Myth America

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I think the origin of the phrase "women's liberation" can be traced back 50 years, maybe more, but it may not have been widely used until this day in 1968 (I was a child in 1968 so there are certain to be things of which I knew little and understood even less).

Forty–five years ago today, hundreds of women staged a protest in Atlantic City, N.J., home of the annual Miss America Pageant. They were protesting what they saw as the meat market atmosphere of the pageant.

And women's liberation joined all the other groups of that day that demanded to be treated better than they had been treated up to that time. As I say, I was just a child, but the logic of the argument did not escape me. My parents had always taught my brother and me that a principle upon which this nation was founded was simply this — all citizens should be treated the same.

Now, at a time when there were protests for and against just about everything by just about everyone, it was necessary to stand out in some way. As much as it was anything else, the '60s was a very theatrical decade, and you had to be entertaining to gain attention. The protest at the Miss America Pageant found its dramatic hook — so to speak.

Into a barrel labeled "Freedom Trash Can," the protesters dumped such symbols of domestic oppression as makeup, pots, mops, high heels, girdles, false eyelashes — and bras, lots and lots of bras.

But, contrary to what rapidly became urban legend, the trash can's contents were not set ablaze.

(I will admit that, as a writer, I appreciate the dramatic side of that tall tale. But that doesn't change the fact that it simply is not true.)

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That was what mainstream America thought, however, and "bra burning" became synonymous with the women's liberation movement.

I heard the phrase, but I had little idea what it meant. I only knew that the idea seemed alien and, in some ways, frightening to the adults in my world. Actually, fire was a frightening thing for me as well. It was frightening for anyone who had seen uncontrolled fire — and you could see it on the news every night — although I have to admit that I didn't fully understand things from the adults' point of view. Now that I am an adult myself, I think I can understand the confusion my parents, my grandparents and their peers felt.

They had seen the war protesters burning their draft cards so the idea had some legitimacy. They had just witnessed riots in the streets at the Democrats' national convention in Chicago; a few months earlier, they had seen race riots in nearly every major American city following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

It was a confusing, frightening time in America. Traditional roles — gender, racial, you name it — were under assault. Those roles may have been — well, they were — based on unfair stereotypes, but they gave most Americans a guide for who they were and what their role in the culture was.

I don't have a vivid memory of the things my elders said, but my impression was that they were fearful of the violence, the aggression — and, also, probably, the threat posed to that social yardstick — that was implied by the idea of women burning their bras in protest. It was almost as if women were seen as the last friendly, traditionally nurturing demographic group in America. If the idea of their violent revolt was true, no hope was left.

And that is all it was, really — an idea, an idealized image, not a fact.

As I say, there were other items that were trashed during the protest, but nothing was burned. No fires were started.

In fact, according to the story I heard, that whole rumor started when a reporter who was covering the protest compared (I presume in conversation with other reporters) the women protesters to Vietnam War protesters burning their draft cards.

And a myth was born.

Nevertheless, I can remember hearing my mother, my grandmothers and the other women of their generations speak disapprovingly of what they thought was going on in Atlantic City.

After the fact, I wondered if, secretly, my grandmothers and the women of their generation weren't a bit envious of those younger women who were asserting themselves so publicly, perhaps expressing what my grandmothers and their friends had long believed but had never had the nerve to say.

My grandmothers were young when American women won the right to vote, and they may have thought that was as much liberation as they could expect in their lifetimes. Then, as they were approaching the end of their lives, the younger generation was doing things my grandmothers never would have dreamed of doing.

The times really were a–changing.

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PDQ Bachmann

The last presidential election demonstrated rather vividly that growing portions of both political parties are embracing the idea of electing a woman to the executive branch of the federal government, as either president or vice president.



On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton was narrowly beaten for the presidential nomination by Barack Obama in a race that came to be seen by many as a battle between historical guilt trips, misogyny and racism. And, on the Republican side, of course, Sarah Palin became the first woman nominated by the GOP for vice president.



But each party wants different things from its female candidates — and will tolerate nothing less from the other side. And both continue to hold female politicians to expectations they would never impose on men. In that regard, I suppose, women continue to be subjected to a political double standard if not a societal one.



As far as they have come in my lifetime — and that includes occupying seats on the Supreme Court, traveling in space, acting as diplomats on behalf of the United States and serving as speaker of the House — women are still expected to do things that no man is expected to do — like remain young and attractive long after it is natural for anyone to be young and attractive.



In our highly visual age, appearances have taken on more influence than ever before, but men are not subjected to anything like the scrutiny that women are. Gray hair on a man is seen as distinguished; it is a sign of advanced age in a woman. A few extra pounds have seldom stood between a man and electoral victory; on a woman, they can be politically fatal.



I suppose that accounts for the reaction to Newsweek's unflattering photo of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann on its cover.



Such negative stereotypes are offset, to a degree, by positive ones — such as the image of nurturer and healer — that make the idea of electing a woman president an appealing one for so many in these troubling times. They see a dysfunctional political system that needs a "woman's touch" after being taken to the brink of catastrophe too many times in recent years.



