WE
CAN DREAM, CAN'T WE? ...
WE
CAN DREAM,
CAN'T WE? ...
A FEMINIST'S NEW YEAR'S WISH LIST
FOR
ANY YEAR BEFORE HUMANS BECOME OBSOLETE
by sonya hammond
10.
Passage of a law making it illegal for salesmen
of cars or any other commodity to quote prices based solely on the sex of the
prospective buyer. [No point in pushing for sexual integration of
automobile sales staffs; most women have too much integrity for the job.]
9.
Extension of Equal Opportunity to the Right To
Life movement where persistent use of antediluvian male spokespersons damning a
woman's right to choose suggests it is not yet in force.
8.
Amendment to the law in Wish No. 10, allowing the
death penalty for mechanics who, pretending not to understand a woman's
description of what's wrong with her car, charge her three times what they
would charge a man ... even one whose idea of a mechanical term is 'the thing that makes that
little fan go'.
7.
Election of female political candidates becoming
so unremarkable that the term 'Year of the Woman' becomes as obsolete as our current
taxation with incredibly inadequate representation.
6.
Shorter congressional hearings [a sure thing if
Wish No 7 is granted], resulting in less endless self-serving oratory as male
senators struggle to keep their feet out of their mouths. [Televised hearings
won't be quite as amusing, but you can't have everything.]
5.
Nomination of female Supreme Court justices or
Cabinet members as mere symbols of presidential political
correctness becoming obsolete due to their equal representation in both government bodies. [We'll
take our chances that our new Chief Executive might be accused of showing her
sexual bias.]
4.
Recognition that gender should not preclude
anyone's right to try anything of which they are capable or for which they are
willing to put themselves on the line.
3.
Admission that 'Vive la difference!' suggests
the need for medical research on conditions indigenous to women [if men had
suffered from hot flashes, estrogen would have been developed some time around
Exodus], and that including women in clinical studies will not [as one
researcher recently rationalized with uncharacteristic delicacy] 'offend our
female sensitivities'.
2.
Acceptance that nowhere is it written that
intelligence, education and experience are qualifications limited to males,
thereby eliminating anointing them as the only logical recipients of advancement and fair
compensation in the workplace.
1.
Acknowledgment that when Jefferson held the truth
that 'all men are created equal' as self-evident, he meant [we hope] 'men' in
the anthropological or zoological sense of the word, thus suggesting that any
assumption that women need legal authorization to pursue life, liberty or the
pursuit of happiness is not only redundant but probably unconstitutional.
©sonya hammond 1995