Feet or Brains?

A few thoughts...

Close crop of a news photo. Instead of balancing on their toes all day, men walk in comfort.

Before 1920, we women could not vote. Slowly we are gaining ground at many levels, including the political arena, but not enough and not fast enough. "Over the course of our nation's history, we have had nearly two thousand men in the Senate--but only fifty women!" [Nevertheless She Persisted by Senator Amy Klobuchar] Despite progress in female political representation, a woman has yet to be elected to the highest office

A hundred years ago, many men believed "women shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about politics." The best option for our gender to gain power used to be through the men we "caught" and married. In those times, surface impressions were especially important for a woman's climb upward but today, in the 21st century, women seem to continue to seek power through outward appearances. 

I am talking especially about women's feet. We torture ourselves with our footwear choices. Why? Studies have shown that women get more positive attention from men when wearing stilettos.* This helps our self-esteem. We feel sexier because of how high heels make our legs look longer and how these shoes force our hips to move in an alluring way. There is also the additional height that brings us closer to eye-to-eye contact with men.

But this is at a cost to our spines and the health of our feet. Is it really worth it? Perhaps, instead of accepting what has long been the norm, we should work on changing universal perceptions.

Think about this. What man would go through this type of pain to attract attention? What man would sacrifice his feet for power? What man would wear stilettos and accept that it is necessary to be successful?

We women are at least as smart as men but our choices do not always show it. When it comes to raising ourselves up, stilettos only accomplish this on a superficial level.  It's about time we used our brains instead of our feet!

* For a much better perspective on this topic, readers should check out an informative and balanced article by Stacey Hutson. 

https://www.thelist.com/33317/real-reasons-women-wear-heels/

(Like all females, Bonnie Schupp once coveted very high heels as a teenager, looking forward to the sophistication and status associated with this footwear. After a short time, however, she concluded that she was not a masochist and does not own high heeled shoes. She has earned a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Liberal Arts and a Doctor of Communication Design. Her feet are happy.)

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Other articles you might want to explore: 

"Some female festival-goers were barred from the red carpet for wearing flat shoes. Mais naturellement – because in order to be truly chic, a woman should be hobbled and in physical pain from her footwear." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/20/heels-cannes-red-carpet-flat-shoes   

The Most Unfeminist Clothing in History. https://www.bustle.com/articles/158188-the-most-unfeminist-clothing-in-history 

The Fate of Women. http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-fate-of-women.html

Before the Ceiling Broke

My mother holds me in front of our row house. Girls in the 1940's grew up in a society with gender bias.

I was born twenty-four years after the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, granting women the right to vote. To witness a woman nominated today for the top position in our country, in our world, is amazing. It has taken a long time to get to this place. My world as a female has gradually changed over the years.

Some of my personal memories reveal this:

* As a little girl, I grew up playing the Old Maid card game. It wasn’t merely a game but was a reflection on attitudes at that time. For their birthday and other holidays, little girls were given gifts for their hope chest, real silver place settings — spoons, knives, forks — with patterns these little girls had chosen for their future marriage. Hope chest was an appropriate name because if they didn’t marry, they would be old maids, and every little girl hoped that would not be her fate.

* When I was ten, I announced that I wanted to be a doctor — a brain surgeon. As a result, my parents had a serious talk with me about how girls didn’t grow up to become doctors. They suggested that I might want to be a nurse or a teacher. They probably wanted their daughter to choose something that would be attainable.

* Often when girls asked serious questions, they heard this answer, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” This was usually followed with a paternalistic pat on the head.

* When I turned 12, my mother said I was old enough to wear thin, three-inch heels and I was ecstatic. I didn’t understand that for this power of standing taller and exuding an attitude, women give up comfort, damage their knees, hurt leg and foot muscles, risk sciatica, strain the neck and cause bone damage.

* When and if they did marry, in the wedding ceremony fathers gave daughters away to their soon-to-be husbands. Although most fathers did not think of their daughters as chattel, that attitude persisted in tradition. I remember going to a wedding and hearing the bride repeat that she would “honor and obey” her husband. I waited for the same words from the groom but they never came.

* Women then, and many today, gave up their last names to take their husband’s. They also gave up their first names in formal address. When I was a teenager, many girls wrote their boyfriends’ names on their school notebook covers, Mr. & Mrs. John Jenkins — over and over.

