The World Split Open

by Ruth Rosen

  1996 Rape as an instrument of war is defined as a war crime as Serbian military and police officers are indicted on rape charges.

  President Clinton is elected for a second term, partly due to women’s expectations that he will improve their working and family lives.

  President Clinton signs a bill that does away with the national entitlement to welfare for mothers with dependent children, without providing for training or child care. States receive block grants for whatever programs they want to keep or begin.

  1998 Independent counsel Kenneth Starr and the far right-wing keep up relentless attacks against Democratic president Bill Clinton. Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky provides them with ammunition and ignites a national debate that ends up in the impeachment of the president in 1999, but the Senate acquits him. The vast majority of Americans try to return personal behavior to private life, and support the president. Pundits notice that Americans now seem to be able to distinguish between sexual harassment and a sexual affair. The political Right denounces feminists as hypocrites for their perceived support of Clinton.

  1999 The UN reports that women and children still constitute the overwhelming majority of the world’s poor and that women are two-thirds of the world’s illiterate.

  The newest users of the Internet are middle-aged women.

  The U.S. women’s soccer team battles an evenly matched Chinese team and wins the World Cup trophy by one point in overtime penalty kicks. The nation is suddenly mesmerized by women’s soccer.

  Boys Don’t Cry, a film about a teenager, born a girl, who lives as a young man, with lethal consequences, introduces Americans to a growing transgender civil rights movement.

  2000 The Beijing Plus Five meetings at the United Nations assess the progress that each nation has made in implementing the 1995 Platform for Action. Activists successfully defend against a well-organized backlash launched by various nations and orthodox religions. Evidence of a global backlash is clearly present.

  Violence against clinics that provide abortions continues unabated.

  Bangladesh reports that in one year there have been 177 cases of men throwing sulfuric acid in women’s faces to express their feelings of anger or rejection. Only a handful of men are jailed. Some women’s rights advocates regard it as violation of women’s human rights. Others think their society has become too permissive and advocate the return of veiled faces. Twenty-two million single, divorced, and widowed women, who mostly voted for Democrats due to their relative economic insecurity, do not vote. George W. Bush becomes president.

  New Yorkers elect Hillary Rodham Clinton as U.S. Senator.

  The Federal Drug Administration approves mifepristone (RU-486) for use in medical abortions, twelve years after its first use in France. At the same time, the number of abortion providers shrinks to a historical low.

  On Mother’s Day, a “Million Mom March” gathers in Washington, D.C., and in other cities, to end gun violence.

  A UNICEF study reports that half of the world’s female population has experienced violence or abuse during their lifetimes, and describes it as a “global epidemic.”

  During a Puerto Rican day parade in New York City, young men grope, strip, and molest at least fifty female bystanders.

  2001 President Bush reinstates the Reagan-era global gag rule that prevents any international agency from receiving U.S. funds if it mentions or provides abortions; strips contraceptive coverage from federal employees (which Congress restores); prevents taxpayer funding for additional stem-cell research; and closes the White House Office for Women’s Initiatives and Outreach.

  For the first time in world history, an international criminal court successfully indicts three Bosnian soldiers for the war crime of raping women during wartime.

  Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed exposes the poverty of low-wage female workers and remains on the best-seller list for the next five years.

  A class-action sex discrimination suit, Duke v. Wal-Mart Stores, is filed in the ninth U.S. District Court and eventually represents 1.6 million former and current female Wal-Mart workers.

  Terrorists fly planes into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11. President Bush declares a “war on terror,” and invades and overthrows the Taliban government in Afghanistan, citing the Taliban’s brutal treatment of women as one justification. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) casts the only vote against giving the president authority to “use all necessary and appropriate force” against suspected terrorists.

  2002 The Bush administration withholds $34 million appropriated by Congress to the U.N. Population Fund for birth control, arguing (incorrectly) that the money will be used for “coercive abortions.” The U.N. agency estimates that this withdrawl will result in 800,000 more abortions and 2 million more unwanted pregnancies. The U.S. State Department freezes $3 million in funding for the World Health Organization because it conducts research on mifepristone.

  HBO broadcasts Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues and 800 events promote V-Day around the world to fund shelters for abused women, anti-rape campaigns, and women’s centers.

  Women who work as painters, steamfitters, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, and other trades form the first nationwide female trade union—Tradeswomen Now and Tomorrow (TNT).

  Halle Berry becomes the first women of color to win an Academy Award for best actress.

  A new international study reveals that hormone replacement therapy for post-menopausal women does not decrease the danger of heart disease, prevent Alzheimer’s disease, urinary incontinence, major depression, or osteoporosis.

  The National Organization for Women names Wal-Mart a “Merchant of Shame” for its exploitative working conditions, sex discrimination, low wages, and unaffordable health benefits.