In Republican circles, Palin had that market cornered for a long time because she was really the only female whose name was being bandied about. But things have changed. While Palin has been motoring around the country, Bachmann jumped into the 2012 race and won yesterday's straw poll in her home state of Iowa — and some are wondering if Palin's moment in the spotlight has ended. She is supposed to reveal her 2012 plans next month.



(Personally, I would think that Palin — if she really does intend to run for president, and I am inclined to think she will not — would not mind relinquishing the spotlight for awhile.)



It's made me think about expectations, cliches and modern "firsts" in the American presidency in ways I never did before.



There is a desperation in people's expectations these days, I believe, born in part from a certain amount of disappointment in the policies of the current administration. Many of the president's supporters seem content to give him the benefit of the doubt — and additional time for these saplings to bear fruit. But not everyone, particularly the unemployed, is so generous — and patient.



This president was symbolic, of course, because of his race. He was the first black president. Whatever history may ultimately say about his tenure in the Oval Office, he will always be the first black to be nominated for — and elected to — the presidency.



When a female becomes president, she will be the first of her gender — and therefore will be symbolic as well.



Such distinctions may have made Barack Obama — and may someday make the first female president — sensitive (and vulnerable) to allegations of favoritism or preferential treatment. The religious issue presented similar challenges for John F. Kennedy half a century ago.



My experience is that, after a certain point, most historic "firsts" in the American presidency became isolated, no matter how successful the groundbreaking president may have been, and that the second of whatever it is hasn't come along rapidly.



Kennedy, of course, was the first Catholic to be elected president. He wasn't the first Catholic to be nominated, but he was the first in more than three decades. As president, his job approval ratings never fell below 56%.



Well, it's been more than 50 years since Kennedy was elected and nearly 50 since he was assassinated, but America still has not elected its second Catholic president. Catholics have sought the nomination, including JFK's younger brothers, but only one has been nominated for the presidency.



That's three Catholic presidential nominees in 83 years.



This applies to the vice presidency, too. Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman on a Democratic ticket. There have been half a dozen Democratic tickets since then, and none of the nominees was a woman.



I strongly doubt that Bachmann will be nominated in 2012, but if Republicans really are strongly considering nominating a woman for president, it may be largely because they and the voters who support her believe the kind of healing and nurturing the nation and its economy need can only be provided by a woman.



To meet the unrealistic expectations of the voters, that woman would need to revive this economy P.D.Q. — in an era long before texting, that was a well–known abbreviation for "pretty damned quick." Given the dire forecasts from economists, that doesn't seem likely.



With unemployment stuck in the 9% range and the stock market bouncing back and forth like a tennis ball, the experiment with a black president (whether it is acknowledged as such or not) may come to be widely regarded as a failure, and it may be as long before America elects its second black president as it has been between Catholic presidents.



Even if Barack Obama turns things around and manages to win re–election, my gut feeling is that it will be decades until another black candidate is nominated for the presidency. If he is replaced with a woman — Bachmann, Palin or someone else — this economy may prove too stubborn for her, and the next female presidency will be a long time coming as well.



I don't know what to expect in 2012. There are times when I think Obama is on the verge of righting the ship and really living up to the standards he set for himself and the nation — but then he does something that tells me that my original conclusion, that he is in over his head, was the correct one.



Sometimes, though, presidents rise to the occasion.



And if there is anything of which I am certain, it is that the next president, whoever he or she turns out to be, must rise to the occasion.



Or he/she seems likely to be the last American president.

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Twisting Slowly in the Wind

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There have been many tragic stories coming from Egypt in recent weeks, but the most tragic may well have been the report of the sexual assault and barbaric beating of CBS correspondent Lara Logan.

Reports of attacks on foreign journalists have been fairly common, but Caroline Glick writes, in the Jerusalem Post, that "the most egregious attack ... took place ... when ... Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and brutally beaten by a mob of Egyptian men."

I can't argue with that.

CBS, Glick goes on to say, "took several days to even report the story, and when it did, it left out important information. The fact that Logan was brutalized for 20 to 30 minutes and that her attackers screamed out 'Jew, Jew, Jew' as they ravaged her was absent from the CBS report."

Glick tells a tale of journalistic cowardice and misogyny that makes the attack on Logan seem virtually inevitable, and she begins her column with the bewildered questions that many people no doubt were asking after word of the attack began to spread:

"The Western media have been unanimous in their sympathetic coverage of the demonstrators in Egypt," Glick writes. "Why would the demonstrators want to brutalize them? And why have Western media outlets been so reticent in discussing the significance of their own reporters' brutalization at the hands of the Egyptian demonstrators?"

Such questions distract from the facts. This wasn't some kind of uncontrolled response to persecution. The mob wasn't angry about unfavorable representation in the media. What happened to Logan was a crime, and the people who were responsible should be treated like criminals. No one should justify their acts because their acts cannot be justified.

I am reminded of a scene from the Jack Lemmon–Sissy Spacek film "Missing," in which an American has disappeared during a coup in Chile and his father, played by Lemmon, and his wife, played by Spacek, try to find him.

Lemmon believes his son must have done something to lead to his arrest, and he keeps asking people to tell him what it was. Then a native scoffs at the idea. "You Americans," he says, "you always assume you must do something before you can be arrested."

