Elizabeth Warren was Fired for Being Pregnant

It was common practice to punish women for being mothers while holding a job. It still is.

Photo by Ryan Franco on Unsplash

Because we’re the only gender with wombs, women hold an odd place, even in modern-day culture. We’re expected, if not required, to bring children into the world above all else, even when pregnancy isn’t wanted, is inconvenient, or is dangerous. But once we’re pregnant, or mothers — or even women of child-bearing age — we become suspect in the workplace.

Suppose we have children whose needs might come first? What then? How does that jibe in a profit-motivated system where worker bees are required to work their asses off in order for their employers to make buckets full of money? What has to come first, the job or the kid? In this system, it’s the job. It’s always been the job.

I have no idea if Elizabeth Warren planned her pregnancy way back when she was a teacher, but I do know for a fact that she could be fired once her pregnancy began to show. I also know for a fact the reason for the firing would never be listed on paper as “pregnancy”.

The ignorance of those GOP “fact-checkers” looking for a record of Sen. Warren’s claims — that she was fired for having a child — is astounding. There is no record. Of course there is no record.

When I was a kid in school in the 1940s and 1950s, our female teachers were always known as “Miss”. If they were married, we couldn’t know it. If they became pregnant, we couldn’t know it. Why not? Because, while male teachers could have families and could even talk about them, female teachers had to appear asexual. No one wanted impressionable children to be thinking about female teachers having sex.

They had dress codes. They were walking, talking text books with no life outside the classroom. When one of them suddenly disappeared in the middle of a semester, we weren’t told they were on maternity leave, we were simply told a new teacher would be taking their place.

When I was in high school in the early 1950s, two of our teachers were married to each other. That was so unheard of we never stopped talking about it. To us it was kind of…delicious. And subversive.

But it wasn’t just teachers. Women with children were discriminated against in every work place. Women with children were a liability. Their loyalties would never lie with their jobs as long as there were children at home. Children get sick, they need care, they need nurturing. They are a distraction when the clock is ticking, the work piles up, and their employer makes demands that require a Hobson’s choice.

It’s never easy for mothers to put their best into outside jobs. Women with good paying jobs can afford good child care. Women with crap jobs paying too little aren’t so lucky. But every mother faces those days when their jobs demand their attention but their children need them even more.

Women need to be mothers first. That’s a fact. It’s also the excuse employers make to keep women down. Women have always been behind men in work pay, and the reason, often spoken out loud, is because women can’t devote as much time or attention to their jobs. Never mind that not all women are mothers, or that not all women still have children at home. They’re shoved into the same box because it’s convenient — because god forbid men ever have to acquiesce to the notion that women might be their equals.

You may have noticed that no woman has ever been President. It’s a big deal every time a woman wins a job over a man, no matter the title. Being a woman in a “man’s job” is a liability that we should have gotten over long ago, but there are still far fewer women in government than there are men. That isn’t going to change until attitudes change, and as long as the GOP holds the cards, that’s not likely.

When it comes to motherhood, America is a bastion of hypocrisy. Half the people in our country think there’s nothing wrong with forcing women to carry a fetus to term, sending the message loud and clear that their own ambitions will always have to take a back seat to motherhood.

At the same time, there are forces working inside our government to take away any protections families, including single mothers, might need to care for their children. Cuts in everything from health care to food stamps to housing allowances makes the children of those struggling families vulnerable. Our government refuses to take care of the children born to women who have few or no resources. Our government refuses to even see them.

But that will all change if a woman becomes President. Can Elizabeth Warren break that glass ceiling? Or Kamala Harris? Or Amy Klobuchar? The question now is, are we ready for a woman president?

I know. It’s a silly question. Of course we’re ready. We’re long past ready.

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(Cross-posted at Medium/Indelible Ink)

When Maureen Dowd Lost Hillary Clinton

In the latest chapter in Maureen Dowd's never-ending story of the Clintons, "When Hillary Clinton Killed Feminism",  the long-time New York Times columnist builds her case in the only way Maureen seems to know how: by putting thoughts into Hillary's head and words into Hillary's mouth.. 