* When I went to college, there were special rules for girls but not boys, curfews for girls but not boys. We had a dorm mother who was responsible for making sure we followed the rules checked off by our parents: can walk into town, can visit friends off campus, etc. Girls also had a dress code for eating in the dining hall — only skirts or dresses, no pants. This was a college in a cold mountain area.

* After I started teaching, I played with the idea of going into the photography profession. In one interview, the business owner told me that there were some jobs he wouldn’t send a woman to photograph. I seem to remember it was about going up in a cherry picker to take photos from high up. He didn’t know he was talking to a woman who would jump out of a plane a few years later.

* When I left teaching to open a camera shop with a partner, I remember a female customer standing in front of me, ignoring me and looking all around. When I asked if I could help her, she responded, “I was hoping the man would be here to help me with my camera problem.” I tried to communicate what she had just done as I returned her camera that I had fixed.

Different Attitudes Then

* When I was five years old, polls were asking: “Do you think married women whose husbands make enough to support them should or should not be allowed to hold jobs if they want to?” The results: Should be allowed 24%, Should not be allowed 60%, Depends 13%.” (Roper)

* When I was six, another poll asked: “Do you think a married woman who has no children under sixteen and whose husband makes enough to support her should or should not be allowed to take a job if she wants to? Answers: Should be allowed 39%, Should not be allowed 43%, Depends 16%” (Roper)

At that time, it was okay for women to head a school’s PTA or a local Red Cross chapter, but it was not okay for her to enter politics. A woman’s place was in the home and not in the workplace in the 40’s. In this country, during my lifetime, women have been seen as weak creatures who need to be taken care of. Political office was too brutal. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” Because of a cultural division of labor, one’s gender predetermined one’s path in life.

Although it continues today, unequal pay for women who did jobs equal to men was especially prevalent. And, although it continues today, the rape culture was more of a problem then. Today, it is illegal for a husband to rape his wife but it was accepted years ago. Today we understand that rape has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with power.

Today

When Obama was elected, I naively breathed a sigh of relief and truly believed that was the end of racial bias. It was a huge moment. My husband and I wanted to go a local bar to be in the middle of this exciting time in history. However, all we found was business as usual. Instead of watching the celebration on the bar TV, we found the usual chitchat and patrons playing video games. Silly me to expect anything different. Until I was nine years old, schools were segregated. Although some things have changed, we still have a long way to go.

Today I’m not so naïve. Yes, we have a presidential candidate who was born 27 years after woman were guaranteed the right to vote. She grew up in the same world I did and she’s running for the highest office. If a woman is elected president this year, I understand that it won’t be the end of female bias. But it would be a huge leap forward.

When there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit. ~ Hillary Clinton, July 28, 2016 at the Democratic National Convention.

Mount Hope Cemetery: photo appears on City of Rochester, NY – Mayor’s Office Facebook page

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For further reading...

Roper polls:

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/public-perspective/ppscan/91/91047.pdf

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/public-perspective/ppscan/103/103026.pdf

Women political leaders worldwide:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0801534.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment

Despite years at attempts to pass the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), the issue died in 1982.

https://www.chatham.edu/centers/pcwp/research/pdf/APSA2011FillaLarimer.pdf

Interesting different leadership styles:

“Gender is also thought to impact the decision-making process. Scholars contend that male and female officials have uniquely different behavioral patterns when approaching group decision-making (Kathlene 1994; Kennedy 2003; Hannagan and Larimer 2010). Research finds that female leadership styles are more democratic, cooperative and more likely to produce outcomes close to the median group preference. Male leadership styles, by contrast, favor a more autocratic approach, seeking competitive individual gains from group decision-making (Eagly and Johnson 1990; Rosenthal 2000; Hannagan and Larimer 2010”

Some gender expectations dictate public perception of women in politics.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5734a3fce4b08f96c1825bbd

“Hillary Clinton, poised to become the world’s most powerful woman, stands out for not subjecting herself to such painful footwear. She mostly wears flats or close-to flats while campaigning. (And I should add that Arianna Huffington, my boss, is a self-proclaimed ‘flat shoe advocate.)”

