This past election has illuminated a number of painful realities for our country that unfortunately are even mirrored in Cook County. The sexism manifested in our campaign rhetoric has sent distressing messages to our wives, sisters, and daughters about how they and their efforts are valued in our society. That bragging about sexual assault can be dismissed as “locker-room talk” conveys that viewing women as sexual objects is still a dominant paradigm. When men are ambitious and trying to change things, it’s viewed as admirable, but those same behaviors from women are viewed at best as less credible; at the worst suspect. How many women have sat in meetings where their ideas are solicited secondarily or somehow taken more credibly if a man says the same thing? I recently listened to women, whose mistreatment would be dismissed as minimal compared to what was bragged about, still in tears over how they were demeaned decades before. As a man, it would never occur to me to be on guard for sexual assault when walking into a parking ramp at night, yet for women, that vigilance is constantly necessary. The constant commentary on clothes and whether she “looks presidential” expose the truth that Ginger Rogers observed about having to do everything Fred Astaire did “but backward and in highheels.”
The disillusionment as women tearfully watched Hillary’s concession speech could easily diminish their passion and vitality to accomplish things. I recall a painful example where a woman with an M.B.A., a long history of entrepreneurial success and a 10-year business plan could not get financing for her business. So she hired a man for $100 an hour, and despite him having no knowledge or expertise of the business and presenting the identical proposal, the financing was approved in an hour. I originally was intending to address a Cook County governing board’s recent examples of sexism, but was admonished to follow Hillary and Michelle’s admonition to “take the high road.” While I admire the integrity of women taking the more enlightened path against institutionalized bigotry, I’m left wondering how these problems are ever corrected if not fully exposed. “There is simplicity to the brutal truths of the merciless, that the more complicated truths of the merciful are helpless to refute.” The complicated truths of “taking the high road” will not change the simple brutality of congenital sexist prejudices unless we as men address these issues head-on. If we are concerned about our wives, sisters, and daughters and are truly believing there are no glass ceilings we need to transform our consciousness. Feminism is ultimately about human liberation!
Randy Voeks
Tofte
Leave a Reply