Henrietta Hay's Column

To listen to Rush Limbaugh going on about Feminazis one would think that all women who believe in equal opportunity for both sexes are wild-eyed, man-hating extremists. Come on, Rush, it's 1995. We're respectable housewives and executives now. We all know you're a dangerous ham, but that sort of talk gets pretty old. Been there. Done that.

Actually, the women's movement really started with a lot of little "clicks" as individual women began to suspect that something was wrong . Way back in 1972, in the first issue of Ms Magazine, Jane O'Reilly wrote an article called, "The Housewife's Moment of Truth. "... the click! of recognition, that parenthesis of truth around the little thing that completes the puzzle of reality in women's minds--the moment that brings a gleam to our eyes and means a revolution has begun. Those clicks are coming faster and faster because we have suddenly and shockingly perceived the basic disorder in what has been believed to be the natural order of things.

"We are all housewives. We would prefer to be persons. 'That broad,' begins a male guest who Hasn't Thought. 'Woman,' corrects his hostess smiling meaningfully over her coffeepot. "Oh no, groans the guest, "Don't tell me you believe in that Women's Lib Stuff?" Click!

One little click! becomes a thousand and hundreds of thousands and a movement has begun.

I thought that by now I had heard most of the horror stories. But I probably never will. Recently my friend the philosopher told a story out of her past that left me with my jaw hanging . When she was in the sixth grade she was in a Girl Scout troop. At the end of the year, the leader said, "You are old enough now to be interested in boys and won't have time for girls any more. It is time to disband the troop." When my friend gently pushed my lower jaw back where it belonged she said, "Don't you remember why we started the women's movement?" Click!

Thirty years later I sat in an organizational meeting, the only woman with a group of men. "Henrietta would be a good secretary." Click! Henrietta doesn't do secretary any more. She doesn't do coffee either. She does, however, hold doors open for men if they are right behind her. She believes in equal opportunity courtesy.

A professional friend in a highly responsible job, working 50 or 60 hours a week, presided at a leadership-training meeting of a group of men. Afterward one of them came up to her and said, "I am amazed that a woman could be that good." Click!

In an office a male political columnist was waiting to see the editor-in-chief. He said to the one woman in the room, "Call Joe and tell him I'll be late" Click! She was an editor. She did not make the call, but not because she was an editor.

In a comic strip called Smart Alex the male boss says, "This company is losing market share because we're not relating to women properly...We have the resource in this very room to solve our problem." "Why thank you," says (female) Alex . Boss: "Men, we need to tap into our feminine side so we can see a woman's point of view...Dirk, you think a lot about women. What's your take on this?" Alex: "Hello, excuse me." Click!

Ruth Bader Ginsberg was number one in her Columbia Law School graduating class. Not a single New York law firm offered her a job. Today she sits on the Supreme Court. Wonder how many clicks! she heard through the years.

Change comes slowly - but it does come. When Jane O'Reilley wrote and "invented" the click! most women were still housewives. Now over half are in the workplace. The clicks! are being heard in the kitchen and the office and the marketplace and the construction site -- and the Navy. Wherever she is, whatever her status in life, every woman hears a click! now and then. And she has learned to recognize it when she hears it. The bright side is that on a clear day, there are less of them.

Or are there? Click!