  California becomes the first state to require employers to provide half pay for six weeks of parental leave. It also obliges accredited medical schools to offer abortion training, permit nurses, physicians assistants, and midwives to prescribe mifepristone, and protect abortion rights if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

  Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) becomes the first female House Democratic Whip.

  The New York Times begins including same-sex unions among its wedding announcements.

  The National Cancer Institute Web site posts an unproven link between abortion and breast cancer and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site casts doubt on whether condoms effectively protect against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Critics argue the Bush administration is politicizing science.

  Time magazine names three women—Enron accountant Sherron Watkins, World Com internal auditor Cynthia Cooper, and FBI agent Coleen Rowley—as “persons of the year” because, as whistleblowers on corporate corruption, they upheld “American values.”

  President Bush withdraws his support for the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979 (and signed by 180 nations by the end of 2005).

  The U.S. Health and Human Services department announces new rules that make unborn fetuses, but not pregnant women, eligible for prenatal care.

  2003 A UNICEF report reveals that the United States still has the highest teen birth rate among the twenty-eight most developed nations. The Bush administration increases spending by $60 million on abstinence-only programs that do not permit discussion of birth control.

  Hans Blix, head of the U.N. weapons inspection team, finds no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. For the first time in history, some 10 million people on five continents, with many women in leadership positions, march against a war that has not yet begun.

  The United States invades Iraq on March 20 after arguing that Saddam Hussein’s regime possesses weapons of mass destruction, which are never found.

  Joe Wilson, former ambassador to Niger, writes an op-ed publicly critizing the Bush administration for inaccurately stating that Iraq tried to purchase uran
ium from Niger. Through leaks to the media, unknown top White House officials expose that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, is an undercover CIA agent, which endangers national security.

  U.S. propaganda casts Private Jessica Lynch as a heroine who fought off Iraqis and was beaten and raped. But she tells the public she did not engage in combat and was well-cared for by Iraqis. Dr. Sally Ride, who became the first female astronaut in 1983 in space on the shuttle Challenger, is inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.

  The Supreme Court strikes down as unconstitutional a Texas law banning sodomy.

  A feminist worldwide campaign, which includes many American activists, influences Nigerian courts to overturn a stoning sentence against Amina Lawal for a conviction of adultery.

  President Bush signs the so-called “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban” act, banning many late-term terminations.

  Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian defender of women’s and human rights, is the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

  The U.S. Census’ “American Time-Use Survey” finds that the average working woman spends more than twice as much time on household chores than the average working man.

  A study of female cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy reveals that 70 percent reported sexual harassment and nearly 20 percent were sexually assaulted.

  According to a Ms. magazine report, more than eight out of ten women feel favorably toward the accomplishments and goals of the women’s movement.

  2004 Newly elected mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco issues marriage licenses to more than four thousand same-sex couples. The Massachusetts Supreme Court, which had held in 2003 that same-sex couples are entitled to the “protection, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage,” starts issuing same-sex wedding licenses.

  President Bush calls for a constitutonal amendment banning same-sex marriage. The legislation fails in Congress. Revelations about the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo shock the nation. Although Lynndie England and other low-ranking soldiers are found guilty, no high-level administration officials are accused of war crimes or of violating the Geneva Accords.

  President Bush signs the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, intended to confer legal personhood on the fetus.

  The March for Women’s Lives, thought to be the largest protest in the nation’s history, draws more than a million people to Washington, D.C., to defend women’s rights to reproductive health and abortion.

  Ignoring the scientific recommendations of its own panel of experts, the FDA denies women over-the-counter access to Plan B emergency contraception.

  Women’s wrestling is added to the Olympic games and transsexuals are permitted to compete for the first time.

  Congress denies funding for abortions to female soldiers, even for victims of rape or incest.

  Wangari Maathai, an African activist famous for planting trees as part of the Green Belt Movement, and a strong advocate for a sustainable environment, peace, and women’s rights, becomes the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

  PBS anchor Gwen Ifill stumps both Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator John Edwards during a vice presidential debate with a question about how they would address the AIDS epidemic among African American women.

  The Census Bureau reports the wage gap between women and men widening in 2003, with women earning only 75.5 cents on men’s dollar.

  The four “Jersey Girls,” widows of 9/11 victims, prod a reluctant White House, after 441 days, to create an independent panel to investigate the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

  A congressional report says that two-thirds of the federally funded “abstinence-only” programs contain “false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health.”

  President Bush is reelected. The gender gap (the difference between male and female votes) shrinks to 7 percent, partly due to fears about security and terrorism. The youth vote increases by 9.3 percent.

  2005 Condoleezza Rice becomes the first female African American Secretary of State.

  Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, ignites a national controversy when he speculates that women may be inferior to men in the field of science. (By February 2006, he is forced to resign.)

