This image just came across my Facebook timeline, posted by the White House:
“For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.” – from President Barack Obama’s second inaugural speech.
I’m glad he talked about this in his inauguration speech, don’t get me wrong. But I am kinda tired of my worth being relational to other people in my life. I’m worthy of equal pay because I am a person and a citizen.
I know I know I know that this is part of a rhetorical battle but it’s one that exhausts me, the supposed benefactor of these words.
[P.S. THAT PICTURE!]
Me too. (It’s been a long day; that is the extent of the brilliance I have left.)
I am right there with you. I am a daughter and a sister, but neither of those are at the core of who I am. And I am neither a mother nor a wife and will never be either of those. It’s a weird combo: it’s grating and yet I’m grateful for it all at the same time. Ugh.
That framing had begun to bother me as well. I mean–what if a women isn’t any of those things? Yes,if she’s cis, she will have been a daughter, but that doesn’t mean that relationship was ever a good or functional one, and she may be neither a mother or a sister. It’d be nice, then, if we didn’t predicate her worth based on her relationships with others. Nobody’s agency–social, political, economic, heck–human–should be seen in terms of hir relationship to someone else.
Hint, Mr. President: “For our journey is not complete until every woman can earn a living equal to her efforts.” It’s not that hard.
I agree 100%. Thanks for notice I exist but I’m more than an attachment on someone more important.