Book highlights roles of American women

Lahir untuk Kebebasan: Sejarah Perempuan Amerika By Sara M. Evans Translated by Sri Kusdyantinah Sb. Published by Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 1994

JAKARTA (JP): Some American grade school students were once asked to name one famous woman in history. The names they came up with were: Mrs. George Washington, Mrs. Thomas Jefferson, etc.

The anecdote is bitter proof of how American history tends to ignore women. After all, the founders of the country are called "the founding fathers." Consequently, later generations seem to think that women had a minor role in the founding of their country.

However, a 372-page book, entitled Born for Liberty: A History of American Women, gives an informative, alternative view, highlighting the role of women during the 400-year history of America.

The book, written by Sara M. Evans, is now available in Bahasa Indonesia under the title Lahir untuk Kebebasan: Sejarah Perempuan Amerika.

The book will enhance the knowledge of women regardless of their nationality - Americans, British or Indonesian.

Born for Liberty also transcends race in its study of the history of women in America. It breaks the stereotype, for example, of the passive and submissive Native American women.

Evans, a history professor and the director of Advanced Feminist Studies at the University of Minnesota, said that Native American women traditionally had an active role in society. Many Iroquois women could hold important positions as tribal chiefs, traders and shamans (p. 9).

Nonetheless, their roles were diminished as the Europeans arrived. Europeans did not understand how women could have a function outside their home because they were used to the dichotomies of "masculine-public" and "feminine-private."

Inter-racial marriage between Europeans and Native Americans also shifted the women's independence as their offsprings adopted the European dichotomies (p. 17).

Nonetheless, Evans is not another political-correct figure who attacks the Anglo-Saxon, Christian culture. She does not only point out how Victorian culture deterred the active role of women in public life, but also shows that women inherited the Protestant revolutionary idea that all humans are created equal and born to be free.

Loopholes

Even though the mainstream still barred women from entering public life, some women found loopholes in the dichotomy to voice their opinion.

The dichotomy of "masculine-public -- feminine-private" helped develop the gender tags of social institutions. Institutions like governments are referred to as males, while those which have a nurturing characteristics, such as schools and churches, are regarded as females.

Unsurprisingly, women could be moral and religious guardians. Anna Hutchinson, a homemaker who attracted many women to her religious teachings, demonstrated that the women's network could channel religious ideas and political threats (p. 50).

The Salem witch-hunt not only illustrated the capability of women's informal power as witnesses and accusers, but also their vulnerability because many of the victims were women.

The first women movement used their influence, as mothers, in their sons' lives, to gain some control. The republican mothers argued that women had a patriotic duty to educate their sons to be good and responsible citizens.

Catherine Beecher voiced the same argument. She said the duty to prevent the state from falling into moral destruction lay on the shoulders of women as mothers and educators (p. 118).

Indonesia's emancipation heroine, Kartini had a similar view. She said that women need education so they could in turn educate their children.

The republican mothers' argument was a double-edged sword for the women's movement. On the one hand, it led to the foundation of many women institutions during 1780s. On the other hand, it cemented an image of women dependent on their family; they could not escape their motherly duty.

Legacy

This book is interesting because its historical facts are still valid today.

A photo on page 16 of the second-volume shows a typist sitting on a male worker's lap. The photo is a mockery of women's entry into white-collar jobs. The public suspected that the women would scurry up the favor of their male superiors, thus, they would lower the workplace's moral standard.

Although this argument is no longer used for white-collar female workers, many military personnel apply the same argument to block women's entrance to the combat units.

A marine officer once told me that their presence in combat units could threaten unit integrity because a male officer would favor a particular female officer and vice-versa. In a war, the romance could threaten the safety of the whole unit, said the officer.

The press was not friendly to women's movement, labeling the feminists with certain stereotypes. A 1852 New York Herald wrote that the activists were "spinsters who are not attractive at all, they are put down by men; some of them cannot find suitable partners ... so that they hate the opposite sex..." (p. 183).

The development of women can not be separated from the feminist movement. Nonetheless, the book features not only feminists but anti-feminists as well, including Phyllis Schaffly.

Clearly Evans subtitled the book History of American Women, and not History of American Feminist Movement because she wanted to include both feminists and anti-feminists, as well as embrace women of all races.

Perhaps, after grade school students read this book, they will be able to name Catherine Beecher, Sojourner Truth and Susan B. Anthony and many more women in American history.

-- Yenni Kwok