Ciao, Bella.

Today is Women's Equality Day, established by former Congresswoman Bella Savitsky Abzug, who was perhaps most known for saying: This woman's place is in the house -- The House of Representatives.

Unfortunatley, Abzug passed away in 1998, nine years before Nancy Pelosi would become the first female Speaker of the House. I bet she would have been thrilled at how far women have come.

But we have a long way to go. Check out the Center for American Women and Politics maps, illustrating how often women have served on the State Legislature, in Congress, or as Governor.

We may think that we are the model nation in terms of gender equality, but new research shows the following:

One important way to measure gender equality is to see the proportion of women in a country’s legislature or parliament, according to the authors. By that measure, as of 2005 the United States ranked 61st of 128 countries, with 15.2 percent women in Congress. Rwanda leads the world with 48.8 percent women in its parliament.

Overall, the International Women's Day site states that "Although women make up 51 percent of the world’s population, they hold only 16 percent of parliamentary and congressional seats worldwide."

Bella Savitsky Abzug challenges us with a legacy of female empowerment in regard to the political representation of women. But often, we find ourselves asking, "Where do we begin?"

I find it particularly interesting (and perhaps comforting) that Abzug's feminist journey began with a small local act of resistance. In fact, it took root when Abzug was only 12 years old in the questioning of patriarchal religious tradition. When her father died, she wanted to say Kaddish at his funeral, an honor only reserved for sons in her Orthodox Jewish community. She resisted, and continued to practice these daily mourning prayers. Later she said this:

No one could have stopped me from performing the duty traditionally reserved for a son, from honoring the man who had taught me to love peace, who had educated me in Jewish values. So it was lucky that no one ever tried.

On this Women's Equality Day, may we be open to creating moments of small resistance. Maybe one day, our struggles within our individual "house" of residence or worship might become, as Abzug's did, our struggles within the national "House."

International Gender Lens: QUEBEC

For many of the last few posts, I've focused on gender issues in the United States, particularly in regard to politics. Now, however, I'd like to introduce a new feature of this blog: the International Gender Lens.

Every few months, I'll be interviewing folks who live in other parts of the world, asking them what their noticing about gender constraints in their neck of the woods. My hope is that this will help us as feminists see things a bit more globally, allowing us to widen our sense of "women's issues" to include more than just an American agenda.

Granted, I haven't traveled very far for this first entry. I mean, for goodness' sake, we share a border with Canada already. However, Quebec is a place with a unique identity, one that doesn't always conform to those of its geographic neighbors.

Enter my best friend since first grade, Sarah. After college, Sarah moved north to Quebec City and has lived their ever since. She's married to a Quebecois and teaches English as a second language. She's also studying literature.

First, a little explanation of this picture. After a 12 hour train ride to visit Sar, I looked across the station in Montreal to discover...well...my twin. As you can see, Sarah and I are wearing pretty much the exact same pink and brown striped sweater. This is a pretty good example of how in sync we are, even from many miles away.

Not to stretch this metaphor too far, but this is the kind of thing I'm hoping for in the International Gender Lens: the experience of traveling all over the world only to find that women have more in common with one another than we might think. While recognizing our different struggles, we can find allies in each other. This is my hope.

RL: What's one negative gender issue that you notice in Quebec that you didn't notice in the U.S.?

SM: In Quebec, where I now live after growing up in central Pennsylvania, women must keep their maiden name at marriage. This is great…a tenet of the feminist credo. The problem is that women married in Quebec cannot choose to take their husband’s last name if they desire to do so. Even more creative solutions to the “last name dilemma,” such as a combination of the husband’s and wife’s last name are not permitted. So can this political stance be considered feministic or simply restrictive?

Freedom of choice is one of the core values of our post-modern society. So Quebec’s supposedly-feminist stance forcing women to keep their maiden names is in fact as limiting as laws obliging women to take their husbands’ names. Some women, even self-identified feminists, would choose to take their husbands’ names. One reason is so that their families can be identified as a unit, each member having the same last name.

Since married couples cannot share the same last name, this law complicates choosing last names for children. If given a name combining the last names of both parents, the children now have different last names than both their parents. It becomes even more complicated when children with hyphenated last names marry other children with hyphenated names. What names do they choose for their children? Will their children have four last names? Most likely not; so a choice will have to be made. In most cases in Quebec, couples in this predicament choose the last names of their fathers, which is just as patriarchal as the traditional system.

This “last name debate” reminds me of Ammu’s dilemma in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Although her twins were seven years old, she still had not given them a last name:

"For the time being they had no surname because Ammu was considering reverting to her maiden name, though she said that choosing between her husband's name and her father's name didn't give a woman much of a choice."

I want women (and men) to choose the last name that they deem the best solution for them. It bothers me that my government dictates to women that the only way to be feminist is by keeping their fathers’ names.
RL: What's one positive development in regard to women that you appreciate about Quebec?

SM: Quebec has actively promoted a gender-equal society. One way that the Quebec government has done this is by instating a public daycare system that only costs the users seven dollars a day. This means that many mothers can work without exhausting most of their income on child care. The program’s raison-d’être is, “to help parents balance their work and family responsibilities."

Another of Quebec’s policies, its Quebec Parental Insurance plan, inaugurated in 2006, has led to greater gender equality in the workplace. One year “maternity” leave now includes fathers, so men no longer have an advantage when applying for a job since the employer recognizes that a man may choose to take parental leave. Employers that had been weary of hiring women because she may take a year’s maternity leave cannot justify such a decision any longer.

Couples have taken advantage of this program. In Canada about 90% of mothers took leave from their jobs. In Quebec, 80% of men choose to take parental leave. (2006 figures).

One reason that so many Quebecers have used the program is that the policy is very flexible. The parents can choose to split or even share the year. The government provides seventy-five percent of the salary and employers are required to retain the same position for when the worker returns to work. The government pays up to 75% of the salary the person is missing during the leave.

3. Can you share a moment this very week where you personally encountered a gender issue?

Well, I've spent most of this week studying, so I guess I'd say that when I think of education, I'm grateful that I live today and not even 100 years ago. Also, I know that even if I do have kids, I can continue my education as a mom. I don't know if it's the same in the States, but moms can get the same grants and loans going part-time to college as those without kids get as full-time students.