Lunaea Weatherstone's Blogue

What a Woman Can Do

 When I lovingly took down my Samhain ancestor shrine, I left this photograph of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and made a little foremothers shrine to hold the energy through the election. Elizabeth and Susan are at the forefront of an army of ancestral spirits who fought with all their heart and soul for women's rights, and in particular, for the right to vote. Alongside their photo, I placed two antique books from my collection, "What Can a Woman Do?" (1893) and "Woman: Her Position, Influence, and Achievement throughout the Civilized World" (1901). When those books were printed, the women who read them were still struggling for that right, and would continue to do so for years to come. How overjoyed they would be to see how far women have come today -- and I suspect, they would be equally disgusted and outraged by some other changes in the political landscape. But one thing I know for sure: they would not be daunted. Elizabeth Cady Stanton gave her first public speech at the Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention in 1848. Eighteen years later, she found the original manuscript of that speech, the Declaration of Sentiments, and wrote a note in the margin: "As I recall my younger days, I weep over the apathy and indifference of women concerning their own degradation. I give this manuscript to my precious daughters, in the hope that they will finish the work which I have begun."

We are her precious daughters.

What can a woman do? We can fight against apathy. We can work to awaken women from indifference to their own degradation. We can hope, we can dream. We can change the world. We can vote.

And speaking of babies...

What kind of a wacky world is it when this photo of a blissful Angelina Jolie breastfeeding her baby (a photo taken by her partner, by the way) is causing a "sensation"? Angelina has appeared completely naked in more than one film, and that never raised an eyebrow. But when a woman dares to use her breasts for what they were created for, and to do it on the cover of a magazine, it's a scandal. Kudos to the ever-courageous Jolie for bringing this subject up for discussion, whether she intended to or not (and she's a smart cookie, so I'm pretty sure she did). I have to say, I'm enjoying all the feminist activism that's been brewing lately. We have indeed come a long way, but there's still plenty to do.