Quebec license plates read "Je m'souviens". Yes, je me souviens but je n'ai rien appris...
Listening to Judy Erola and Monique Begin on "The House" last Saturday was an act of remembering. They remember. But those who remember are often themselves forgotten. Remembering is so selective. I remember Begin as MInister of Health. But I don't remember Erola. And then I remember the energy and anger of the Charter discussions. History was on our side. Women long denied would no longer be ignored... so on and so forth.
Women today enjoy the 'liberation' we fought to hard for but they also have the burden made worse because they don't remember - if they were ever told. Young women don't remember that the world is not welcoming. They don't know that their worldly success is like - to use that worn expression, like lipstick on a pig - remarkable and not long from bacon.
Women today have opportunities for work outside the home which did not exist thirty years earlier. BUT... as Erola (or Begin) pointed out, women today believe, oh yes they know!, that any career success is personal - a testimony to their individual talents, energy and hard work .. and thus they accept any failure as personal. Sadly, few young women understand that success, like failure, is social. I doubt many have bothered trying to understand what is meant by the slogan "The Personal is the Political".
A friend said that we feminists of the 1970's and '80's do not remember the Suffragettes ... while that may or may not be true, two wrongs would not make it right - or easy. Women today might by remembering find their successes and failures easier to understand and to accept...
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