During the 30-year life of the U’s Women’s Resource Center, women have made impressive advances in equality and influence. While women can feel good about their increased influence in new areas, some must occasionally feel exhausted by one result of the progress: enlarged expectations.
Fortunately, some people and organizations have been in place to help women with concerns, problems and questions relating to such expectations. For this and other reasons, the U can be proud of the WRC, its own pioneer in the women’s movement. The WRC has certainly “[supported and facilitated] women’s choices, changes and empowerment,” as its mission statement says.
That is the good news about centers similar to the U’s WRC. The bad news is that such organizations may have also pioneered one aspect of the diversity movement that some feel creates divisiveness: defining individuals and groups based on differences. But hope for unity may be found as close as the University of California. More about that later.
Usually when people get a new job, they quit their old one. Otherwise, they would fill their lives with 80-hour work weeks, incredible amounts of stress and impossible schedules.
During the past few decades, as they have moved further into the workforce and increased their involvement outside of the home, women have essentially taken on another job. But they haven’t been able to quit their old job. Mom is still mom, but now she’s also vice president for human resources.
Suddenly, the person who already had to be everything to everyone?friend, wife, room mother, daughter, tae bo champion, and most importantly, mom?now has to fill another role. Most women, and especially women activists, wouldn’t have it any other way. Asking women to do less would be an insult. But the increased stress can’t be easy.
And expectations can weigh as heavily on women as actual work. Newsweek’s Anna Quindlen calls this the difficulty of “competing messages.” Quindlen writes, “Women not working outside their homes feel compelled to make their job inside it seem both weighty and joyful; women who work outside their homes for pay feel no freedom to be ambivalent because of the sub rosa sense that they are cutting parenting corners.”
Either way, the natural response to not meeting expectations?real or perceived?is probably guilt. Women do not have it easy.
For help with such concerns, organizations like the WRC are invaluable assets. At the center, women who want the straightest route to the board of directors can find scholarships and career development workshops. Couples struggling to improve relationships can get counseling. Single parents?perhaps those with the toughest row to hoe?can take advantage of the WRC’s inclusive Single Parent Handbook. Those who want to be serious activists for women’s rights can certainly find an advocate and a willing ear. And the list goes on.
If all continues as the university plans, over time the WRC will combine with several other campus organizations to form a single diversity center. Although the WRC deserves high compliments, one damaging aspect of such centers is a characteristic common to the entire diversity movement: defining individuals and groups based on differences and grievances.
For an illustration, consider a speech given at the WRC on Oct. 23 by Rep. David Litvack, D-Salt Lake City, called “Men as Allies,” as reported in The Chronicle. Just the name of the speech?men as allies?implies a rift between the sexes, although the premise of Litvack’s speech was that men are more likely potential allies than enemies of women’s rights. Perhaps that idea surprises some; for these people, is the norm, “men as enemies?” In his speech, Litvack said people in “non target” groups should work to help people in “target” groups. And then Litvack began the dividing.
The Chronicle reported, “[Litvack] described a ‘non target’ person as someone who is between 30 and 60, Christian, non-disabled, heterosexual, male and white. All others fall into the category of “target.”
Litvack succinctly classified every single person at the U according to demographics: age, religion, ability, sexual orientation, sex and race. The University of North Texas women’s center even adds marital status to the list. Such definitions encourage group identities, promote a sense of victimization and highlight?not distinguish?the very differences the diversity movement is supposed to be erasing.
A better goal for diversity is what is happening in California.
One line from George Will’s latest Newsweek column about the University of California gives hope to those who want to erase differences. Will writes, “There has been a sharp increase in the number of applicants to the University of California who refuse to stipulate their race.”
Perhaps by defining themselves less by the David Litvack method, and more by what they are as people, Cal students will realize the best of all outcomes from a women’s center or an entire movement: a campus without differences.
Michael welcomes feedback at: [email protected] or send letters to the editor to: [email protected].