I have no illusions that this is easily accomplished.
One Christmas, I bought my daughter a colorful, movable doll stroller - and her younger brother lusted after it. I refereed many compromises about whose turn it was to use it. I was disgusted that I didn't think to buy two of them.
Which is what I finally did. After all, I believe in men pushing strollers with children in them. I took the two strollers, and the two children, to their grandparents' house one day and met with some exasperation from grandpa. He said to me, "For goodness sakes, Nanci, he's a boy."
What about all the others in our community who are not possessed by a devotion and fascination about gender roles and equity? There are those who have not spent time devouring all they see related to issues between men and women, or working with those whose lives have been devastated by imbalances of power, or contemplating the political fallout which results from classist, racist, sexist systems?
The changes as I see it are for the benefit of everyone. It does, of course, mean rattling the cages of our patriarchy, which is not entirely welcome, and in some corners of the universe is considered to be subversive. But this is necessary, if we truly understand the consequences and genuinely care about what children and grown-ups are saying about their lives.
Youths say that their parents treat them differently by imposing rules and expressing affection to girls and according another standard for boys. It is reported in research that teachers reflect on different sets of treatment and attention for girls and boys. Business professionals describe promotions, salary structures and sentimentality which are quite divergent for women and men.
The messages we continue to receive about who is strong and who has what kind of rights are undeniably consistent. Debate about families and discipline, responsibilities for children, obligations for homemaking and breadwinning, despite economic analysis, sociological research and psychological effect, puts the burden on men to restrain their self-expression and women to restrict their behaviors.
Every time a report is unveiled revealing the disparity between the genders there is a kind of surprise, like, "Oh my gosh, we have a problem here that needs notice." Knowledge is power; it is with this power that we can affect change. But how many books need to be written?
I have read two this past year - "Failing At Fairness" and "Reviving Ophelia" - which are choking with anecdotes clinical observations and compilations that ring truth and terror.
The trick really is to recognize that now is the time to turn the attention to our own lives. Is each of us looking at the myriad ways that small changes can be accomplished that, when put together as a whole, will amount to a revolution? Perhaps a better descriptor would be evolution.
When I hear my son say that he left his pink-colored Little Twin Stars lunch container inside his lunch box because that kind of container is for girls, I thought, "This is nuts." I tried to convince him, to no avail, that nobody would be looking at his container. How does a mother, a feminist, fight the overwhelming influences of the culture without going crazy?
By recognizing that I am a woman conditioned by that same culture with which I struggle every day. I would love to have many, many more people join me in this struggle.
RU 486 is a two-drug abortion method that begins when a woman takes two pills of mifepristone. This blocks the action of progesterone which is produced during pregnancy to maintain the rich nutrient lining of the uterus. Without the nutrient lining, the unborn child is cut off from his or her basic supply of food, fluids, and oxygen. The child then usually shrivels, suffocates, or starves to death. Two days later, the mother is given a prostaglandin which stimulates uterine contractions to expel the dead baby. A third visit approximately two weeks later is needed to determine if the abortion has been completed.
With limited, preliminary results from U.S. trials, the FDA panel found that the drug was "effective," despite that nearly 5 percent of all women did not completely abort with the procedure. And just how "safe" is RU 486? Sponsors of the drug told the FDA panel that while serious adverse effects such as severe bleeding were not unexpected, they were "rare," generally falling into the l-2 percent range. When one considers the 1.5 million abortions performed annually in the U.S., this translates into hundreds of thousands of women seriously injured.
Dr. Mark Louviere, a physician from Iowa and an abortion rights supporter, told the FDA advisory panel of an RU 486 survivor he treated in an emergency room. She had lost between 1/2 and 1/4 of her blood volume. Dr. Louviere said that "she was literally dying before my eyes . . ." Louviere was able to save his patient's life, but was upset to see the pill's promoters dismiss the whole episode as an "expected" event.
He added: "My concern is that RU 486 will be used, and many patients will experience the same untoward complications because it is used in an outpatient setting. There is no guarantee that once patients receive RU 486 that they will follow up appropriately if there is a complication."
Estimates of dangers are hard to predict. Those conducting the U.S. trials were able to screen out women with risk factors such as heavy smoking, high blood pressure, allergies, or asthma, to name a few. But if the FDA panel's recommendation is adopted, no such restrictions would be made. These women also were monitored more closely than will be the case once RU 486 hits the market, when monitoring will slacken and thousands of women will fall through the cracks and face grave danger, having been told that heavy bleeding and pain are a "normal" part of the procedure.
Given that America is the world's largest drug market and pills are seen as an easy solution, it is probable that American women will choose the chemical abortion technique route more than their European counterparts (where 1 in 3 choose a chemical abortion). Surveys also have shown that physicians who do not now perform surgical abortions will offer chemical abortions. The history of abortion in the U.S. has demonstrated a close correlation between the number of abortionists and the number of abortions. What this means is more abortions, and yet more serious complications.
With RU 486 being pushed through the FDA approval process at record speed (the average approval time for drugs in 1995 was 16.5 months) and having been given "priority" status (which is usually reserved for drugs which are expected to provide a therapeutic benefit beyond that already available), one must ask: Why is there a need for another abortion method if surgical abortion is as safe and effective as abortion proponents have always maintained? If surgical abortion is as safe as proponents claim, on what basis was RU 486 given priority status? Either surgical abortion is more dangerous and less popular than they have let on, or there is no real need for a chemical method. Either way, there's a contradiction.
IT is clear that the real priority here is not science, but politics. President Clinton's FDA appointees have completely politicized the drug-approval process. FDA commissioner David Kessler strong-armed the European owner of RU 486 to permit its use for abortion in the United States. Kessler promised to try to push RU 486 through the approval pipeline in only six months - near record time. In order to have RU 486 approved before the presidential election, abortion proponents are cutting corners and playing politics with women's lives.
Even abortion advocates, who claim to have women's interests at heart, should recognize that RU 486 is far from ready for U.S. approval. With surgical abortion already legal in all 50 states and relatively easy to obtain, the FDA easily could have waited for the complete results of the American trials to come in, which are expected by the end of 1996. But with an election coming up in November and the possibility of a change in administration, Kessler decided he couldn't risk the delay.