Before they were great, great grandmothers, they stood
in lines for singular equality, for one scale blind
to gender, creed or color. But, their right
to vote was delayed until 1920 – 144 years after
propertied White men, 51 years after Black men,
as if women were mere household amenities
used as conveniences.
The vote hoped to move the line closer
to a public voice in fiscal and sexual values,
but it took sixteen more years to change
birth control info from obscene
to legal mail (hidden in plain brown envelopes)
to head-of-the-household husbands,
a married man the only
Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
Connecticut’s 1965 defeat freed the pill
only for the sanctified wedded. I remember
unmarried, pregnant girls,
shamed and blamed for bad choices,
while the boys were just being boys.
The 1982 ERA defeat subtracted sixty years
of female rights. One hundred years since suffrage,
fifteen states still have not ratified ERA,
now a dusty museum piece.
Defeat meant I had no credit, no bank account,
no property without my husband’s name, addressed as
Mrs. John Doe, my first name unimportant,
a nondescript dustpan beneath spousal steps.
Reduced fraction of 1973’s Roe vs. Wade, reproductive rights
are not in the corporate equation that controls
choice as newly-deemed religious bodies,
a catch-22 where working women have zero say.
Despite the centuries-old male monopoly, women have
done the math – equal means equal, not less than.
© Patsy Asunción, 2017
 |
| "The Awakening" by Henry Mayer, 1915 Restoration copyright by Adam Cuerden from Wikimedia Commons |
