I will turn 50 this September. I was born in 1975, and I represent the only generation of American women born with full rights that have been lost in the same lifetime. My generation has witnessed anti-progress. A cultivated backpedal. open.substack.com/pub/jesspipe...
Also millennials 🤷🏻♀️
Same with my daughters.
I would include younger Boomers too. We had rights. But it's a very narrow swath of generations of women who enjoyed rights.
Yep. That's me, I was 11 when Roe was decided, and cheered on the ERA rallies. I grew up expecting I would be an equal member of society. The loss of all that is a knife to the heart.
You are almost as old as my daughter, who was second trimester before the right to choice was law.
56 and appalled. I have lived and been proud of the progress that continued to happen- in most areas of human rights- and then the worm turned and we began the slide backwards. My mother almost died from an abortion back on the 60’s. And she was not in a back alley. Her parents paid for her to
travel to NY where it was legal-but still not that safe. Needless to say I grew up in a household where it was seen as a right though the stepfather, being from the silent generation, had other views about women. I think Gen X has more of an understanding of what has been lost because we saw
the changes happen in real time- saw how our mothers blossomed and then went out and continued the work. Where we failed was educating those that came after about what was gained and how harmful losing it could be. The same thing is now happening with other rights. And will continue unless we push
back against the right wing powers that are implementing this agenda on our nation-all in the name of their false Christianity. Which is also a problem. We were founded on religious freedom. Not the freedom to force your religion down everyone’s throat.
I feel every word of this. The tragedy of what we've lost.
Our mothers and us had to push thru so much bullshit. When I talk to paste eating women who somehow lived thru that but didn’t register- -just walk away. Still shamed by the morons who voted for that 🍊💩💼
I’m with YOU! We also didn’t experience a ground war until Iraq! -
And we relied on political apathy most of our lives. Are we really surprised how we got here?
We are going backwards as a society. Shameful.
At the first post-Dobbs protest, I told the anxious, angry young women in the large crowd that I spent my entire reproductive years under Roe, and I owed them an apology for not doing more to protect it.
You don't owe us an apology. You guys fought to get more rights for women and succeeded. The men (& women) who voted against us owe us an apology. That's an apology I know we'll never get because they still don't see what they did as wrong. The women who fought 1 or 2 generations are not at fault.
Thank you.
Once Roe was overturned, we lost any hope of a true democracy. When you eliminate the bodily rights of half the population, you cannot claim to be a free country. And look what’s followed. Suppressing women is always the start of autocracy.
So true!
Over eighty million aborted babies after the pleasure of sex since nineteen seventy three: Women's rights/ Genocide.
Truth...I remember the before, during, and now, the after.
Still cannot believe how many women sat out the 2024 election when their rights have been destroyed by a corrupt, illegitimate, right-wing Supreme Court! My wife loves the sign saying "If Kamala won we'd be having brunch now".
This topic is on my mind a lot lately. I was born in 1973, and my mom's politics used to be very left of center, switching to the right in the mid-late eighties. I wonder how she reconciles this? If she is even aware of it? We can't/don't talk about it so I don't know.
You shut yer mouth and get back to cleaning the house. Annn don’t burn the meatloaf this time. 😉
I was born before full rights. I remember what it was like to not have my own bank account, bodily autonomy etc ; my children have never known the ” not having rights”. UNTIL now.
My mother didn't have full rights when she married my father. And I barely made it past 50 with full rights. We never did actually reach equality. We might have done better if we had joined forces with women of color instead of clinging to our white privilege. 😔😔
One of the smarter comments I've read today. Thx!
1968 🙋🏻♀️ So depressing for my daughters and future grandchildren! 😩😡
💔💔💔
I was born in 1953. I fought for the ERA & Roe. Now I have neither.
I was born in 1977 and that absolutely is horrific, that we are the only generation of American women born with full rights. There have been lost in the same lifetime
The point still stands but millennials are also a generation born with rights have been lost in the same lifetime. And a subset of gen Z.
As has the generation of women before you. I was born in 1955 and have been fighting for and marching for a woman's right to choose since 1976. My knees hurt.
My mother couldn't have a life-saving C section without her husbands consent unless she was legally separated?? She n my brother survived, coz she lied!
I turn 71 this year & was born with fewer rights due to my gender. We fought hard to be equal in the eyes of the law & to have the right to control our own bodies. To watch the destruction of our hard-won rights by misogynistic crybaby men who have never had their rights questioned is infuriating.
I fought for them in the 1960s Horrified by Trump
Well said. I am constantly gobsmacked at the number of women who enable this BS. Smart, educated, creative, driven women who either sit back and say nothing or worse, enable the erosion of all that our moms and grandmas fought for.
