Photograph by Anna Traverse
At Memphis magazine, we traditionally plan for our October magazine to be, in some form or fashion, dedicated to women. We publish Race for the Cure’s program this month. Helping save and prolong the lives of women (and some men, too): irrefutably a good thing. We design the articles we run to have, well, something to do with the pesky 51 percent of the population who are not male. And we put a woman on the cover.
If you’re sensing a mote of cynicism in my tone, well, yes: You’re on the scent. This year, we aren’t billing the October issue as the Women’s Issue. Questions we couldn’t help but ask: What is a Women’s Issue meant to accomplish, exactly? If we were to bill it as the Women’s Issue, should the magazine not be full — and I do mean full — of stories about women: surprising women, successful women, women whose stories are worth telling regardless of their gender? But then, if those stories are worth telling regardless of gender, would not a better way be to tell those stories as often as we write about men? And while I’m posing questions, what about nonbinary Memphians, or those who identify as women today but were assigned male at birth? What are we doing here, again?
But of course, we don’t live in a world where we could vault past these questions, bypass the need to dedicate space especially to women. This year, we’ve settled on a sort of hybrid version of our traditional concept and what comes next.
Memphis magazine, for all my harping above and occasional grumbles in staff meetings, devotes covers and column inches to women throughout the year, every year. This is not some new trend for us: I would know, being in the midst of sorting through our archives, which reach back to our first issue in 1976. (Expect to learn more about this project in the months to come. Our goal: fully digitized archives, accessible to all Memphians.)
Our world is nowhere near a point where we can saunter confidently into a utopian future of gender equity. Hillary Clinton won a lower percentage of the women’s vote than did Barack Obama. A narrow majority — but a majority — of white women voted for Donald Trump. Many women, it seems, don’t feel comfortable being led by a woman.
Since the 2016 election, though, we’ve watched women galvanized, strengthened. This midterm season, women — especially Democratic women and women of color — are running for office in record numbers, all over the country, up and down every ballot. In early August, in Shelby County, a blue wave at the ballot box was led by women candidates. There’s a lot at stake, this election cycle, and one of the questions on the ballot, in invisible but vivid ink, will be: Are voters as ready to be led by women as women are ready to lead? Increasingly, the answer sounds like a resounding yes.
At the Women’s March in January 2017, in Washington, D.C., we passed by the Trump International Hotel, on Pennsylvania Avenue. Two women, neither one white, had climbed beyond guardrails and onto the steps of the hotel, where they perched, unflinching, eyes fixed, as crowds gathered and police and hotel guards circled. One of the two held a sign that read “SISTERS WILL CRUSH YOU.” The other: “YOUR SILENCE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU.”
As we go to print, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is confronted with credible allegations of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. President Trump, who claims that Kavanaugh is being treated in a way he deems “unfair,” has himself been accused of sexual harassment and assault by at least 19 women.
Things are not okay. Better? Perhaps. But not okay. The gender pay gap continues to affect women’s earnings, options, even their independence. Women are passed over for professional promotions. Women’s pain is not always taken seriously in clinical environments, leading to missed diagnoses and negative outcomes. Women are more likely to be assaulted and harassed. Things are not okay.
In my more hopeful moments, I tell myself that the circling darkness — misogyny; harassment so widespread it’s hegemonic; institutional and structural sexism — is approaching a kind of extinction burst, and will soon be much diminished. We’ll see. [N.B.: After finishing this piece, less than an hour passed before I was harassed. Which seems fitting.]
Women (like the Women of Achievement, profiled in this issue) offer their own models of alternative energy, so to speak. Instead of burning through all the resources available to them and everyone nearby, women who lead are doing so by collaborating, listening, coordinating, sustaining. There is reason to hope, even to have faith. We women may not have crushed you, yet (you know who you are), but neither, for today, will we be crushed ourselves.
