Maria Shriver has embarked upon a project to capture “an accurate and up-to-date portrait of the American woman and [develop] next steps to remove barriers to her success.” This project, "A Woman's Nation." is at once ambitious and promising. Women have always been an equal portion of the population but due to sexist, paternalistic, and/or patronizing actions of others, women have not shared equal possession of power or equal say in the running of the nation at any level. Shriver’s quest to capture the narrative of the American woman is ambitious because it is a tall order. I commend her for embarking upon such a journey. It is promising because the voice of, one may argue, silenced population may be amplified to the level that it cannot be ignored save for by the most close-minded of individuals.
Now, you know this post is not just singing the praises of such a project. One may argue that my stick I race, gender, and inequality. And yes, I’m trying to be a cultural sociologist. Thus, I stand to restate and reiterate some of the issues and concerns Black feminists and social scientists have posited in the past. When reading the announcement one already sees the potential downfalls of such a project: trying to capture the portrait of the American woman and creating a space for her voice¬ to be heard as if there is only one American woman or a singular voice to be heard. These essentialist femininity claims have crippled academic discourse for many years. Patricia Hill Collins’ sharp and accurate denunciation and debunking of Catherine MacKinnon’s call for the creation of one, unified female “solidarity” speaks to these very issues. The social group of women is not a homogenous group. We cannot continue to treat—or in this case—operate under this ill-founded presumption. The stories of women of color and also women from disadvantaged populations must not be downplayed and definitely not ignored.
Surely, the salience of one’s gender is contextual and amplified by one’s social location. I do not argue that there are no common concerns that all women of every creed, color, and class share. What I caution Shriver and other projects that attempt to document the narrative of women is to not begin such a project with the mindset of constructing a unified picture based upon essentialist identity assumptions of what it means to be female.
Again, I appreciate such a project as I believe that having a voice is having power, and “voicelessness” is powerlessness. Poet Maya Angelou writes,
A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
And floats downstream till the current ends
And dips his wing in the orange sun's rays and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.
But what about the caged bird who has her song taken away from her, forever silenced? What about the bird whose freedom is restricted, whose life choices are limited? Who is here to give her back her song? Who will free her? I believe that the free bird that “floats downstream to the current ends” represents the privileged members of society—primarily white males. The caged bird who can sing represents all ostracized men; although caged, they still have a voice to call out for freedom. However, we are left with the bird that even Angelou leaves behind—the caged bird who cannot “sing [even] a fearful trill of thing unknown or longed for still.” The silenced birds represent those who have been silenced throughout history—women, especially poor and minority women. In American politics, the voices of poor women are seldom heard. Globally, women who experience poverty as a direct result of their government’s economic policies or patriarchal traditions need a forum. For if we continue to dismiss, deter, or downplay the voice of all women, anyone trying to document such a rich, detailed, and awe-inspiring yet deeply troubled narrative will be flying blind. Maria, I need you to see.
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