That is exactly the reason I became a history teacher! Too long have students been slammed over the head with how great the American revolution was (I got 3 years that covered the period; 5, 8 and 11th grade) yet we didn’t even get to the Kennedy Administration. I had to wait until college until I even heard of the Seneca Falls conference or head about the suffragettes. It’s a major problem with American educational norms that we need a specific “black history month” or “women’s week”, the mentality being, “eh, they get a whole week-month so that’s all we need” instead of universally covering key players and groups throughout historical periods in a balanced way. This cannot be done by getting to the 50′s and then “going back” to spend 10 minutes on Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Sojourner Truth in a completely rushed and out of place methodology. Is it any coincidence the norm for Amercan History classes is to finish their year by covering the Vietnam war for an average of 10 minutes?

Conservatives/Hegemonists/Mysogynists are all for living in the “post-racist/sexist” world because then its an easy way for them to distance themselves from criticism. The new mentality is “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” or “We’re past that so there’s no need to continue looking behind the curtain.” Meanwhile this new Texas driven evangelo-neocon history revolution they are passing is requiring if students learn about any woman it is to learn about the greatness of Phyllis (I’m against the Equal Rights Amendment because men will stop going to work, women will be in front-line combat and we will have unisex bathrooms) Schafley.

But those with privilege don’t give it up without a very hard fight. This is a change that’s just over a generation old (if a generation is 30 years). In historical terms, we’ve just started the conversation.

It’s especially sad to see the Stockholm Syndrome stuff going on with western women. We’ll never convince everyone, but I wish we could figure out a good way to reach some of the women who are stuck in their self-hating mindsets.

Men rarely if ever get smacked in the face with what it really means to be a woman in the world, so I’m not surprised that they stay in the “Well we had a Women’s Rights Movement, what else do you want?” mentality.

Some of it was that he—like most people—did not like being confronted with his own privilege. But some of it was clearly due to a huge gap in perception on his part, and I’m not at all surprised he’s in the majority.

I know I have privileges that women in other parts of the world can’t even imagine, and I am grateful for them, but there is definitely still that lingering idea that women here (and everywhere?)are somehow less suited or deseriving of careers and more “naturally” (ugh) suited to child-bearing and raising. That separate sphere stuff thrown around by all those white men (and many women) is still part of our cultural history and present.