Kansan Photo by JUDY HOGK
Chivalry for Equality? Let's Swap
Fifty years ago last week, women citizens of the United States reached a milestone. The 19th Amendment to the Constitution gave them the right to vote
Fifty years ago, most men citizens of the United States were unwilling to admit that women were capable of handling a status equal to that of men. Most men haven't changed their way of thinking.
In the five decades since the adoption of the amendment that opened the door of the voting booth to women, more doors have opened. Women are now allowed to compete on an equal basis with men in most of the nation's colleges and universities; they have been given access (however reluctantly) to places formerly reserved "For Men Only."
But women today are still far from achieving their dream of equality. We smoke and drink without fear of more than a minimum of social disapproval, but the cliche that "A woman's place is in the home" still hangs over us.
For many women, being a wife and mother remains the ultimate goal. For others, a successful career and superior achievement in the fields of business, politics, education or other professional outlets is the ideal—too often unattainable. Those women who desire high professional status pursue their goals with no less sincerity and tenacity than those
who pursue husband and home. But they too often find their quest beyond reach.
The situation is difficult to understand, except from a historical perspective. What women ask is not unreasonable—the freedom to engage and progress in a professional career without discrimination because of sex, the freedom to attain the highest goal within their qualifications.
A woman is a human being. An oversimplified statement, perhaps but to many men it has more shock value than the discovery that women can and normally should, achieve sexual climax. As a human being, she has the right to determine her own destiny. If her choice includes, or consists solely of, being a wife and mother, it is nonetheless her choice. If her choice includes, or consists solely of, pursuit of a career, that is also her choice.
But the woman who chooses to be a wife and mother is nearly assured of achieving her dream. The woman who chooses a career is absolutely assured of finding the odds against her. Granted, there are careers that are almost exclusively within the woman's realm. But what of those who choose something other than nursing, teaching or secretarial work?
What of the woman who sincerely aspires to a career in the aviation field—not as a ticket clerk or stewardess, but as a pilot? What of the woman who, armed with impeccable educational credentials, aims for a high executive position? She may get a minor executive position, but the chances are overwhelming that she will remain there.
The loss of the last vestiges of chivalry are, to women's liberationists, a small price to pay for the greater gains of equality. If a man is to open a door for a woman, better that it be out of respect than out of habit or deference to her "inferiority."
True, the radicals of the women's liberation movement ask for reform far beyond the desires of the much larger group of their sympathizers. But that is a characteristic of all reform movements—a few demand the unreasonable so that the majority may gain the reasonable.
The goal of the women's liberation movement is equality. Equality, by dictionary definition, means "a likeness or sameness in quality, power, status, degree." So far, women have proven themselves equal to men in quality. Power and status: these we have yet to attain.
—Cass Peterson Assistant Editor
LETTERS
Ignorance Lies Behind Oppression of Gays
To the editor:
I wish to express encouragement to the Gay Liberation group in its effort for university recognition. It is an unfortunate, yet predictable problem that the group is finding difficulty in securing a faculty sponsor, for no other group has as grave a stigma to overcome as that wishing to reform society's ill-conceived attitude concerning homosexuality. Hopefully, there will exist a faculty member who is bold
enough and sincere enough to risk the resentment and ignorance he would encounter by sponsoring the Gay Liberation group. Even within as highly educated a university community as KU's, however, few are able to respond to those who are gay with a truthful understanding of what gay represents, or equally important, to what it could come to mean in the future as a major evolutionary step toward a true sense of freedom for all mankind. It may sound exaggerated to claim that somehow everyone would gain if the inclination to love someone of ones own sex became acceptable. After all, who could this benefit but the fags?
All of us as members of society adapt our roles to prevailing environmental changes: During the settling of the frontier, specialized sex roles were expedient and progressive.
Much of the turmoli experienced within earlier gay lifestyles has been induced by the societal misconception that homosexuality is inherently abnormal, perverse, and that its purpose is to serve as a kind of poor substitute for healthy heterosexuality.
Few people are born gay, rather through the course of their lifetime, most develop gay tendencies subconsciously. In other words, they learn to be gay. The latently gay person's biggest problem is, first of all, learning to accept his gay traits in the face of overwhelming condemnation by society.
Once ignorance and misinformation are eliminated and freedom is gained, the gay life will lose its conception of a lifestyle filled with misery and loneliness. It will become competitive with heterosexuality in the new freedom society.
Gay Liberation has a gift to give us all—freedom to express love, to touch, and to eliminate fear of the members of our own sex. It will be a difficult gift to attain.
Gene Eatinger, Jr.
Lakin junior
BY
SOKOLOFF
$ \textcircled{C} $ David Sokoloff 1970
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