Copyright Patti Henry, 2005

The Next Phase of Feminism: Saving Men

I am a feminist. I believe in equal rights for men and women. I believe in equal pay for men and women. I believe that both men and women should be treated with dignity and respect.

When I was 17, I applied for a secretarial job. After all, my mom was a secretary, and it was one of the few acceptable “female jobs.” Nursing and teaching being the other two, of course. I waited in the lobby with other hopefuls, and finally it was my turn. The president of the company was conducting the interviews himself and I was so excited to meet such an important person. He looked me over, I mean up and down, which actually made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Then he looked over my application and the references I had brought along. He asked me a few questions, and I was thinking things were going well.

Suddenly he looked at me with a big smile, a somewhat salacious smile actually, and said, “You're beautiful. I wish I could hire you - but you're jailbait.”

I was naive, confused, and had never heard that term before. I said, “I'm sorry?”

Very unapologetically he looked me in the eye and said, “I'm looking for someone to screw. You're illegal. The interview's over. Thank you for coming.”

I remember feeling dazed and disoriented as I got up and left the room, muttering, “Thank you,” as I left. I felt violated. Like my body had been violated - and my soul.

So I am very grateful for the sisterhood of the '70's who fought against this. Who gave us terms like “sexual harassment,” and “sexual discrimination,” plus laws that made this kind of treatment of women illegal in the workplace. I am forever grateful to the sisterhood who taught me, and millions like me, that women could be doctors, lawyers, astronauts, news anchors, and engineers.

I think of this time period as the second phase of feminism - the first being, of course, women rallying, fighting, and eventually winning the right to vote. The 1970's focused on securing more rights and a sense of being “equal,” and not being willing to be “held down” anymore. The feminists roared with an anger and an outrage at the way women had been treated by men.

And rightly so. The way women had been treated wasn't fair - even remotely. It was violating - to our bodies, and our souls. Not to mention our pocketbooks: women still only earn 76c on a dollar according to the July, 2004, business statistics. The battle for equal pay continues.

And yet, something is not quite right, it seems. Has the pendulum swung too far the other direction? Have we gone from trampling on women's rights to trampling on men's? I think the answer is yes. We haven't really fixed the problem - we've just kind of flip-flopped it.

It's now become socially acceptable - even funny - to portray men as jerks, stupid, clueless. Television commercials, sit-coms, t-shirts, even greeting cards show men as having little value, moronic, and deserving of being put-down at every turn. When I do seminars, I show the t-shirt I found in a store window that says: Boys Are Stupid, Throw Rocks at Them.

What are we doing?! Must we tear men down to make women strong? Swinging from a male dominant system to a female dominant system doesn't fix the problem. It's the other side of the same coin. To go from being the bullied to being the bully is not a way to heal the world.

I think we need a new paradigm. A third phase of feminism. We have done a great job of empowering women and giving them permission to stand up to injustices. We must do the same for men. Our new paradigm must be one of allowing and encouraging both men and women to have a sense of personal power and dignity. Our new paradigm must include the idea that both men and women are sacred and worthy of respect and love. That one is not better than the other, that one is not more dominant than the other, and that one is not more deserving of human rights than the other. That we really do work on equality this time: for women, and for men.