Because We Stand on the Shoulders of Others

You may have heard this phrase before. Various sources attribute this either to Sir Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein, and the full quote is, “If I seem to see more [or appear taller] than other men, it is because I stand on the shoulders of others.” It has also been paraphrased by all stripes of people who credit their success to the struggles and sacrifices of those generations who came before them.

And I think many women have forgotten that it also applies to them. Particularly those who are making fun of Gloria Steinem, and the opinion piece she recently wrote about McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for Vice President. Some call Steinem an outdated icon of a bygone era, write her off as a shrill voice from the past, someone who no longer represents their ideals. They call themselves “post-feminists,” whatever that means. Particularly those women under 50, those who think it’s “no big deal” that they were able to play in Little League along with the boys. That they were able to go to the colleges of their choice. That they can hold professional jobs. That they can have children as well as careers, have careers and not have children, or have children and no professional career outside the home.

To many women over 50, it is a big deal. Some of them still think it is. In fact, when I was in high school, and casting my eye on colleges, my guidance counselor (who I’m certain belonged to the pre-Gloria Steinem era), discouraged me from applying to Colgate University, saying, “that’s a man’s school.”

I, the daughter of a feminist, didn’t understand that. Was it because they didn’t have female dorms? Didn’t have any ladies’ rooms? I didn’t remember reading anything in the four-color brochure about a “no women allowed” policy or that Colgate was a “he-man woman-haters club,” like Spanky and Alfalfa formed in the Little Rascals cartoons to keep Darla out. And I was valedictorian of the freaking class, for God sakes. It’s not like I didn’t have the grades To get into Colgate and she was trying to soften the blow (like that would have made it any softer.)

I’m hoping that this woman has either retired or changed her ways.

But this was so often the way with “women of a certain age.”

It’s true. If you don’t believe me, ask your mothers, your aunts, your grandmother – when they were newly minted young women, doing anything outside of what was considered “normal” was a big deal, or frankly, impossible. This meant that when you finished high school, you were expected to get married. If you didn’t have children right away, perhaps you would take on what was considered a “respectable” job for a young woman: secretary, teacher (elementary grades only), librarian, or nurse. And then, you were only expected to work until you gave birth to your first child. Then you stayed home with your children until they themselves left home or you overdosed on oven cleaner, whichever came first.

I once asked my mother in law, who passed away earlier this year from breast cancer at 67, why she married so young. She looked at me like I was crazy, and shrugged her shoulders. “That’s what you did,” she said. “That’s what you did back then. And if you didn’t,” she added, “you are considered… funny.”

And I don’t think she meant in the “ha ha” kind of way.

So those women who dismiss Gloria Steinem as a relic of a time long past, take a good look at how you got where you are: because you, and the women of your generation, are standing on her broad and strong shoulders. You were standing on the shoulders of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, of those “bluestocking” women who dared to go to work in the 30s and 40s, of women who were beaten and arrested for fighting to vote, of all the women who died from getting back alley abortions, and all the others who dared to break out of the mold that society had corseted them into – all because you were supported by the ones who dared to come first.

And if you forget that, remember what is said about those who don’t know history: they are doomed to repeat it.