Why Am I A[n Older] Feminist?

I never believed that at the age of 63  I would still have to be an active Feminist. But unfortunately the world is not a friendly place for women. So here are some of the reasons why even older women, especially mothers, don't have the luxury to withdraw and have to become more involved.
--- I am a feminist because I am the mother of two daughters.
--I am a Feminist because there are still places in the world where women are killed,  enslaved and raped,  and other places they are “just” continuously abused and harassed.
---I am a Feminist because  girls should enjoy the same educational opportunities as boys
---I am a feminist because in the workplace women should  have the same chances as men, to advance in their career, and should receive equal pay
---I am a Feminist because we need equal number of women in the civil service, the Israeli Knesset and  the government.
---I am a Feminist because  there is not enough representation of women in the media,  and issues pertaining to women are hardly discussed.
---I am a Feminist because  pregnant women and young mothers should not be discriminated against in the job market and in the work place.
---I am a Feminist because women should feel comfortable to nurse their babies everywhere, without worry
---I am a Feminist because I detest sexist and undermining jokes and remarks.
---I am a Feminist because women should be able to walk alone at night wearing whatever they please.
---I am a Feminist because the workplace should be more friendly to women in general and mothers in particular, children are not the sole responsibility of their mothers.
---I am a Feminist because Carol Gilligan is right:  Feminism is Humanism
--I am also a Feminist because when I shopped for a car, the dealer talked directly to my partner and ignored me.  As a result I have to buy a car on my own.
Last year few days before the beginning of #MeTOO I heard an excellent  program on NPR: “Looking Beyond Marches” the Feminist Movement in 2017.
One of the points raised was that Feminism should be less reactive and more proactive. At that moment I felt that something needed to be done, few minutes later I opened the Facebook group: Older and Experienced Feminists for Israeli women of all age.  As an older woman and a feminist I believe that we should be proactive rather than reactive. So instead of responding to the continuous misogynistic noise in the media we should ignore it and go on promoting important issues. It is only a Facebook group but it is a good place to learn and be truly proactive and engage the many challenges that Feminism still face today.

The post was published at the Times of Israel

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-am-i-an-older-feminist/- 

One Day You Will Be "Radical"

Yesterday someone posted on Facebook a photo with a quote by Gloria Steinem: “Women grow radical with age. One day an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the earth.” Reading it I suddenly realized that when it comes to gray hair a rose is never just a rose, and perhaps my choice of not dying my hair has subversive undertones.

For as long as I can remember my mother had beautiful gray hair, she kept it short and let it dry in the sun. For a nurse, it was a practical, no-nonsense hair style, and it suited her personality. In my eyes my mother’s gray hair was a symbol of her wisdom and knowledge.

I was convinced that one day I would look just like her, but when my daughter detected some gray in my hair she asked me to dye it. I refused, but she argued that I was too young to be old.  I told myself that it was important to make my daughter proud and postponed my plan to grow old gracefully.

But, from experience, trying to please our loved ones hardly ever works. I knew the truth behind my gray roots, and resented the effort of hiding it from the rest of the world. Whenever I saw gray haired women I found myself complimenting them on their hair, and explaining why mine was dark. Of course I sounded insincere and silly.

Perhaps a psychologist could have called my predicament a cognitive dissonance, but it simply translates to not being true to myself. So one day I stopped dying my hair. My daughter was displeased at first, but pretty soon she wrote to tell me that gray hair has made a comeback. I like to think it was her way of saying that she accepted my choice.

Back to Gloria Steinem’s quote: hair color is  a matter of personal choice, but I agree that  women grow radical with age. Since young women face enough challenges juggling family and career and most of them have no spare time for activism, it is up to us, their mothers, to come to the rescue again and do it for them.

I noticed that many young women attended the different protest marches on January 21st. They made a special effort and came to show their discontent. However, usually it is the older women who dedicate their life to the cause and become active in different social and political movements.

In Women Wage Peace, for example, the age range of most of its hard core activists is from late 40s to late 60s. While in many other aspects of life women that age start to become less relevant, here they can shine and make a real difference. Many of us are willing to dedicate all our time and effort to promote peace in our region, and I believe that we have the wisdom,knowledge and determination to bring a change.

Young women have something to look forward to, Gloria Steinem makes growing older seem almost fun. Hopefully it won't take long before they join us in taking over the earth and making it a better place.

The essay first appeared in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/one-day-you-will-be-radical/

Breastfeeding Iמ Public? Not In My Front Yard

In the 1980s when my daughters were born, in the US, I was advised to breastfeed them until they were at least a year old. I was also urged to do it as much and as often as possible. So during that first year I nursed my babies everywhere I went: the public library, the mall, and the coffee shop.  It wasn’t a big deal, all the other mothers did it as well, no one ever stared at us or made a comment.

That was how life was in Iowa City, a small university town in the Midwest, where “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." It was that simple, since mother’s milk was essential to the well-being of the baby, it meant that breastfeeding mothers were made welcome everywhere.

But our breastfeeding friendly world has all but disappeared, 

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/breastfeeding-in-public-not-in-my-front-yard/

Childhood Under A Magnifying Glass: Over-Parenting Revisited

JUN.20.2013

When another mother told me that I had to make sure that my four-and-a-half-year-old daughter knew how to read before she started kindergarten that fall, I knew that I was in trouble. She explained that in the event that she didn’t read she would be put in the lowest ability group, and that would be the end. I was sure no mother in her right mind would risk ruining her daughter’s future and teaching her to read seemed like a small price to pay. But that was only the beginning:

We lived in Iowa City, a small university town in the Midwest; at that time most of the husbands worked at the university and the wives, all university graduates, were stay-at-home-moms partly due to ideology, and partly because of the limited employment opportunities in town.

With so much time on our hands and so little to do, our children became the focus of our attention, our prime preoccupation and a way to channel our creative and intellectual energy. They were a source of happiness, pride but also an endless cause of motherly concern.

Other children talked earlier, read better, ran faster (or in the case of our community in Iowa City: played soccer, danced, played a musical instrument, sang in a children's opera). The accomplishments of one child became her mother’s personal achievement and the direct cause for jealousy and anxiety of other mothers.

Luckily, as an Israeli living in the US I missed many cultural cues involving raising childen in a competitive environment.  I didn’t understand, for example, the reward system in the American school. I was oblivious to the grave importance of soccer, and didn’t see why in such small classes some mothers were always present at the school.

What I did not miss was the tension is the air. I felt that the outward politeness of some mothers could not mask the pressure and competitive subtext of every interaction.

I am sure that most of the mothers were kind and care-free prior to having children; their new responsibility meant that they believed that the stakes, even at the elementary school level, were so high that everything in their children’s life was of the outmost importance. That solemn attitude did not leave much room for fun and light-heartedness, and being with other mothers became boring and exhausting.

While I was still in Iowa City I sensed that the energy in that small community was unhealthy for me and my family.  I know that competition is a motivating force, but for me it became contagious and even poisonous. In theory I could have chosen to disengage, to have done things my own way, but still I did not see a way out from the ubiquitous competition outside the home. 

The marriages of several parents among our friends did not survive those early years of child-rearing, and I am sure that the anxiety surrounding their children’s achievement did not add to the well-being of their relationship. I am also aware of some children who did not respond well to the pressures of their mothers’ over-parenting.

Being under a magnifying glass is not only hard on the child; it is draining for the parent. I feel that in a way I was saved by returning to Israel; my daughters enjoyed much more independence and became solely responsible for their success and their failure.

For me it meant that  I was free to go on with my own life.