Chris Jepson: Half the 'good' minds come with ovaries

I had a recent dinner party and one of my guests, a woman, observed how fortunate it was to be a white male born into 20th century America. I agree. The context was a bit pejorative, from her perspective, in that men have had it much easier than women. As a feminist I understand such sentiments and essentially concur with her take on the historical status of Western women.

It is always interesting to consider that a white, post-Civil War America “assigned” a higher status to emancipated male slaves than it did to her already “free” mothers, wives and daughters. Women did not achieve voting rights until the 1920s, decades after former male slaves were “awarded” such rights. Is it not puzzling how such societal “values” are determined?

There are many ways to measure a society. Income, educational levels, access to healthcare, employment numbers, worker productivity, annual number of patents, number of Nobel laureates, support of the arts, minority rights and protections, mortality rates, pollution (all types), high speed internet access, infrastructure, home ownership, college graduates, voter participation, gun deaths, crime rate, birth rates, number of births to single women, church attendance, etcetera, etcetera.

More and more we are coming to understand that one of the best measures of any society is the relative status of the women living there. If one wishes to hold religion accountable for being historically repressive of women they are frequently accused of taking a cheap shot at faith, of taking the true “word” out-of-context. Whether it is Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or Islam, whatever the historical context, religions have left women holding the short end of the stick. No one with any knowledge of history would argue otherwise.

An interesting historical development for women in the West was the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther did two things that had a profound impact on the eventual status of women. As a former Catholic priest, he married. Imagine, a clergy that deigned to “marry” women. More important (from my perspective) was Luther’s encouragement that everyone (women included) learn to read (the Bible). Reading, education, learning is a transformative process. How do you keep ’em down on the farm (in metaphorical/literal shackles) when they (women) are exposed to the universe of ideas, of a world of context, of knowledge that life is an evolutionary process; that things (status/conditions) change.

I could easily weep for the women of Afghanistan. America will inevitably leave that tribal hellhole of a third-world nation and what “progress” women there have made will be lost upon our exit. Of that I am resigned. If I were president I would offer any Afghan female who wants to leave that male pit of despair a ticket to America for resettlement. Those women who elect to stay I’d give a pistol, 50 rounds and gun training; they will need it.

We, in America, understand that half the “good” minds come with ovaries. And my articulating “How wonderful is that” is indicative of just how far we (Western males) have progressed, historically speaking.

“You’ve come a long way, baby,” was a tagline from a late 1960s cigarette advertisement (Virginia Slims) targeted at women. That tagline could just as easily be applied to men now. Yes, America today is a much better society because we’ve created a much better environment for women. Yet, undeniably, we’ve a ways to go.