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/why-wear-high-heels/

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/five-reasons-you-shouldnt-wear-high-heels-anymore.html

Day 114 Venus Envy

April 2, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

 

Jenna Boyles performed tonight at Venus Envy, at Gallery 788 in Baltimore.

Art energizes, inspires and stretches my perception, but an all-female show also adds an extra ingredient…rebirth. I attended an all-female art show tonight, Venus Envy, at Gallery 788 in Hampden. (I have an abstract photo hanging with the title "Climax.") This is a setting that gives permission for women to step out of their traditional role or preconceived expectations and to stretch the boundaries of how they are defined. Instead of allowing others to define us, we define ourselves and raise our middle fingers at those who object.

At last year’s Venus Envy exhibit, conceptual performance artist Jenna Boyles performed a dance with audience participation, holding stretched nylon stockings as she wove a dance. This year, she performed two conceptual pieces where in one, the audience held stretched nylon but this time it was weighted at the bottom. I liked this but was also intrigued by another dance where she used a fan to first blow pieces of newspaper against her body and then a sheer netted scarf flowed with the wind and her movement.  What mesmerized me was the interaction of the air current with the scarf, which alternated between revealing her fully or partially. Indeed, this mirrors women’s lives, which are sometimes revealed fully to the world and other times only partially revealed. When a woman is partially hidden, not only does the world see her incompletely, but also she sees life through a gauzy haze that separates her from the world. 

Maybe it is this female duality and the questions it sparks that fascinate me so much. Just how much of ourselves should we reveal? Is it best to put out everything in full view or should we always leave some layers beneath the surface? And, maybe more important, how do we respond to the fluid flow of air? Do we hide or do we stand in its path and dance with it? 

My gift today is a dance.

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> Day 115 Catching Bad

You can read my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Infidel and a Western Historical Perspective

I just finished reading Infidel and Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. As someone who has believed strongly in diversity and the strength of multi-culturalism, her ideas shake things up for me as a liberal. She was a Muslim Somalian who escaped an arranged marriage and who now lives in the U.S. Now she adamantly writes about the dangers of the mindset of the Muslim religion. 

This I need to consider further, but while reading her memoirs, I thought about the role of women as I was growing up and how some elements are similar.

As I read details of her childhood, I was appalled at the everyday violence she experienced and the degradation she was made to feel as a female.  No child should have to experience what she did. 

Women Unequal to Men

Although it is definitely no comparison to her extreme experiences, I grew up in a time when our culture in the United States did not consider women equal to men.

Hirsi Ali writes about female circumcision that she experienced and how important female purity was to the honor of a girl’s family. Once a girl reached puberty, she was guarded like a hawk. Of course, nothing as brutal as circumcision was present in my world, but I understand the essence of what she was saying because of my western experience growing up.

Once I reached puberty, my mother stressed that I was not to be alone with someone of the opposite sex…even when I was in college. (We once had a huge family crisis because I didn’t obey this rule.)  In those days, expectations for girls were different from boys. I remember when I was 10 and told my parents that I wanted to be a doctor—a brain surgeon. (At that time I was into reading all the medical articles in Readers Digest.) My parents sat down and talked with me seriously about how girls did not become doctors but nurses instead. Then, they suggested, maybe as a nurse I might see too much blood so maybe I should consider becoming a teacher or a secretary. Whether or not I went to college was okay with them. They would be proud of me either way.

College and Career

I had no intention of becoming a secretary but am glad I became a teacher. It really suited me better than a medical career.  (My parents were right but for the wrong reasons.) When it came time to choose a college, I decided to go far enough away that I would have to stay in a dorm. My parents tried to talk me into commuting…even offering to buy me a used car. Even then, I knew that my college education would involve more than academic classes and instinctively I knew I needed to go away to college.

I wound up going to Frostburg where, at that time of a teaching shortage in the state, I would have free tuition if I signed a contract to teach in Maryland for two years after I graduated. No problem.  Students today might have a problem understanding this but in those days, female students were treated differently from male students. The day I arrived at Frostburg, there was a special assembly for students and their parents. Dr. Hardesty, the president of Frostburg at the time and a buffoon as far as I was concerned, assured parents that the college would take good care of their daughters while they were away from home. His advice to students was, “Cling to your professors.” Although he wasn’t speaking literally, some of the girls wound up doing it literally.

