“Turn Around, Look At Me…” My Fight for Roe V. Wade to be
reinstated.
Anyone knows the essence of the 1960s would remember this
song. The time piece by the Vogues that floated through my head tonight as I
heard this long-forgotten song—along with feelings that have left us over fifty
years ago. This song and others of the 1960s played on our home radio when I
was a kid. Then the cool transistor radio, hand-held by my older brother played
them as well.
We had a huge batch of 45’s and played them on an inclement
weathered Saturday afternoon, when no friends were available to play with. We
would listen to each 45 single and play Chinese checkers, crazy 8s, other card
games and scrabble. Sometimes if it were warm enough, my older brother and I
would play in our screened-in back room of our barn-house—unless it was a wind-whipped
rain. Then it would be less convenient.
As life is quite different now. Back then, our country
wrestled with the ongoing Vietnam War. Most of us wanted to forget that episode
in our lives. The Berlin Wall rose becoming an object of our ire and fear. Women
had no rights, too neither did many who were not white men. “Boys will be boys”,
was still a saying. As crude as it was, to condone bad action by boys and young
men, it put women at many levels beneath men in our world.
Women had to hide pregnancies in the workplace, until the Pregnancy
Discrimination Act of 1978, which was an amendment to Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964.[1]
Women could not own a home or be on the deed if they were married till 1974.[2]
Abortions were illegal till January 1973. In the 1960s Birth control pills made
women ill.[3]
The other contraceptive contraptions were barbaric causing harm at time to the
women using them. However, the women’s rights movements had begun to become
more at the forefront in the 1960s.[4]
Unwittingly, the drug DES was still given to women
considered having issue carrying a pregnancy full term—of which I am a product
of. Which was not discontinued till 1971, due to health risks of the child born
from a mother who’d been on the drug during that pregnancy.[5] Hence later in 1979 finally DES was removed
from being administered to cows and chickens to enhance their size for our
consumption.[6]
Girls were disgraced with the word ‘tom-boy’ if they played
with the boys or were interested in male dominated sports. It was expected girls
and women would begin to look like men if they didn’t remain of a fluffy out of
shape nature. Which pretty much left a girl, a woman in a most vulnerable position,
and in no way could she defend herself against a boy or man who may be attempting
to harm her. As we women were considered to just given in and not fight back.
We were told never to talk about anything sexual or with any sexual reference
in nature. I was told to never discuss having menses, even if it were to my
husband. That was 1960s thinking in a mostly middle-class, white, Christian
neighborhood. We were expected to not be interested in anything but provide our
parents with becoming grandparents. We girls and women were considered ‘just a
vessel’ for others to use, to show, and enhance the family structure. And
anything that deviated from that model, would be condemned. And those would be
considered sinful girls/women.
Granted back then our parents had total autonomy over us
girls and even as young women. Teenaged girls could be given away as brides in
some states and parents seemed so pleased to get rid of their female gender
offspring. A diamond ring is still the dowry young women believe is the
appropriate way of a man showing his love for you. Its not.
When I was nearing age ten, I’d had it. The 1970s was new. I
had my hair chopped off like a boy. Of course my dad was upset, my mother
acquiesced him by forcing me to get a tight curly permanent within the month.
Yes, as a child of the 1960s I had no ruling over my hair ever. However, I would
not relent to what was traditional. Instead, I would become a US Marine, remain
physically fit in shape. I’d be a maverick in her own right. Everything I
decided to do felt right. And as I’ve learned, if it feels right; then it is
right.---Jody-Lynn Reicher
[1]
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/civil-rights-center/internal/policies/pregnancy-discrimination#:~:text=The%20Pregnancy%20Discrimination%20Act%20of,childbirth%2C%20or%20related%20medical%20conditions.
[2]
https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/history-of-women-in-real-estate/#:~:text=Before%201974%2C%20women%20were%20not,Association%20of%20Realtors%20(NAR).
[3]
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/09/852807455/how-the-approval-of-the-birth-control-pill-60-years-ago-helped-change-lives
[4]
https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2015/12/50-years-ago-the-birth-control-revolution/
[5]
https://www.uptodate.com/contents/outcome-and-follow-up-of-diethylstilbestrol-des-exposed-individuals#:~:text=DES%20exposure%20is%20associated%20with,established%20transplacental%20carcinogen%20in%20humans.
[6]
https://www.britannica.com/science/diethylstilbestrol
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