Marla Parker's Weblog

Time Warp
On Wednesday, a dear friend of mine, from the 1970s, sent me a link to I'm Tired of Voting For Men and wrote:

Whatever happens, I still believe that women in positions of leadership are important. Whether you support Hillary or not, isn't it great to see a WOman competing - and STICKING to it - for President of the United States.

Then on Thursday, the very next day, I received a link to Sexism, women and IT (Information Technology), a blog by a highly respected Java developer, Yakov Fain. This is his blog on the JDJ site, Java Developer's Journal[tm], the World's Leading Java Resource.

If the first blog, tiredofvotingformen, makes any sense to you, then the second probably will not. The second blog is not a spoof, by the way. He is completely serious, and in case you jump to the conclusion that he lives in some backwards country where women are still legally treated as property, if you google him you'll see that he works in New York. More importantly, he is completely sincere and, in a weird way, almost innocent.

If the second blog, sexism, makes sense to you, then the first one will seem quite silly. But to you I say: get educated. Because I assure you, the tiredofvotingformen blog represents the future, and dear Yakov's blog represents the past. Clearly not a past that is as dead as some of us would like it to be. Some of us. Don't kid yourself by wishing it were "most of us." (Where is that Feminism Consciousness Raising 101 Reading List reference when you need it, anyway? I think I misplaced it a few decades ago, oops.)

Langston Hughes certainly said it best, and beautifully, in 1938:

O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be!

OK, so not even Hughes makes reference to women but I still think the above quote is the best I've heard to crystallize the idea that we have a great idea for a democracy, and we may be doing a better job of it than anyone else in the world, maybe, but the world we live in is really still a lot more like a feudal system of patronage and privilege than it is any sort of egalitarian democracy.

Hughes asks: Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

Although I'm fortunate enough to be one of the privileged in this wannabe America, I'd still like to send this answer to heaven for Langston Hughes: I am the woman.