On March 19, 1911, more than one million women and men attended rallies, in a number of European countries, campaigning for women's right to work, vote, hold public office and generally end gender discrimination.This year's worldwide celebrations mark the global centenary year of that event. It also highlights the hundred-year marathon to gender equity.Current US Secretary of State and former First Lady Hillary Clinton once told an international women's conference that they should remember that "women's rights" are essentially "human rights."In my own modest attempt at researching some aspect of the French Revolution, I was a bit surprised to discover that women were not only at the forefront but, in fact, bore the brunt of the struggle.I was even more surprised to further discover that, despite their significant role in the revolution, it took them 150 years "to get the vote."Revolutions, as I understand them, are intended to champion "the rights of man" in lieu of the inequities of the social system and generally establishing some from of equality, albeit that they often end up making some "more equal than others."
In the specific case of the French Revolution, although the women were in its vanguard, I saw little evidence that they were eminent beneficiaries of the much-heralded "Rights of Man," which, to all appearances, didn't refer to "generic man" but for all intents and purposes amounted simply to the "rights of men."Incidentally, it's my own impression that "revolutions" have a way of eventually chewing at their own entrails and devouring their own children. It was therefore not so ironic that "equity among the sexes" wasn't long in coming as far as the infamous guillotine was concerned.
One of the best known women of the French Revolution, Manon Roland, exclaimed just before being guillotined, "Oh liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!" The irony is that the clarion call of the revolution was "Liberty, equality and fraternity."You're probably thinking by now: "But all that's 'old hat,' and what's the point of dwelling on ancient history?" Well, within living memory, a woman in Zimbabwe was apparently livid with rage as she nursed a sense of blatant injustice, because she was denied her entitlement to some inheritance, in favour of a male relative, based solely on gender consideration.
Unbelievably, the ruling of the Zimbabwe court read, in part, "Women are inferior, and that's official..." The woman claimed that she and other women like herself were part of the "freedom-fighting struggle" that resulted in Zimbabwe's independence. There was some silly reference to women being characterised as "junior males."Now, before one hastens to shrug this off with a "well that's Africa, so what else did you expect?" response, one might wish to consider that, in the United States, black men, who were considered "second class citizens," got the vote before women. That, I suppose, could have exposed women to the classification of "tertiary class." What a thing, as Denyse Plummer might say.
In more current times, women did not only have the vote in the US but were free to aspire to the very presidency-theoretically that is. Within living memory, Elizabeth Dole had resigned as president of the Red Cross to seek her party's nomination as US presidential candidate at the following election.Elizabeth Dole was an outstanding law student at Harvard and held high political office in two previous administrations. She was therefore unlikely to be found wanting as far as intellectual ability, stature and hands-on experience were concerned.
Having held senior cabinet positions in two previous administrations, with a brilliant academic and organisational record, Liddy Dole, as she was affectionately called, ought to have been a formidable presidential contender. One expected that she would have satisfied most presidential criteria.However, as presidential historian Clinton Rossiter averred, "according to an unwritten law, an aspiring US president cannot be, among other things, a Negro, a woman, an atheist or a freak (whatever that meant)."
I might point out that Rossiter developed his hypothesis many decades ago. Perhaps much has changed since, but to what extent the proverbial "glass ceiling" no longer obtains in respect of the US presidency is an open question.Shifting gear somewhat, I seem to recall that when the Indian Congress Party was once mired in internecine squabbles, Sonia Gandhi, Italian widow of India's assassinated Prime Minister and mother of his two children, was sent an SOS, in order to extract political mileage from the magic of the Gandhi name and legacy so the party bosses could save their miserable political skins.
An apparently very reluctant Sonia Gandhi relented and responded positively to the "call to duty and rescue mission." No sooner had Mrs Gandhi's intervention borne fruit and apparently stopped the precipitous political slide than some fellows with their eyes on the top post suddenly discovered, what was never a secret, that she was a woman and not even an indigenous Indian.Sonia Gandhi threw the cat among the pigeons when she withdrew and the repercussions were such among the ordinary people that she was prevailed upon to reconsider her withdrawal. It appears that the gender issue rears its head wherever political presidential honours are up for grabs.