The evolution of sex roles in the United States is surprisingly similar to the evolution of how the nation has waged war this past century. It doesn’t appear that there will be a society that completely abolishes war/sex roles any time in the near future but idealists often venerate the idea. Despite the “lofty” goal of creating a peaceful and egalitarian society, the course of social trends continues to remind us that future is still a possibility, we have but to reach for it.
“Although women have other capacities without numbers held in equal distinction (with men) and some in higher honor, they have never possessed or developed the political faculty.”
This is an excerpt from a New York Times editorial dated Feb. 7, 1915 entitled “The women suffrage crisis.” In 1915, war/sex roles used distinct and entrenched lines- lines rarely crossed by the opposing side and almost never contested. Female citizens of the United States obtained the right to vote in 1920 through the ratification of the 19th Amendment, shortly after World War I. It took 70 years of campaigning to do this, after hundreds of years of being sequestered and relegated to roles designated by men.
During World War Two war II sex roles were no longer so entrenched-there were fast moving fronts. There was an emergence of women’s lib, blitzkrieg, atomic bombshells and the wonder bra. The forces of sex and war moved quickly, back and forth in debates about how women should exercise their political firepower. Women began flocking to work in greater numbers, living more independently, discovering just how far they could push the lines on the map. Yet the fronts of war/sex roles remained fluid and divisible, for every movement forward there was a push back elsewhere.
The birth control pill arrived in the early 1960’s, and U.S. forces were walking through dark forests. Even though sex roles/war seemed to have a necessary purpose, issues rapidly and drastically changed. What once seemed like the correct direction for the women’s rights movement became lost in the ever-changing political environment. Should women assume the same roles as men, or create a separate-but-equal arrangement? Was it even possible to live with “free love” after centuries of living in a society founded on property rights? Even though women had all of the weapons they needed to truly win the war against sexism, they didn’t win. Feminism was waylaid, unsure of its own identity. Newer arguments evolved around abortion procedures and the future of the family, altering the landscape of debate.
As the 20th century concluded, war/sex roles entered into a period of exploration and relative prosperity. War/sex roles were controlled, the larger debates had grown cold, only rarely becoming controversial. It was as if the next big battle would determine the final decision of whether women and men would be truly equal in every sense of the word, or whether they would always have irreconcilable differences. New sex roles/war emerged, challenging old dogmas even further. The rights of homosexuals entered the fray, and it seemed that total annihilation of one side of the debate was no longer possible and certainly not desirable. There were still sex-based inequities but no party could say what would be the best way to settle those differences.
As the U.S. slowly becomes aware of how ineffective it is to wage war against terrorism to bring about peace, the underlying irony between war and sex roles is revealed. War/sex roles will always exist so long as the public believes they are necessary and encourages them. For every battle waged over the institution of sex roles, the outcome of their removal is never so dire as predicted. Women did gain the political “faculties” of men, left the home, and presently make up roughly 50 percent of the work force. Women also have managed to raise families while sustaining careers, and men have begun to compensate by working less and staying home more.
What sex differences we are unable to remove socially, science is resolving for us. A drug called Flibanserin is being developed by the German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim and is going through human trials now. Preliminary results indicate that Flibanserin may become the “female Viagra.” As reported by Time and the BBC, Flibanserin aides the recovery of lost libido in women by correcting a serotonin imbalance in the brain, with almost no negative side effects. Like the oral contraceptive, this could potentially revolutionize the perceptions of the sexes as largely cultured, driving us into a brave new world of biological freedom and mutual understanding.
Tomorrow VCU will host a celebration march in honor of the 100th anniversary of The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia. It is a startling revelation to see just how far we’ve come in the last century. In 1909 people thought women and men had to live in separate spheres, their bodies covered head to toe, in fear of crossing the established lines of propriety, even if it meant suffering in a trench. Today women wear less clothing than men, go to college in greater numbers and serve as senators, political ambassadors and heads of state. At this point the ideas of traditionalists and social conservatives stand on nothing but a prop of fear and residual cultural norms.
If this last battle is to be waged, and we are to live in a sexually equal world, the old reasons for waging war will disappear. War is aggression and dominance pursued to a lack of mutual understanding. If war has no spoils, just as sex roles have no necessary arrangement, then they will cease to exist. Right now our country in engaged in two wars that have produced no discernable gains. We fight a disembodied enemy called terrorism, whose primary motivation is fear of the future. It is a telling irony that our greatest enemy in terror believes in a division of the sexes more conservative than those instituted in the U.S. a century ago.
How will this final battle be fought? Where will it take place? Perhaps we should ask the suffragists. Their battle was in the streets, their weapons were their voices, and changing hearts and minds really was the mission. It wasn’t just about changing opinions, but enabling people to see that far off vision. The future they say is lofty.