Since my last post, the world has said goodbye to two very significant feminist figures–Shere Hite and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, women who made an impact on the world stage.
Hite’s Reports on sexuality (about men and especially women) completely shattered the American, even the universal, mindset of what humans want out of sex, how they actually behave sexually, both in and out of passion. Her surveys and interviews radically altered our moral/sexual compass, even if only for a little while. So much so, in fact, that she got run out of Dodge and moved to Germany in response to death threats against her here in the US. The understanding that women orgasm from clitoral stimulation primarily, rather than through intercourse, exposed the male-dominant order for what it really is, just another power play in the bedroom. Her aggressiveness may have been overboard, but it also was a ballast needed to bring us back to even keel. Her insightful contribution will be sorely missed. Her death hopefully brings a revival of not just her work, but also a continuation of serious investigation into how we humans feel, think, and act regarding sexual being-ness.
RBG, another maverick in the female world, also started a revolution of her own making. She showed up on the stage at a time when women were barely peeking out of the mold into which they’d been cast. Drawing on wisdom gained from her early exposure to Swedish culture, her incredibly strong stand for gender equality and women’s rights has had a lasting effect world wide. Her smart, powerful presence and the echoes of her wise, razor-sharp-yet-compassionate voice, throughout our culture, have broken the mold and given modern women a new model to rise to, inhabit, and even push beyond.
Let’s keep the spirit alive by speaking out strongly about our needs and desires in and out of the bedroom. Let’s open our eyes to everything that’s going on out in the world and within ourselves. Let’s speak the truth about what we find, and keep searching deeper. Let’s carry the torch handed to us by these heroic women who have given us so much.