Deborah Lipp

So, I hear it’s Blog Against Sexism Day. Kind of takes the bloom off the rose of yesterday’s post on Wiccan and Sexism. Now I have to start all over!

When I was a girl

• Women could legally be fired for getting pregnant.
• My stepfather told me that he didn’t like to hire women because they quit when they got married.
• Classified ads were divided by gender.
• Married women couldn’t open their own bank accounts.

So today, we have more rights. And believe you me, I am thrilled. We also have conservatives using the notion of a female Speaker of the House to try to scare voters. And supposed “liberals” like the New York Times spending more time discussing Nancy Pelosi’s fashion sense than has been spent discussing the clothing choices of all male Speakers in the history of the United States, combined.

We’re not done. We’re silenced. We’re objectified. We’re objects of fear and loathing because of our terrifying toothy vaginas. If we have sex, we’re sluts. If we don’t have sex, we’re frigid bitches. If we’re mothers, we should be treated like we don’t have sex although obviously we do, and we must never have sex again, because we’re full of the Pure Virtue of Motherly Goodness.

Once, around 1992, my friend threw a New Year’s Eve party, and I was dressed to the nines. Mini-skirt and fishnets with hot little ankle boots. I brought Arthur and put him to bed in my friend’s daughter’s room. He was always a restless sleeper so I curled up in bed with him (he was two) and sung him lullabies until he fell asleep. And I sort of saw myself from the outside, the skirt, the stockings, the baby, and I thought, This image of motherhood does not exist.

Until that image of motherhood is allowed, we are not done.