Even after all these years, Maureen is still trying to invent Hillary the Terrible, Hillary the Prevaricator, Hillary the Shallow.  And every time she's sure she's got it, every time Dowd writes the perfect scenario, in which her character lives up to her previous, masterful buildup, Hillary the Unpredictable takes off in another direction.

And Dowd fumes! Even on the printed page you can see Dowd fuming. Hillary is HER invention!  HER antagonist!  Who the hell does she think she is?

Because Maureen Dowd's version of Hillary Clinton doesn't exist in real life, the author resorts to  the phrasing of a fiction writer:

"Hillary believed. . ."

"The Clintons seemed to have. . ."

"It turned out that female voters seem to be looking at. . ."

"This attitude intensified the unappetizing solipsistic subtext of her campaign. . . "  (Thrown in because, come on!  That took some work!)

"Hillary started from a place of entitlement. . ."

"Hillary’s coronation was predicated on. . ."

"The Clintons assumed. . ."

"And now she's even angrier. . ."

"Hillary has an 'I' message: I have been abused and misunderstood and it’s my turn."

"It’s a victim mind-set that is exhausting. . ."

"Hillary knew that she could count on the complicity of feminist leaders. . ." 

"And that’s always the ugly Faustian bargain with the Clintons. . ."

What a story!  The stuff of great fiction, and Maureen Dowd is without a doubt a great story-teller.  But if there was a part in there about Hillary killing feminism--as the title suggests--I must have missed it.

But let's say it's in there and I did miss it:  Hillary Clinton has been accused of a lot of things, but killing feminism is a new one.  The last I looked, feminism is alive and well and doing just fine.  The plot twist comes when Dowd tries to portray Hillary as a perennial victim, only to give her the power to kill an entire movement.  It stretches credulity, even for fiction.

The theme of Hillary as either victim or villain is growing old.  She is neither.  But Dowd has lived with this character for so long, building her into a larger-than-life creature of her own making (as every good writer of fiction must do), she can't let her go.  Not her Hillary.  Not this version.  It's driving the poor woman mad!  (No, not really. I made that up. See how easy it is?)

 At risk of seeming presumptuous, let me just say,  writer to writer, woman to woman: Maureen, honey, it's time.  It's time to let it go, to move on to something new.  You've done all you can with this one, and it's just not working.  Now you're repeating yourself.

Even in fiction, the same old story is still the same old story.


(Cross-posted at Dagblog, The Broad-Side and Crooks and Liars)

One good reason the Feminist Movement had to Get Moving

In 1973 Marabel Morgan wrote a book called "The Total Woman".  It was a follow-up to her successful "Total Woman" programs, in which Marabel taught women how to be seductive and outwardly submissive so as to get whatever  they wanted from their stern or indifferent husbands, most of whom had chronic roving eyes and/or wallets covered in cobwebs.

The secret, as Eve could have told any one of those wannabe Stepford Wives, was sex.  No, not withholding it, a la the women in Lysistrata, but reveling in it, wallowing in it--in a Godly way, of course--as the very best way to keep your man happy.  (Second best is staying sweet by keeping your mind clear and your mouth shut.)

Marabel had assignments for the women, who paid $15 for four two-hour sessions.  Most of them involved sex as the pivotal tool to keep hubby happy.  If wifey wasn't happy doing it, she'd better get happy, toot sweet, because the bible tells her so.

The little woman was expected to be an "atmosphere adjuster" in the morning by being pleasant to look at, be with, and talk to.  She was to walk her husband to the car each morning and wave until he was out of sight.

She was to call him at work an hour before quitting time (just before she took her bubble bath and cleaned carefully between her toes) to tell him she craves his body.

She was to "thrill him at the front door" by dressing in sexy costumes. "A frilly new nighty and heels will probably do the trick as a starter," Marabel writes. (One of the women in her class won First Prize in Marabel's mind by stripping naked, wrapping herself in Saran Wrap, and topping herself off with a strategically placed red bow.)

And if he came home growling, Marabel cautioned:

"Don't deprive your husband of intercourse when he acts like a bear.  He may be tired when he comes home tonight.  He needs to be pampered, loved, and restored.  Fill up his tummy with food; soothe away his frustrations with sex.  Lovemaking comforts a man.  It can comfort you, too."