"Isn't that the way it usually works?" Lemmon asks.

"Not here," the man replies.

And that isn't the way it works in Egypt, either. I've read many reports on the attack on Logan, and I have found not a single word that suggests that she was doing anything other than her job when she was attacked. Meanwhile, the men who did this to her have been protected, their faces blurred to hide their identities in broadcasts of videos showing Logan with her assailants just before the assault.

Here in America, there are still people who think a woman brings such an assault on herself, usually by dressing and/or behaving provocatively. But even if Logan was wearing a short, tight skirt and a low–cut blouse and grinning suggestively at the men who attacked her, that would not make what was done to her all right — by any stretch of the imagination.

Logan's attack presents an ugly picture, and it tells a twisted and shameful tale of media coverage in foreign lands. Many foreign journalists have been intimidated by their treatment in the Middle East, and they have been eager to avoid rocking the boat.

The absence of courage among Western journalists has been, to use the most charitable term possible, disappointing.

But what this says about the treatment of women is, if anything, even worse, because it isn't the kind of thing that is confined to Egypt or other places teetering precariously between freedom and repression. The subjugation of women is often tolerated in supposedly free nations.

In essence, journalists (who have always been willing to risk their lives to bring the news to their readers and listeners — but who could usually count on a certain amount of support and protection from their employers and governments in return) are being left to, in the words of Nixon aide John Ehrlichman, "twist slowly in the wind."

That may be an unfamiliar sensation for many journalists. But the women in their ranks have long felt that way in Egypt and elsewhere.

What happened to Logan may yet yield some good things because it shines the spotlight on the appalling treatment of women in Egypt. As Jeff Jacoby writes in the Boston Globe, "Perhaps the most shocking thing about the despicable sexual attack on CBS correspondent Lara Logan ... is that to those who know Egypt, it wasn't shocking at all."

Nearly three years ago, the BBC reported that 83% of Egyptian women — and nearly all foreign visitors — had been subjected to some form of sexual harassment. The BBC called it "Egypt's cancer."

Mary Rogers wrote about sexual harassment at CNN.com nearly four months ago.

While I'm on the subject, a good place to begin moving past the "socially acceptable bigotry" (in Glick's words) that is permitted to exist would be to start calling that attack what it was.

I don't mean to insert a note that is too frivolous for the subject, but I have long been a fan of the late George Carlin — and I particularly enjoyed his observations about language.

Carlin didn't care for euphemistic language. He said Americans had invented a "soft language" to help them avoid dealing with reality, and he was right. Sometimes, as he pointed out, the euphemisms were fairly innocuous — like saying "bathroom tissue" instead of "toilet paper." No harm, no foul, right?

But sometimes euphemisms are used to hide really ugly truths, and this case seems to be loaded with euphemisms like that.

If Logan was sexually assaulted (by approximately 200 men, I have heard) and the attack went on for 20 or 30 minutes, she was raped.

I know the Wall Street Journal disagrees with that. The Wall Street Journal, quoting an unnamed source, insists that she was not raped. But could such a thing really be possible?

"Sexual assault" sounds like it was not as bad as it almost certainly was. It makes it sound like it involved everything but penetration (which wouldn't be particularly good, either, but some people could use that distinction to minimize what happened).

It sounds to me like the attackers were in a frenzy. How many blows would have been required to render Logan unconscious and then strip the clothes from her body? Are we supposed to believe that her attackers suddenly stopped after fondling Logan and said to each other, "Stop! We can go no farther. We are already guilty of sexual assault. If we go past this point, it will be rape."

Let's call it what it was — rape.

Even if, technically, only one of Logan's attackers committed the rape. Or two. Or three.

Wouldn't anyone who stood by while someone else committed a rape be guilty of, at the very least, being an accessory?

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know the fine points of the law so I could be wrong. But it would be consistent.

See, "sexual assault" is rather broadly defined and is often used interchangeably with "rape." But "sexual assault" could mean a lot of things.

"Not all sexual harassment is physical," Jacoby writes. "[B]esides groping women's bodies, grabbing at their clothing, and indecent exposure, it can also include blatant ogling, sexual catcalls, and stalking."

And, for the "I'm–too–sexy–for–my–shirt" naysayers, Jacoby has this: "More than half the Egyptian women reported being molested every day. And contrary to popular belief, most of the victims were wearing modest Islamic dress."

Different jurisdictions have different definitions for rape — or statutory rape. And they don't necessarily have to include intercourse. Even if Logan was not violated (which I still find doubtful), her assailant(s) could be charged with rape.

The sight of Egyptians protesting against their corrupt government certainly was stirring for many pro–democracy types, including those who aren't especially worried about whether freedom really is inclusive.

But, as Miranda Devine writes in Australia's Herald Sun newspaper, a free Egypt will mean nothing to its women ...

... And it will mean even less to its foreign visitors.

Surely, there must be some way for justice to be served — and for Egypt's newfound freedom to have real meaning.

Let's stop hiding behind words. Let's say what we mean and mean what we say.

And let's take a resolute stand against this kind of behavior, wherever we find it.

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