just so difficult,” she says, crying now. I begin babbling—all the pressures on you, no privatelife, no sleep, no wonder you’re upset. “It’s not that,” says Gloria. “It’s just that they won’t take us seriously.” She wipes at her cheeks with her hand, and begins crying again. “And I’m just tired of being screwed, and being screwed by my friends. By George McGovern, whom I raised half the money for in his first campaign, wrote his speeches. I can see him. I can get in to see him. That’s easy. But what would be the point? He just doesn’t understand. We went to see him at one point about abortion, and the question of welfare came up. ‘Why are you concerned about welfare?’ he said. He didn’t understand it was a women’s issue.” She paused. “They won’t take us seriously. We’re just walking wombs. And the television coverage. Teddy White and Eric Sevareid saying that now that the women are here, next thing there’ll be a caucus of left-handed Lithuanians.” She is still crying, and I try to offer some reassuring words, something, but everything I say is wrong; I have never cried over anything remotely political in my life, and I honestly have no idea of what to say.
—
And so Friday, at last, and it is over. Sissy Farenthold has made a triumphant, albeit symbolic, run for the Vice-Presidency and come in second; as a final irony, she was endorsed by Shirley Chisholm. Jean Westwood is the new chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, although she prefers to be called chairman. I am talking to Martha McKay. “I’m fifty-two years old,” she is saying. “I’ve gotten to the point where I choose what I spend time on. Look at the situation in North Carolina. Forty-four percent of the black women who work are domestics. In the eastern part of the state, some are making fifteen dollars a week and totin’. You know what that is? That’s taking home roast beef, and that’s supposed to make up for the wages. We’re talking about bread on thetable. We’re talking about women who are heads of households who can’t get credit. They hook up with a man, he signs the credit agreement, they make the payments, and in the end he owns the house. When things like this are going on in the country, who’s got the time to get caught in the rock-crushing at the national level? I’m just so amazed that these gals fight like they do. It’s so enervating.”
November, 1972
V AGINAL P OLITICS
We have lived through the era when happiness was a warm puppy, and the era when happiness was a dry martini, and now we have come to the era when happiness is “knowing what your uterus looks like.” For this slogan, and for what is perhaps the apotheosis of the do-it-yourself movement in America, we have the Los Angeles Self-Help Clinic to thank: this group of women has been sending its emissaries around the country with a large supply of plastic specula for sale and detailed instructions on how women can perform their own gynecological examinations and abortions. Some time ago, two of its representatives were in New York, and Ellen Frankfort, who covers health matters for the
Village Voice
, attended a session. What she saw makes the rest of the women’s movement look like a bunch of old biddies at an American Legion Auxiliary cake sale:
“Carol, a woman from the … Clinic, slipped off her dungarees and underpants, borrowed somebody’s coat and stretched it out on a long table, placed herself on top, and, with her legs bent at the knees, inserted a speculum into herself. Once the speculum was inplace, her cervix was completely visible and each of the fifty women present took a flashlight and looked inside.
“ ‘Which part is the cervix? The tiny slit in the middle?’
“ ‘No, that’s the os. The cervix is the round, doughnut-shaped part.’ ”
Following the eyewitness internal examination, Carol and her colleague spoke at length about medical ritual and how depersonalizing it is,
—
And so Friday, at last, and it is over. Sissy Farenthold has made a triumphant, albeit symbolic, run for the Vice-Presidency and come in second; as a final irony, she was endorsed by Shirley Chisholm. Jean Westwood is the new chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, although she prefers to be called chairman. I am talking to Martha McKay. “I’m fifty-two years old,” she is saying. “I’ve gotten to the point where I choose what I spend time on. Look at the situation in North Carolina. Forty-four percent of the black women who work are domestics. In the eastern part of the state, some are making fifteen dollars a week and totin’. You know what that is? That’s taking home roast beef, and that’s supposed to make up for the wages. We’re talking about bread on thetable. We’re talking about women who are heads of households who can’t get credit. They hook up with a man, he signs the credit agreement, they make the payments, and in the end he owns the house. When things like this are going on in the country, who’s got the time to get caught in the rock-crushing at the national level? I’m just so amazed that these gals fight like they do. It’s so enervating.”
November, 1972
V AGINAL P OLITICS
We have lived through the era when happiness was a warm puppy, and the era when happiness was a dry martini, and now we have come to the era when happiness is “knowing what your uterus looks like.” For this slogan, and for what is perhaps the apotheosis of the do-it-yourself movement in America, we have the Los Angeles Self-Help Clinic to thank: this group of women has been sending its emissaries around the country with a large supply of plastic specula for sale and detailed instructions on how women can perform their own gynecological examinations and abortions. Some time ago, two of its representatives were in New York, and Ellen Frankfort, who covers health matters for the
Village Voice
, attended a session. What she saw makes the rest of the women’s movement look like a bunch of old biddies at an American Legion Auxiliary cake sale:
“Carol, a woman from the … Clinic, slipped off her dungarees and underpants, borrowed somebody’s coat and stretched it out on a long table, placed herself on top, and, with her legs bent at the knees, inserted a speculum into herself. Once the speculum was inplace, her cervix was completely visible and each of the fifty women present took a flashlight and looked inside.
“ ‘Which part is the cervix? The tiny slit in the middle?’
“ ‘No, that’s the os. The cervix is the round, doughnut-shaped part.’ ”
Following the eyewitness internal examination, Carol and her colleague spoke at length about medical ritual and how depersonalizing it is,
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