Gina, no, your and Billys comments about the butt oggling was fair enough. But to say that part of the fight was about women being proud of their bodies and not having to cover them up and then say but a 12 year old girl SHOULD be covered up because of dirty old men kind of makes my point.
I agree.....when I was trapped on the third floor of a burning building and the firefighter who came up the ladder was a MAN...a big burly man, I was relieved. I've terrified of heights and had that firefighter been a woman my size, she would have had to knocked me out to get me outta that building. Things have gone to far in some areas.
As women, for the most part, we have a totally different bone and muscle structure. There are some jobs that we, for the most part, are not physically capable of doing. And we, collective we, need to stop forcing our way into situations that endanger the safety of others so we can be "equal".
When I was coming up, women were supposed to be teachers, nurses or secretarys, but only until they married and had children. At 15 I started writing SPORTS for the local paper as a stringer. Not surprisingly, my very traditional mother had a harder time seeing my byline than did my very traditional father. Dad, by that time, had accepted that I was marching to my own drummer. I still embarass my mother.
When I first entered the advertising world, it was a MANS world and it was a major uphill battle. I was not hired for one job because I would have had to been a "brass balled lady bitch" to succeed in that market. The competition hired me and I was a star because I wasn't. Because I used the female stuff...the empathy, understanding, listening skills, etc, but NOT my physical attributes, to HELP the client. And, in those days it was a whole lot harder to be taken seriously because I was pretty...because I didn't look like someone who needed to work when I could have a man taking care of me.
When I had my tubes tied in 1980, I DID have to have my jerky husbands consent for the surgery. When a hormonal imbalance caused me to need a hysterectomy in 81 I had to have a SHRINK say that I was emotionally stable to make the decision to have it done.
As a young working mother I faced all the blasts of folks who thought a mother belonged at home with her children. So I did it ALL. I cooked, cleaned, canned, baked, did crafts, sewed, did
TA, sports, scouts, you name it, I did it, while holding down a full time job that can be pretty stressful. Because I had to prove that I was no less a good mother than the one who stayed home with her children. And I know that stay at home moms faced the same thing. Shortly after my second son was born I was at a DC party and at the time was home with my children. When asked what I did, I suddenly became a person not worth talking to because I was home with my children. So I got to see both ugly sides.
For me the fight was NEVER about being equal to a man....I LIKED my pedastil just fine, thank you very much.....but it was about being equally considered for a job that I was fully qualified to do, being equally compensated for doing that job and breaking ground for future generations of women so that they didn't believe that their ONLY choice to earn money was by working at Hooters.
And yeah, here I go really sticking my foot in it....it's gone too far. We are and should be mothers first. WE need to nurture the family, guide the children and be the moral compass of the household. And if WE can't do that while pursuing our career goals than we either shouldn't HAVE children or we should ramp back our career efforts during their formative years. Because children should not be raising themselves and that's whats happening these days. Because teachers shouldn't have to work in war zones of unruly children who don't know what the heck discipline is and who have parents who raise the roof if Johnny or Susie has to sit in detention for 15 minutes for punching another child in the face. Because kids should NOT think that the world owes them a danged thing...and too many these days do.
Both of MY sons are in their mid-late 20's. Both open the door for women, both give up their seats for women, both are polite and respectful of ALL people. But I darned near killed myself proving I could do it all. I don't want to see todays women do what I had to do, but gosh darn it, I would like to see them PARENT the children that they create.
So excuse me for being disappointed in the direction things have gone. Excuse me for being sad that young women STILL think they need to use their bodies to get what they want because they can make MORE money more quickly if they strip down. But am I judging them? No. I'm just saddened by them. I'm sad that a good fight went so wrong.
And THAT is just my old fart, judgemental (not) opinion. I own it and I'm entitled to it.