1965. Yes
I’ll be 55 in August. I never thought I’d see this. These girls now don’t know what reproductive freedom is.
Women now have more rights in Mexico and Ireland than the USA.
The media is so terrible a lot of people don’t understand this. I’m in Mn- women didn’t lose rights. When I talk about other states people are shocked. The media doesn’t talk about it so they think things are ok here. International cover up.
Ot has been reported here in the UK but I agree, main stream media is subordinate to the govt. I read independent news outlets who do tell the truth about the a#seholes in control. Solidarity ✊️
You did lose rights as well though, even if in a more progressive state. You can no longer travel freely outside your state, confident you’ll be able to receive appropriate care in a medical emergency.
True— I recognize this. Many won’t until it hits them in the face as it’s happening to them. And then it is too late.
Until we are ALL free, none of us are free.
That’s a global truth 🌎
I’m one of the women that fought for that right. And I’ll keep fighting for our rights 50 years later. 50 years is half a century. Half a century dealing with white, male supremacy. Screw that!!
You look so young. 1977 here.
I am right there with you. This is all so awful. And we need to stop this. Thank you for all you are doing
I just turned 50. This is not the world we were promised growing up. I thought we were heading for a far more equal society. That my kids wouldn't really understand what the glass ceiling was because it would be long gone. I feel utterly betrayed.
Love this, thank you. Sent it to my sisters and told them this is why we fight so hard for their daughters.
And you continue to represent your generation of all genders exceptionally well.
Said by a man
Indeed.
It’s a shame.
Today I'll be traveling with my mom, sister, and two nieces. What a powerful, real, and thought provoking article. We'll be discussing this amongst a boomer, two genXers, and two whatever comes after millennials. I won't stop fighting for my kids and nieces - they deserve a better world!!
I am 81. I appreciate your presentation of the history. It was a long hard road to some enlightenment for women and it hurts to see how men are taking us back to second class citizens once more. White mens’ fear of women is palpable. Without control—they fold.
I was born the day before President Johnson said he would not seek reelection and I feel like we’ve been in a free fall my whole damn life. We had finally started making real progress and those conservatives said “never” and they fucking won.
You say equal rights are in the constitution, but unless the ERA is affirmed as the 28th amendment, they’re not! We need a white hot spotlight on the Equal Rights Amendment, and the house bill to affirm it as “law of the land” www.eracoalition.org
Join the movementand sign the petition at www.sign4era.org ! #ERANow
Should have a link to sign.
Click the URL link
As a fellow GenXer in Canada, my heart breaks for what women in the US are going through. 💔 I'm so very sorry... I hope you're able to turn your country around.
It's spreading, Canadians should be hyper diligent.
I represent the generation that fought for these rights and lost them. It absolutely amazes me that a group of mostly older white men can decide what girls growing up today want or need. What they will learn, what healthcare choices will be available what books and art they can enjoy…
Spot on. Older than you, never imagined that our rights would be stolen away. Keep up the good fight.
We should have been insisting, for 50 years, that the ERA be passed. We should have insisted that autonomy rights be codified in the constitution. We should have insisted that equal pay be instituted immediately.
I’m 78 years old & fought for all of the above. Many of my generation tried unsuccessfully to get younger women to join in the fight. It is among my greatest disappointments that we just couldn’t convince them that those rights we’d gained needed codification.
It’s among one of my greatest disappointments that we couldn’t convince men that these rights are vital.
Agreed!
Thank you for everything you’ve done Lauren.
🎯
I was born in 1953, the generation that fought for those rights, only to watch an alt-right SCOTUS destroy those rights!
Me too born In 1957 Remember Viet Nam Martin Luther King Remember JFK and RFK being shot Earth Day Cripes as I grew up there was a concert and protest every weekend
Me, three… 1957. We ‘thought’ we fought so our daughters would have more rights, easier career advancement, everyone would have more overall equality. Said to my husband - you have no idea how depressing/alarming it is to be a woman now. Same for ppl of color, gay- anyone not a white man.
I've just read these posts. I totally relate. I'm in the UK. I was born in 61. I feel we're fighting the same old fights but the misogyny and aggression is worse. Sending you and others on this thread solidarity.
Thank you very much
Thank you❤️ There are days when it feels so very bleak. I give myself a couple of hours to give in to the sadness then time to shake it off and get back to fighting, prodding others to fight. Positive thoughts accepted 😘
I didn't think I would have to do this again But there I was June 14th NO Kings Tunkhannock Pennsylvania
Yep. I thought there was another one here on July 4th- But I’m not seeing anything. I hope Trump’s “visit” to gloat over the cruelty of Alligator Alcatraz will infuriate ppl to come out. Protests need to be more often and need to keep getting bigger.
