Of late I have been binge watching programing that focuses on the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. This was an era of “barons” of industry and women used as cheap labor with few rights. In those times a female teacher had to be single and willing to live near the school where she taught in a dormitory where her behavior was carefully watched. Shop girls, seamstresses and those who worked in factories more often than not endured the same kinds of demands and restrictions on their lives. All women, including those who were aristocratic and wealthy, were thought to be the property of their husbands. Only the most scandalous and defiant women were able to break the chains of their heavily dominated lives.

The truth is that women have always been equal to men but only rarely did they enjoy that kind of freedom. Society taught them to be subservient and to accept their role as wives and mothers. Their place was in the home and without worthy birth control methods they often endured unbelievable numbers of pregnancies. My own maternal grandmother had ten children one after another, sometimes only nine or ten months after a previous pregnancy. Her body was subjected to a hormonal storm that ultimately lead to a breakdown after her youngest child, my mother, was born. After that her children noted that their mother and father no longer slept in the same room. Such was a common situation for women of the time. 

Throughout history women were taught that childbearing was their duty whether they wanted children or not. We tend to think that they mostly agreed with this idea but surely there have always been women who balked at the idea that they were little more than breeders of the human race. Books written in the Victorian era over and over again focus on the tragedies forced on women by domineering men who lacked understanding of their feelings. 

When I was a child in the nineteen fifties and sixties women used many methods for curtailing pregnancies which were often unreliable. By the age of thirty my mother had already had three children. I have often wondered how many more siblings I would have had if my father had not died and she had not remained single. So many of my friends were from large families of six or more children. I remember the whispers of women who came to my mother in tears because they went from one pregnancy to another just as my grandmother had done. 

Then came the miracle of the birth control pill. It literally created a revolution in which women were able to decide when and if they were going to have children. Suddenly women were enrolling in college in vast numbers and vying for managerial positions at work. Families generally became smaller and more manageable and somehow these changes were more positive than naysayers had predicted. Allowing families to have more say in how large they would become brought higher standards of living for virtually everyone. 

The beauty of what happened is that each woman gets a say in how often or whether she will bear children. Some still choose life as a wife and mother as their vocation and nothing is wrong with that. Some focus on careers that take them to the top levels of businesses and schools. Women have demonstrated their mettle over and over again in places that were once denied to them. We have only recently watched a woman astronaut flying to the moon and women hold important positions in government and boardrooms. 

My choice was to have a family of two. I stayed home with my girls until the youngest was in the fourth grade. It was then that I launched my own career in earnest. Each of my daughters have been free to make their own choices. One followed my lead by working for a time, then staying home with her four children until they were older. After that she resumed her career as an accountant. My youngest worked for a time as a nurse but her children had health issues that demanded that she be at home with them. She gave them the care that they needed and never returned to work. Now my granddaughter is determined to shoot for the moon. Her goals are high and we will not discourage her. Whether or not she decides to have a family along with her career is up to her. I can’t think of anything better that providing women with the kind of equality they men have always enjoyed. 

We live in a time when some are trying to force our society to move backwards. They preach a gospel of women as wives and mothers who stay at home with however many children may come. That is fine for those who want such things but it should never again be forced on any woman. We have moved past such ignorance and it would be shameful to go back to a time when women had no control over the direction of their lives. Our progress is far too wonderful to throw to the winds. Women have arrived and must be allowed to stay wherever they want to be.