Have you read the Newsweek article, “Are We There Yet?”? It is a milestone. It explores the 40th anniversary of 46 women at Newsweek who filed a sex discrimination case with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What the article uncovers is that room still exists for improvement despite the progress from the 1970 action. Acknowledging that women's rights are far from won is a major admission within mainstream media. It usually bends over backwards to declare feminism dead. The most startling fact is that young women at Newsweek had no inkling of the 1970 discrimination case. Feminists—old and young alike—have to ask, how did this happen? How is our collective memory lost so readily? If no women's history is taught in high schools or colleges, how can we, in a feminist consciousness raising way, fill this void? Maria Frazer Dougherty, my paternal grandmother, died in 1959. I was eleven. Not until the 80s did I learn about her Votes for Women work or her activism in the “wets” campaign to repeal prohibition. Today, women who waged the discrimination case at Newsweek are still alive. Much of the activism that surged then has participants, sages available for live history lessons. Five documentary films about the Second Wave struggle for completion funds. But here, too, discrimination is great. “Theme not universal” the filmmakers are told repeatedly by funders. Young women are deprived of seeing this vital era on celluloid. In the 70s, we resurrected the stories of women who went before us. We built institutions in order to share those stories---The Feminist Press, Triple Jeopardy, Olivia Records. While we did not always succeed, when we did, it was joyous. Yes, much work still needs to be done. Here, stand on my shoulders. But, please, avoid my toes. Ariel Dougherty is the Director of the Media Equity Collaborative. GRITtv with Laura Flanders. Watch any show, at any time: http://grittv.org Distributed by Tubemogul.