I haven't seen any either @indivisible.org may have more info
I hear ya
😞
No, we won’t go back.
Bet. ✊🏼
🎉. Happy birthday Jess
Which rights have been taken away from you? ...asking for a friend.
I turn 50 today. I share your sense that we are a sort of Midnight's Children, our lives defined by the proximity of our birth and the moment that mostly everything began to get worse. Gay white men do a bit better as a cohort than they did in '75. It's a struggle to find much other material change
And yet so many in our generation applaud this repeal. It’s so disappointing to me.
EVERY VOTE counts against the Nazi KIng....America is watching. . ..
I am GenX born in 1967, and we gained full rights in the 70s. And clearly, far too many in power would like to go back to the 1950s. The fight continues.
Yesterday, I saw parts of the Disney doc on Sally Ride. Misogyny about women at NASA dripped from people as famously benign as Tom Brokaw. One guy complained that women hadn't earned it bc they'd not been fighter pilots, as if women had the opportunity to earn it that way. No. We're not going back!
And now, for people born in the 10 years, the lack of rights is normal....
Thanks, fascists
I am 70 and feel the same.
Same 😤
👍👍👍 🙏💙🙏
I will turn 50 this October. Power to the women!
All of this!! I was definitely oblivious to all the fights women won before I was out of diapers. It breaks my heart to know this is all going backwards. I wish it didn’t have to be this traumatic for people.
I am so sorry 💙
Exactly why women need the Equal Rights Amendment- because our rights are not protected in the constitution! 14th amendment is being eroded by SCOTUS, and without ERA basic rights are at risk. #eranow www.sign4era.org
No rights until '72 Now they are gone. Time for a mass snipping of republican kkkristian men Add-a-ball necklaces for all the ladies! Snippity goddamn snip!!!
I was born in 1976, and it's terrifying. I find myself apologizing to my 19yo, becasue the world today isn't the one into which I thought I was bringing her.
1967 got it now lost it
I just turned 71. I saw a good president assassinated, men of peace assassinated and a loved candidate assassinated, I saw a war decimate my contemporaries. I saw a state (my state) celebrate the killing of their children protesting war. All before I was 18. We are a nation of hate. Just sayin.
💙
Cause we fought for ERA and women's rights Burned our bras like draft cards
Late-era Boomers may not have been born with all the rights, but we grew up with them and lived our adult lives with them, 'til now. I was 11 when Roe was decided.
😔😢🙏🏻
When I graduated, we weren't allowed to have our own bank accounts, needed permission from our spouse for birth control, and couldn't get tubes tied until after 3 kids and had his permission. See where I'm going with this? Trump and the GOP want to put us back there.
And I’m at the age of 66, and I feel like I’ve been fighting for people’s rights my whole adult life. And now, poof.
And guess what? The women that fought for those same rights are still alive. They’re showing up at town halls, Tesla takedowns, and protests. Civil rights and liberties must be fought for in the streets.
If we don’t do it again who will?
Teach your children well. Some are doing the right stuff, others we have to teach them what fearlessness is.
My generation was the one who fought so hard for those rights. Now we're fighting for them again 😔
Thank you, friend
My mom also fought for those rights and now she's maga.
Oh, my! That's incredibly sad.
She gets really flustered when I bring that part up. Trump is everything that she has always hated. Her brother got her addicted to fox.
I have 2 educated sisters who were right beside me in the fight. One is a conspiracies theorist, and the other refuses to believe facts. They get angry with me when I try to talk to them & turn it back on me like I'm the brainwashed sister. I understand what you go through.
I laugh whenever she says fake news. 🤣
I just have to shake my head & laugh, too!
Thank you.
I was 14 when Roe was decided.
One step forward a thousand troglodyte steps back
What's sad is the amount of white women that enthusiastically voted to be chattel over the idea of having a women be POTUS.
Agreed. It's also nearly as sad that white men in this country have so much disdain for women they chose an incompetent convicted felon and r*pist over a qualified woman.
I was born into this fight & won the rights … Decades of both parties Not Codifying Women Rights… Decades of stagnent wages as “America is rich(?)= no Congress is Rich & the Wealthy is benefiting… Quality of life is garbage
Makes me sooo mad.. Women need to be in every Leadership role… Men are too greedy, emotional & wayyyy to illogical
1970 here - we didn’t know it could all be taken away - I feel shame every time I see a picture of Gloria Steinem - I just want to scream I’m sorry we didn’t pick up the baton with the urgency it required 💔 💔 we didn’t know, grasp, read, listen, fight 😞
😢
I was born much, much earlier and I fought for our civil rights. We marched, we protested, we got loud and we made progress. Now, I feel like everything we fought for has been taken away by an empty, hollow, cruel, impulsive person. How can one person have this much power?
