uppity women

Some of us know the privilege
of burning bras, of Title Nine
and following our bliss.
But, O, those uppity women
in Seneca Falls.  Shoulder to shoulder
they stand in crinolines and petticoats
that belie their ramrod backbones;
unwilling to settle for second class status
or scrabble for leftover crumbs
like stray dogs at the masters' feet.
The right to vote they seek is
secondary to all the small injustices
suffered at the hands of men;
the right to teach, to learn, to own,
custodial care of one's own child.
The meek will inherit the earth
someday, someday.
The blessings of God are not exclusive;
women get things done,
slowly, deliberately.
Perhaps that's as it should be, has to be;
but, O, those uppity women have given me
the luxury to be meek. 

Liz McFadzean

This past October when my husband and I went on a road trip to upstate New York with longtime friends LB and David Norton, it was the fulfillment of a wish they had to take us back to their roots.  Both of them hail from the very small college town of Houghton, New York, and they wanted to take us to experience the beautiful little spot where they grew up, matriculated, fell in love and left.  (We even recreated their first kiss on a bridge near her childhood home….probably close to 50 years ago!)

I always been the vacation planner in our family, but I willingly abdicated to let LB plan the whole thing.  And it was quite trip, laced with history and hiking, waterfalls and women’s equality.  And that’s where “Uppity Women” comes in.

One of our stops was in Seneca Falls, NY, the birthplace of the Women’s Rights movement in the United States.  It was in the Wesleyan Chapel in that city in the heart of the Finger Lakes District, that abolitionist women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott gathered other women to create the Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances, closely modeled on the Declaration of Independence that launched the country’s Revolutionary War.  And this declaration was no less far-reaching and revolutionary. 

As a woman coming of age in the 1960’s and 1970’s I am fairly familiar with revolution.  It was all around us in the air we breathed.  But the right to earn equal pay for equal work was just peeking on the horizon.  Women had had the right to vote, to own property and to have custody of their children in a divorce.  An Equal Rights Amendment would be hotly contested in the 80’s.  No matter where you fall on that question recently brought up again for debate, you have the privilege to vote your opinion, to affirm or dissent.  And that is the legacy of these “uppity” women.