I wrote a post yesterday that was scheduled to publish today in honor of Women’s Equality Day. But, upon waking up this morning to the news that U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy had lost his battle with cancer, I knew what I’d written wasn’t nearly enough.
By all rights I should not have been touched by the Kennedys. They were of my parents’ generation or, at best, people who impacted my older brothers and sisters. Both Pres. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy were gunned down before my memories began, and, by the time I became interested in politics, Sen. Ted Kennedy was an elderly statesman who held no more interest to me than any of the other number of elder statesmen throughout the nation.
Throughout my early lifetime, I always believed the Kennedy family was the past — people from whom we could learn, but people who really made little difference in the here and now. That changed in the 1980s when I was given opportunity to speak to a young Oklahoma congressman named Mike Synar.
Synar, who was likely the last true liberal politician to be elected from Oklahoma, took on a host of special interests, championed campaign finance reform and, later in his career, issued a constitutional challenge to the Gramm-Rudman Act, which resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the law. (It is also forever my dismay that Oklahomans, presented with billboards that read “Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Synar,” chose a little known former high school principal in a 1994 Democratic primary, which paved the way for the current U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn — a man who pales in comparison to Synar both professionally and personally.)
Synar, like most politicians, was served more than his fair share of nastiness. While I was interested in politics even at that age — I had already spent a great deal of time phone banking and door knocking while helping a close family friend with a local mayoral campaign — I was still bewildered as to why anyone in their right mind would subject themselves to the nastiness that comes with the job. When I posed the question to Synar, he looked me straight in the eye and answered with a question of his own, inquiring if I played sports or participated in band and chorus.
I nodded that I did. He then asked if I planned to register to vote when I turned 18. I nodded again, adding that my parents would likely stand over my shoulder while I filled out my voter registration form.
While I don’t remember Synar’s exact words, he explained that those things were made possible for all Americans — but especially for women — because certain politicians fought for and won them on our behalf. I later learned that Ted Kennedy was instrumental in both pieces of legislation and a wealth of others, and my understanding of what politics could be and how the past intersects with the current was forever changed.
Just two short years after Synar was defeated in the Democratic primary, he died from a brain tumor. My first thought at the time was not for the loss of the man, who I admired beyond measure, but for the loss of the champion and for all the work that remained to be done.
Those are my thoughts again this morning upon hearing the news that Ted Kennedy lost his battle with brain cancer. So much has been accomplished, but so much more remains to be done.
Women who battle daily for equality in all manners of life have lost yet another champion. As we sit on the sidelines debating whether our starting line should be comprised of feminists 1.0 or feminists 2.0, grass is growing under our feet and opportunities are being missed.
Never was the divide more prominent than in January 2008 when the New York National Organization for Women blasted Kennedy for supporting then-Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic nomination for president. Instead of offering praise to Kennedy for support of legislation that advanced women, Marcia Pappas, the organization’s president, chose instead to label Kennedy as a “Johnny Come Lately” on women’s issues. His support for Title IX, the Equal Rights Amendment and the Family Medical Leave Act, according to the press release, came too late to be considered as “real” support of women’s equality.
The press release also noted Kennedy’s support of the George W. Bush-designed No Child Left Behind, but failed to also note Kennedy’s frustration and work to repair the unfunded mandates set forth in the bill.
As I stated above, I’ve learned a great deal about politics since my first conversation with Synar. Chief among my experiences are to not bite the hand that feeds you and to offer praise to politicians of any gender and ilk who advance your issues. Women seem to have forgotten that just as we marched and battled and shouted for equality, we were joined by millions of men who also believed that the female of the species is worthy.
Today is a day set aside for women to celebrate the passage of the 19th Amendment, which affirmed women have a right to vote, and also for women to be reminded of the work that remains.
Each year we spout the names of Lydia Chapin, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as champions of the women suffrage movements and as people we should strive to emulate in our every day lives. What we need to remember — always remember — that it does no disservice to the women who fought and clawed their way into the American conscience to also remember that the 19th Amendment was approved by the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in 1919 and signed by the President — all of whom were men, and many of whom who were not immediate and staunch supporters of the movement.
It doesn’t matter when a person comes to the realization that women deserve equality. What matters is that a person acknowledges and fights for women’s equality.