That's what these sexist bigots want us to believe. If we got rid of King 👑 TACO 🌮 it would all go away and that's just not the case. We have to fight everyone and fight hard.
I was not in any way suggesting that the answer(s) are that simple. I know the fight. I was only talking about those of us who marched in the '70s and what we did get done.
It’s devastating to see what we fought so hard for in the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s be reversed. I was there. My mother & her mother had few human rights. It’s been systematically dismantled like the rest of our rights with the Trump regime. The old white men’s revenge!
The patriarchy really is THE tightest union. They never betray each other and defend each other to the death. Really wish women could achieve this.
We have a bad habit of “standing by my man.” It’s the only way they have such control. We allow it. It’s the same in corporate America. 30 years in high tech. The women I hired & mentored always supported the men no matter what. Look at the percentage of women who voted for Trump!
I was 41 years in corp IT. Had similar experiences mentoring women as they just can’t overcome their training that men “always know best”. Once I realized they don’t I got more confident of my abilities &challenged them. It’s unfortunate many men run kingdoms at home so can’t do democracy at work.
I was born in '74 . Jeez who could have predicted this 🤦
I wish I still had my 1984 Olympics tank top And my rights
I’m sure you mention this in your essay but I’m on my way out the door…. The ERA was never passed. JS ☮️
Yes you do. Us Boomers fought for those rights as well!
Me too. Yet we’re the generation of woman who have backed Trump at the highest rates…
I just read this in my email newsletter. I'm 63. It made me so sad. Women's rights are moving backwards and at the same time there is less opportunity for the younger generation to achieve what their parents did. We can't give in to these backwards faux Christians. 🤬
Not to quibble, but weren't Millenials and Gen Z women also born with full rights? Regardless, it is a terrible indictment of our society that we chose fanaticism, Christian nationalism, and lizard brain misogyny over reason, equality, and respect for all Americans. I am truly ashamed.
Millennials made it to their 30s with civil rights. I feel sorry for the Gen Zs barely making it out in the world to have a career and it's already taken from them. Alpha's Gen is what scares me the most, they won't have a taste of it like the rest of us did.
I'm 66 and part of the stupidest generation that elected trump twice.
Yeah because I’m OG GEN-X and I was there watching the fight. I was born in 65 I turned 60 this year.
I was born before Roe vs Wade. My mom had no choice. Now my daughter doesn’t. 😭
That’s too bad. The last thing anyone needs is another you clogging the toilets and spewing ignorance while busking for 25 year old white do nothing boys as you complain about ‘women’s rights’. We got your number, Sis. You are so clearly showing your ass that Sarah Palin can see it from her house.
We are working on getting those rights back & more. Never give up !
Same. May history NOT repeat - we must make sure.
And mine is fighting again. I was born in 1958. No one disparage as a boomer please. You likely have no idea what we went thru
I was born October the same year. I know exactly what you’re saying is true. I should’ve been more vocal and rioting back in 2000. I lived on both coasts and many cities along the way. I don’t think I’m all knowing and omnipotent, but I’ve seen lots of things. I know we deserve better as a world!
What has surprised me most is the anti-freedom movement became most powerful in the wake of 9/11 and two wars fought in the name of freedom. Now, American men want to emulate the Taliban’s treatment of women. It’s truly depressing.
You're just a baby, in your prime! I'm a boomer.
I will turn 79 this September. I was born in 1946. In my life time I’ve been judicially jerked around until I lost ALL BODILY AUTONOMY. It’s been a a BUMMER .(to use a boomer term). We can’t let this inequality stand!!!!💪✊🇺🇸
So very, very disappointing. 😕
😢
When the courts, especially SCOTUS, have a conservative balance, the state where you live determines your rights. Blue is beautiful. I wouldn't want to raise daughters in a red state.
My 1974 bumper sticker: "Don't blame me. I'm from Massachusetts." Still resonates.
👍
Born in the 50s I remember when women didn’t have rights. One of the reasons why I will fight.
And so many of us have contributed to that loss. I just don’t understand.
When I was a young teen, I helped another teen get an abortion. That started me on a 50+ year fight for reproductive rights. I defended clinics all over the South. I was a leader in the movement. Today, I mourn for what we lost.
Same. Just a few years after Roe, when there were still a lot of states that hadn't caught up with the law.