From there the book gets deeper and darker, as Marabel tries to convince the "Total Woman" that in order to be totally Total she will have to come in second in everything.  In Chapter 6, Adapt to Him, she finally gets to the meat of it:  "The biblical remedy for marital conflict is stated, 'You wives must submit to your husbands' leadership in the same way you submit to the Lord.'  God planned for woman to be under the husband's rule."

In the Oh, King, Live Forever section of that same chapter, she writes, "I have been asked if this process of adapting places a woman on a slave-master basis with her husband.  A Total Woman is not a slave.  She graciously chooses to adapt to her husband's way, even though at times she desperately may not want to.  He in turn will gratefully respond by trying to make it up to her and grant her desires.  He may even want to spoil her with goodies."

Gag me with a maggot, even thirty years later, honest to God.  But it goes on:

"What if the king [Ed. note: King Hubby] makes the wrong decision?  Oh, that's a hard one, especially when you know you're right, and there are times when that is the case.  The queen is still to follow him, forthwith.  A queen shall not nag or buck her king's decision after it has been decreed.  Remember those speedy trials, gals!"  

The Execution of Anne Boleyn

Oh, Holy Mother of all that's Totally Total, sometimes I think Marabel was really a guy:

"It is only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband, reveres and worships him, and is willing to serve him, that she becomes really beautiful to him.  She becomes a priceless jewel, the glory of femininity, his queen!"  (P. 80, still on Chapter 6.)

As much fun as Marabel Morgan's book seemed to be to the tittilatees of the world (She was a perky regular on The Phil Donahue Show and made the cover of the top mags of the day),  the real message was one of female submission--of biblical proportions. Marabel herself admitted as much in 1992, when she told a reporter, "Subservience is involuntary, but submission is my choice."  She said submission--not the sexual come-ons--was the real point of her book.

I knew it!  I just knew it! (No, I didn't.  Not until I re-read it again yesterday. I picked up the book for 50 cents at a thrift store last week, just as a curiosity, and the whole religious submission thing caught me by Total surprise.  I'm beginning to wonder if I ever read anything but Chapter 10--"Super Sex".)

Since its publication in 1974 the book has sold over 10 million copies. (Out of print now, but available on Amazon and in thrift stores everywhere.)  It lost favor for a few decades but the King Hubby ideas that seemed so ridiculous in "The Total Woman"  are starting to look pretty good to a whole lot of Christian women who find themselves re-living the age of Old Testament As Normal.

I think I've finally found the answer to the question I asked last February, when, incredibly, millions of GOP women were seen cheering the men who were fighting against free contraceptives: What do you see in those men?  Apparently, they see nothing, hear nothing, think nothing.  Maybe that's why Marabel's very last paragraph might make more sense to them than it does to me:

Please, don't be satisfied with a new paint job and some redecoration.  Plug yourself into the One, the only One, who can give you life.  Pascal said, "There is a god-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man, which cannot be satisfied by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator. . ."  God is waiting and wanting to fill your vacuum, to make you complete.  Total.  Right now you can become a Total Woman.

Oh, did I mention that Marabel dedicated this book to her good friend, Anita Bryant?  Or that she learned her parenting skills from Dr. James Dobson, author of Dare to Discipline?  She quotes him in Chapter 12, Blueprint for Blessings:  "When [the child] flops his hairy little toe across the line you've drawn, that's the time to give it to him."

Lovingly, of course, with big hugs afterward, because, as Marabel suggests throughout her book, "I'm completely out of touch with reality and you can be, too. Totally."  (Not her exact words, but close enough.)

My mother Lived a Life

My mother was born on this day in 1918.  It was the year the influenza epidemic spread across the world and became a pandemic.  By rights, and in a more populous locale, my mother might have sickened and died before she ever had a chance at life.  She was a skinny, spindly little thing who always looked undernourished in early pictures.

She was born at home in Fulton Location, a company town in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula that existed because the copper mines were in full swing and thriving then.  At the time she was born, her father was a "mule" deep in the mines, a trammer, a dirty, lowly job relegated to the Finns and other Eastern Europeans by the Cornish bosses because the "foreigners" couldn't or wouldn't speak English and were barely understood.  In the human chain, in that place, they were considered the least.

