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Interview with a modern American Woman

Interview with a modern American Woman Interview with modern American woman Ora Frasier Harrison was born in the small town of Cleora, Oklahoma in the early thirties. Ora has an appropriately large view of the world. Even when Ora realized her talent for working with numbers didn’t jive with her talent for being a member of the female gender, she journeyed on, appropriating a large view of the opportunities that await her. Ora’s persistence to be acknowledged in a male dominated profession coupled with her experiences before and after the women’s liberation movement has made her a model of an American woman that has overcome professional and societal oppression based on her gender. The women’s liberation movement affected Ora mostly in her professional pursuit. Her antipathy with societies treatment of women in the workforce spurned her desire to shatter the glass ceiling of her own chosen profession, accounting. Her feelings were consistent with others at the time. An excerpt from the article “Women’s Liberation” describes how women felt about their place in the American workforce; “The job market uses women as scabs-to work for less pay due to their lack of self-esteem and to keep down the level of labor struggle due to their traditional lack of militancy and collective spirit.” Ora was lucky enough to find support in a collective spirit called the American Association for Women in Accounting. Here she was exposed to women in leadership positions and mentors who had faced the same stonewalling from their male counterparts as she had. A large sentiment was brewing at the time of her entrance into the professional world. Commonly felt by women, “..at its root there lies a clear perception that bourgeois society offers no genuinely interesting or fulfilling work or ways of living. From amidst this generalized discontent, women see especially clearly the dearth of opportunities for them in society’s mainstream.” (CP: Women’s Liberation, p.295) Women across the board could be heard shouting statements rooted in dissatisfaction with the inequality of work and pay in America, including Ora. The National Women’s Organization addressed this issue. “The woman’s movement-not one organization-is a conscious attempt on the part of women to work out an analysis of our own and other’s oppression under American capitalism.” (CP: Women’s Liberation p.306) Ora equally disrespected the way society tried to use ridicule to keep women in submission by calling their efforts at equal rights “silly” and declaring feminists as “bra burners.” This discontent with society led to Ora’s participation in the N.O.W. International Women’s Year Conference in 1977. This event, as well as her reading of the Feminine Mystique and the Female Unit, encouraged her to express her opinions, different ways of expressing them and gave her a place where her voice was heard. Ora recollects the women’s liberation movement as having a positive effect on her friends and fellow feminists. Many women took to the pursuit of education to empower themselves. Women like Pauli Murray were preparing themselves in universities nationwide for careers previously dominated by males. Their access to quality education not always ensured by their tuition, women like Murray and Ora felt the pains of sex discrimination before they entered their respective fields. Ora recalls interviewing for jobs while still in college, that her stellar resume had landed her, only to be dismissed before the interview even began, because she was a woman. Ora credits the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (ironically not intended to benefit women or expected to) for creating better job opportunities for women and a chance for women to excel in leadership. The Equal Rights Amendment was a barrier in the women’s movement, as expressed by historians and by Ora. “Opposition to ERA is starkly paradoxical. The paradox is resolved in part by remembering that many Americans who claim to believe in equality become profoundly apprehensive when the principle is identified with specific governmental policies they consider to be intrusive and unreasonable.” (WA, 609) Ora recalls her friends having mixed emotions about the consequences of the ERA. Some women felt like the privilege of having a husband support them was too important to risk losing, as was the fear if unisex toilets. Other women thought that women’s place in society and in the future as an economic force was dormant without the passing of the ERA. Both sides had a profound impact on the future of women as an organized body for equal rights between the genders. Ora can identify results she believes stem from the women’s liberation movement of the 60’s and 70’s, in today’s society. She believes that women today possess more courage and possibility to do what they want, professionally and personally. She notices that women have become instrumental in politics, locally and nationally. However when asked what she feels is the biggest threat to women’s happiness today, she has an omnipresent response. One of the most important reverberations of women’s concerns from the 70’s still heard today is over women’s reproductive rights. Ora and many other women are concerned about politicizing women’s reproductive rights, and keeping it out of the hands of government. As a member of the Texas Abortion Rights Action League (TARAL) Ora hopes to educate other women on the dangers of the government interfering with the rights of a woman to govern her own body. Ora’s voice of activism can also be heard through the River Oaks Democratic Women’s Club. As you can see the women’s liberation movement, and legislation passed at the urging of the movement, had profound effects on women, especially economically and professionally. Ora Frasier Harrison is just one example of how persistence and education can result in success no matter what obstacles you are born with. Bibliography:

Word Count: 945