Before parents left their daughters, they filled out a permission form. There was a list (I seem to remember 6-8  items) of things their daughters could or could not do while in the care of the college. For example:

     Yes___  No ___  My daughter has permission to visit a fellow student in town.

     Yes ___ No ___ My daughter has permission to spend the night off campus.

And so on. Being rather sheltered, my parents checked off “no” for all items but that didn’t matter because I found ways to do what I wanted anyway…and not be caught.

Some students today might be surprised that dorms then were segregated and boys were not allowed at all in girls’ rooms. Even more surprising is that girls had curfews and boys did not. Boys were allowed to live off campus but girls had to have a female “house mother.” In Infidel and Nomad, Hirsi Ali writes about how Muslim women must cover themselves for fear of sexually tempting men who might see any skin. When I was growing up, of course things were nowhere near extreme. However, girls were constantly reminded by their mothers of how to act as “young ladies.”  At Frostburg, girls were held to a dress code (but not the boys).  In my college days, students had meal tickets and ate in a dining hall. Girls could not wear pants but had to wear skirts for their college dining experience. 

Marriage

As a young girl, for my birthday and Christmas I usually got one gift that was an item for my “hope chest.” My hope chest was filled with a silver service, one fork, spoon or knife at a time. The “hope” was that I would find someone to marry me. Hirsi Ali writes about young Muslim girls being promised to older men—marriages that fathers arranged for. The men paid with goats, etc. and walked away with the promised goods… young wives who would bear many children, be at their command and tolerate new wives that they might marry.

I remember not long ago, weddings where fathers walked their daughters down the aisle. The minister asked who was “giving away” the bride. The father then turned the bride over to the groom.  The vows involved the bride saying that she would “love, honor and obey” her husband. At one time, the groom did not repeat these words but I think things may have changed now. However, it was the bride who always gave up her name, her identity, and took on her husband’s name. There was never any question about doing this. Today, even though things are changing, most women give up their names and take on their husband’s last name. 

Even today, when envelopes are addressed to a married couple, in the dwindling instances of snail mail, they are addressed to Mr. and Mrs. (husband’s first and last name). 

In the past, in marriage the woman was expected to fill certain roles while the man would fill his expected roles. My first husband once gave me for my birthday, ten coupons for washing the dishes for the next year! Gradually things are changing in this area. 

Hirsi Ali writes about the disgrace a family felt if a daughter was not married and how dangerous it might be if she were raped. She says there are still “mercy killings” every day in the world because someone’s daughter was raped. The woman is killed…not the man! It’s her fault if a man rapes her!

To a lesser extent, this attitude exists in the U.S. where  prostitution is illegal. When someone is arrested in a prostitution bust, it is the woman and not the man who is arrested. Even today. 

Later in my life, when I decided to leave teaching and (unsuccessfully) look for a photography position,  one man told me in an interview, “There are some jobs I just wouldn’t send a girl on.” I knew that was not the place for me to work. When I eventually opened a camera shop with a partner, I experienced lowered expectations of my expertise even from female patrons.*

Thank goodness, our culture has changed. I didn’t change my last name the second time around. Our daughter had a hyphenated last name. My second husband of 32 years and I are equal partners who fill not the expected roles but the roles that suit each of us best. 

Still Room to Grow

It is sad that there are so many Muslim women in the world, some in the U.S., are subjected to the rule of their husbands and who feel they must cover their bodies so men won’t be tempted. What about men taking responsibility for their own behavior? Haven’t we heard in the U.S. that some rapes are the fault of the woman because of the way she dressed? “She was asking for it.” Shouldn’t men behave themselves regardless? 

We might view the Muslim perspective as extreme but some of the same elements, in milder form, are also part of our culture. We have come a long way in our western world but we still have a way to go…we have not elected a female President yet. 

* I used to own a camera shop and, until I was able to hire some part-time employees, I was the only staff in the store. One day a woman walked in with a camera in her hand. I stood at the counter, ready to wait on her. She stood on the other side, ignoring me and looking toward the back of the store. I finally asked her, "May I help you?" She replied that she was hoping "the man" was in. It seems she had a problem with her camera and had assumed that only a man could help her. (By the way, I wound up fixing her camera which required a simple adjustment.)