One reason those were "lost" is there were too many younger women saying "I don't need the ERA" or "I don't need to be a feminist." Why? Because they foolishly ignored the fact that older gens of women fought hard so younger gens could have it better. Respect and protect rights, or they'll be taken.
i remember it well. gen x women loved dunking on “feminism” while attending law school & not being forced to have children.
I was born in 61 and I think older boomers got this too. Having a career was encouraged, we didn't have to cut paths in law school or graduate schools.... Where I lived there was readily available child care.... There was more to be accomplished but things were wonderful in retrospect.
younger boomers
Maybe the worst thing is that it was more common for our male partners struggled with our success and to feel emasculated by it. My son and his friends kind of love it.
It's maddening, we fought so hard and now we have to fight all over again Gen X fought against police brutality, still fighting. We fought for gay marriage, got that one now it's in danger. On & on They are crazy if they think we will ever stop fighting for what's right
I was born in 1973 - the year of Roe v Wade. My mom marched with me, for me, and because of me. I knew I was wanted.
👏👏👏
1972 here. My republican dad just doesn’t get it 🥲
@piperformissouri.bsky.social I am just a couple years younger, Gen X. It's like from 2016 to presently I woke up from a dream into a nightmare. I am still struggling just exactly how this all happened with these brainwashed women of all ages.
1970, agree.
bsky.app/profile/angr...
Hi Jess, I'm with you! Was thinking that right now, somewhere in a red state, there are girls being forced to carry their rapist's baby. Unconscionable.
I feel responsible for it. I feel like we weren’t paying attention, too busy with our lives, too trusting that our elected officials wanted the same general liberties. I feel conned by leaders who weren’t. And angry because I vote every damn time there’s even a dog catcher on the ballot. WTH.
I think about this exact thing a lot.
I am May 1975. I hear ya.
My grandmother had more rights than I do at this very moment. That’s really unbelievable.
📌
Degeneration
Trump is an equal opportunity bigot; he demeans women, black people, migrants and every other group he can use to pander to and inflame the bigotry of his base.
Project 2025 Women’s bank accounts will be suspended and given to men You don’t have to believe me it’s coming
This is so critical to understand. Rights really aren't guaranteed. They come and go with whims of politics. We have to continue to champion all rights!
We should have passed the Equal Rights Amendment decades ago.
I wish I had understood at the time that its inability to pass meant there were (and are now) men who do not believe women are equal. That would have saved me a lot of frustration.
It wasn't just men, many women, usually conservative Christians, also opposed it.
I'm sojourning in Utah at the moment. Do you know what church spent undisclosed sums opposing and directed all their members to work to defeat the ERA back in '76? Hint: They did the same to pass DoMA.
I would think that gen x was the first generation to be born with full rights and then lose them. Very sad for the current teens that have seen their rights evaporate before they could even vote 😢
Which rights?
Exactly 💯 so glad you agree! Poof and rights are gone.
Can you not list the rights you've lost?
Body autonomy.
No one has taken away your "body autonomy".
Learn about the little known abortion rights history of swashbuckling Atlanta attorney Margie Pitts Hames and Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe v. Wade. TheOtherRoeFilm.com
I turned 70 this year and I have watched my rights be hard won and then pissed away by people who couldn't be bothered to vote for their own best interests.
1975 here too. If you would have told me in 1993 what is happening now, I would not have believed it. I never could have imagined it; our possibilities seemed endless.
Could women in 1975 get credit cards yet without their husbands' permission?
I believe that right was won in 1974.
In my lifetime. SMDH. My wife points this out to young women from time to time.
Just turned 60. I hear you. Married to an American born Chinese man for 30 years and whilst driving cross country there were too many times I didn’t want him to get out and pump gas. How insane is that.
70 next year. Married a Frenchman. People asked him "why do you live in America?" He was sent here by the hi tech co. he worked for. Lived & paid taxes here 40+ years. Saw the Equal Rights Amendment fail w/a ridiculous time limit on it; Roe passed, then SCOTUS killed it. Equal pay still not real.
"why do you live in America?" A question every single one of us except a relatively small number of native Americans could be asked. We whose ancestors stole the land think we're the only ones entitled to be here.
Well said, Jon. Exactly. And shame on us as a society and a nation.
You seem to be forgetting Millenials, Gen Y, and Gen Z... They all were born with the same rights as you and no longer have them.
My situation, too. We LIVED in the communities that were being defunded every year, decade after decade; wiped out by authoritarian power grabs + greed. All personal freedom, privacy + independence has been “bought and paid for” by vulture capitalists and foreign enemies, blessed by Robert’s Court.
