail jumpsuit.
Now for the Desperate (To Get) Housewives Prize. This goes to the British
researchers who report that housework reduces the risk of breast cancer.
For urging women to scrub their way to better health, we offer them the dustbin
of history.
Doctors, doctors, everywhere. Our Male-Practice Award goes to the former
surgeon general, Richard Carmona, who belatedly confessed to toeing the White
House line on abstinence-only education while knowing it was bunk. We give
him a Post-it for his new life: Just Say No.
Our Post-Feminist Prize goes to Money magazine for its financial advice on how
to close the pay gap: Marry rich. Money offered an investment manual
on how to be the wife -- first, second or trophy -- of a gazillionaire.
They say "wear small diamond earrings." We say watch out for the prenup.
If you cannot marry money, send it up in smoke? The Marketing
Ms.-Adventures goes to the ever-deserving R. J. Reynolds. This time, it is
selling Camel No. 9, a cigarette with the aura of Chanel in a black package
trimmed in fuchsia or teal. Our prize is an elegant coffin nail, colored
pink.
Finally, we rest our hopes in the next generation. Sort of. The Our
Bodies/Our Daughters Award goes to Mattel. The folks who brought you
Barbie are collaborating on a new line of make-up -- for 6- to 9-year-olds.
For this we award them and all their ilk a special cosmetic for the next year:
egg on their face.
Ellen Goodman's column appears regularly in The Boston Globe
Article also published in thnt.com
NJ.
|
