Feminism at it's best

I never thought much about being a girl, until two years ago, when I learned from a man what a wonderful thing it is to be a woman. Until that Sunday morning, I had considered myself lucky to be living in the 20th century; the century of progress and emancipation. The century when, supposedly, we women came into our own. But, I forgot that the emancipation of women really began with Christianity, when a girl, a very young girl, received the greatest honour in history. She was chosen to be the mother of the Saviour of the world. And when her son grew up and began to teach His way of life, he ushered women into a new place in human relations. He accorded her a dignity, she'd never known before and crowned her with such glory that down through the ages, she was revered, protected and loved. Men wanted to think of her as different from themselves, better, made of finer, more delicate clay. It remained for the 20th century, the century of progress, to pull her down from her throne. She wanted equality. For 1900 years she had not been equal, she'd been superior. To stand equal with men, naturally she had to step down. Now, being equal with men, she has won all of their rights and privileges. The right to get drunk, the right to swear, the right to smoke, the right to work like a man, to think like a man, to act like a man. We've won all this, but how can we feel so triumphant, when men no longer feel as romantic about us, as they did about our grandmothers? When we've lost something sweet and mysterious, something as hard to describe as the haunting whistle fragrance of violets....The conclusion is that somewhere along the line, we women got off the track. Poets have become immortal. By remembering on paper, a girls smile. But I've never read a poem rhapsodising over a girls giggles at a smutty joke, or I've never heard a man brag that his sweetheart or his wife could drink just as much as he, and become just as much intoxicated. I've never heard a man say that a girls mouth was prettier with a cigarette hanging out of it. Or that her hair smelled divinely of stale tobacco. I'm afraid that's all I have to say.

-Catherine Marshall (A Man Called Peter, Fox 20th Century, 1955)