  Islamic women hold the first women-led, mixed-gender Islamic prayer in New York, sparking a worldwide controversy among Muslims.

  South Africa becomes the fifth country—joining the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Canada—to legalize same-sex marriage. England and New Zealand legalize civil unions.

  The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra hires the first female conductor to head a major American orchestra.

  Cindy Sheehan, the mother of soldier Casey Sheehan who died in Iraq on April 2004, reinvigorates the antiwar movement when she camps outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, until he will explain why her son died.

  China officially outlaws sexual harassment and family violence. Women in Silicon Valley hold a conference to address their relative invisibility in the blogosphere and in cyberspace.

  At the U.N. Beijing Plus Ten Conference, delegates reaffirm the 1995 Beijing Plan for Action, a broad platform that asserted women’s rights as human rights. Many view the U.S. rightward political turn as a major obstacle for improving women’s status around the world. Activists call for mainstreaming gender concerns into development, diplomacy, and peacemaking.

  Hurricane Katrina causes catastrophic destruction of the Gulf Coast. The people most affected are those households headed by African American women, among the poorest in the region.

  Network television broadcasts Commander in Chief, the first series about a woman assuming the presidency of the United States. Rosa Parks, who ignited the Montgomery Bus boycott when she refused to give up her front bus seat in 1955, dies at age 92. She is the first female African American whose body lies in state in the Capitol rotunda.

  Access to abortion becomes a serious problem: One-third of American women live in areas where there are no providers.

  The film Brokeback Mountain challenges an iconic image of American masculinity by showing ranch hands whose love endures throughout their marriages and adult lives.

  Mukhtaran Bibi, gang-raped in Pakistan on a local council order for crimes committed by her brother, is honored by Glamour magazine as a “woman of the year.” With funds from compensation and New York Times readers, she builds girls’ schools in her village, but fears assassination.

  The Sundance Channel broadcasts an eight-part documentary series, Transgeneration, that follows four transgender college students for a year. A feature film, TransAmerica, tells the story of a transgender woman who discovers she has fathered a teenage son.

  Forty years after the modern women’s movement began, women make up 15 percent of both houses of Congress, at least 50 percent of those enrolled in law and medical schools, and 46 percent of the U.S. labor force.

  Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, elected president of Liberia, is the first female leader of an African nation; Angela Merkel becomes the first female chancellor of Germany.

  2006 Betty Friedan, author of the groundbreaking 1963 Feminine Mystique, dies at age 85.

  Coretta King, who took up the nonviolent civil rights campaign of her assassinated husband, dies at age 78.

  Effa Manley is the first woman elected to the baseball Hall of Fame. A white woman who passed as an African American, she co-owned (with her black husband) the New Jersey-based Eagles, who won the Negro Leagues World Series in 1946.

  Progressive Michelle Bachelet wins the presidency in Chile. Serious speculation about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential aspirations suggests that an American woman president is no longer unimaginable.

  South Dakota passes legislation banning all abortions in the state, including for victims of rape and incest, setting up a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.

  The 2006 American Time Use Survey released by the Labor Bureau finds that women, regardless of marital status, spend more time on housework and child c
are than men. More specifically, women report spending one hour a day on housework and three-quarters of an hour on food prepartion, while men do fifteen minutes on each task. More than half of the women surveyed said they had done housework in the past twenty-four hours, while only one in five men had; 66 percent of women had prepared meals versus 37 percent of men. Additionally women with children spent twice as much time caring for them as men with children.

  Democrats win both houses of Congress in the midterm elections and Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) becomes the first female speaker of the House of Representatives.

  Part One:

  REFUGEES FROM THE FIFTIES

  Chapter One

  DAWN OF DISCONTENT

  “Until I was twenty-eight,” wrote the poet Anne Sexton, “I had a kind of buried self who didn’t know she could do anything but make white sauce and diaper babies. I didn’t know I had any creative depths. I was a victim of the American Dream, the bourgeois, middle-class dream. All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children. I thought the nightmares, the visions, the demons would go away if there was enough love to put them down. I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can’t build little white picket fences to keep nightmares out. The surface cracked when I was about twenty-eight. I had a psychotic breakdown and tried to kill myself.”1

  Anne Sexton was a deeply troubled artist, but many housewives shared her depression and her demons. More than a few women secretly experienced the fifties as a private nightmare, something observant daughters of the time noted with alarm. Sensing the bitterness and disappointment of so many adult women, these daughters came of age eagerly mapping escapes from what they regarded as the claustrophobic constraints of the fifties. “As we grew older,” one woman explained, “we saw our mothers—our role models, the women we were to become—thwarted in their efforts toward self-realization and expression. A deep and bitter lesson, this one—and one we couldn’t take lightly. It reverberated through the core of our beings, and we resolved not to let it happen to us; we resolved to be different.”2