The emotional argument

Yesterday, while I was chatting with the Maine Public Radio reporter -- female, well-educated, well-respected, feminist -- who was interviewing me about my new book THE BELLWOMEN (see www.marjoriestockford.com), she made a comment I hate to hear, especially from someone like her. She senses that people, maybe even including herself, don't really care if women at the highest levels of companies are treated fairly in the workplace. I guess the thought goes, They're already making tons of money, who cares if they are making any more, the woman to worry about is down in the trenches being paid $1 less an hour than her male counterpart.

I get it, of course, at a certain level. Of course, the woman down in the trenches is in a much tougher spot, and she certainly deserves that buck an hour, it's going to mean a lot more to her than Ms. Junior Exec on the top floor of a Wall Street skyscraper. It's an emotional argument -- that lower class woman elicits our sympathy and, yes, our guilt, emotions that just aren't in play when we think of any top American executive.

But that's the whole problem with this debate about women's equality. It shouldn't be about emotions, it should be about fairness, about rights. The point isn't that Ms. Junior Exec is doing just fine for herself, it's that she's not being treated fairly. And until women are treated fairly, equally, in all aspects of American society, bottom, top and middle, we will never share power in making decisions and running the world we live in.

This isn't the only place where emotions or, better, soft and fuzzy words are used to undermine the feminst fight. Society loves to couch feminism in "choice" -- the accomplishments of feminists have given all women a choice: they can now choose to work or stay home, have a child or an abortion, vote or abstain. Of course, this is true, I enjoy these choices and am happy to have them. But it's a slippery slope -- if it's just a choice, it's optional, it's not written into law, it can be given or taken away. Factually, we know of course that we don't just have the choice to do these things, we have the legal right. But it makes everyone -- well, almost everyone -- feel so much more comfortable if they see it in those softer terms of choices. It's a feel good kind of thing, which is fine until those "choices" disappear or get compromised and there will be a lot of us who won't feel so good any more.