My grandfather was a proud man--too proud for that time and that place.  He eventually worked himself up to foreman, a job almost unheard of for a Finn, but he never got over the slights.  He drank too much and could be cruel to his wife and four children, but if he had a favorite, it was my mother, who looked the most like him.  Still, it didn't save her when it came to her schooling.

 Fulton Location was a place where only Finnish people lived.  It was so remote from anything American, my mother didn't speak English until she went to school.  She learned, and loved school, and thrived there.

Irene - 8th grade graduation picture

In the summer, after her eighth grade graduation, her father told her she was done with schooling and she would have to go to work cleaning other people's houses.  Somehow, the principal heard about it and went to their house to try and talk my grandfather into letting her continue.  It didn't work, but my mother was always proud of that--that someone in education would try and fight for her. (That was all I ever knew of the story, but I used it as a chapter in my unfinished novel, "The Year of Lost Men")

I've written about her marriage to my father before, but here I want to talk about Irene as my mother and as a woman.  She was 19 years old when I was born, and they had no money, but somehow my father managed to ship her the 600 miles from Detroit to Fulton so that she could be with her mother and I could be born in a hospital that wouldn't charge more than they could afford. 

She nearly killed me when I was an infant because she insisted on breast feeding me when she had no milk.  There was a time when they had so little money we all subsisted on oatmeal, and it wasn't long before I began to suffer from malnutrition.  I survived, I thrived, but I was still hearing my mother apologize for not knowing enough to take better care of me when I myself was a grandmother.

She had no formal schooling beyond the eighth grade, but that didn't stop her from learning.  She and her sisters played a word game all of their lives, where one of them would choose a new word and they would have to use that word in a sentence as often as they could for an entire week.  I remember that one of the words was "regurgitate".  They laughed themselves silly over that one.

Maybe it was her impoverished background, but she loved beautiful clothes.  Her oldest sister worked for a rich Chicago family and would send my mother their cast-offs, which she wore with movie-star flare.  When I was in the fourth grade (still an only child, since my brothers weren't born until I was nine and 13, respectively), she went to work at a dress shop, where she could buy the on-sale clothes at an even greater employee discount. 

It only lasted for a while, but I had to come home by myself for lunch, and I would find the radio on, tuned to "The Kate Smith Hour".  My lunch would be set out on the table, always with some cute little thing that would make me smile.  She might peel an orange and segment it and make a stick man from it, holding a carrot walking stick or wearing a pickle hat.  When Kate Smith sang "When the Moon Comes over the Mountain" I knew it was time to get back to school.

Irene as Barbara Stanwyck

Later, when they bought a house with a basement, she set up her own beauty shop, having learned to cut and style hair almost by magic.  She had a thriving business going until a neighbor turned her in for operating without a license.  She fixed that.  She went to beauty school and got her license and worked legitimately at a profession she absolutely loved until she developed what seemed to be emphysema but turned out, in fact, to be lung cancer.

She never voted, but was a liberal in the best sense of the word.  She understood and could argue for the labor movement, for childrens' rights, and, in the 60s and 70s, for the Women's movement.  Ironically, the women she wanted to see liberated would have been disgusted by the lifestyle she chose for herself.  She never learned to drive, and my father did all of the bill-paying and grocery shopping.  Her house was as neat as a pin, and she kept Lestoil and Clorox in business, so fussy was she about laundry.  She was a housewife and a hairdresser by choice.

She had a lovely singing voice and was mad about Perry Como and Tennessee Ernie Ford and Yma Sumac.

Glamorous Irene

 She liked beer and cigarettes, and only gave them up when she was finally forced to by the cancer.  But here's the amazing thing:  I never liked beer, I never smoked a cigarette, I was the farthest thing from a fashion plate she might ever have imagined, my house would never pass a white glove inspection, I could take Perry Como or leave him, and I didn't do the one thing she always hoped I would do--get a college degree.  But she loved me anyway, always and forever.

She adored my children and her great-grandson, who had the privilege of knowing her before she died at a too-young 68 in 1986.  She loved my father and her sons, her nieces and nephews, and anyone else who entered her life and stayed there.

She lived a life.

Irene and Ralph at their 50th Anniversary celebration

six months before she died
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