June 19th, 2009

Nellie Bly was an American journalist, author, industrialist, and charity worker. She is most famous for an undercover expose in which she faked insanity to study a mental institution from within. Lucy Stone was a prominent American abolitionist, suffragist, and reporter for the newspaper The Liberator. Both women are subjects in the new book I’m working on entitled Front Page: Women Journalist of the Old West. Both women have admirable qualities, but I respect Nellie more than Lucy. She never made her gender an issue. She did what she knew she could do based on her skill and talent alone. She didn’t hide behind a cause. She acted and in so doing opened the door for many investigative journalists to follow. I think we trivialize women’s issues in this country by fixating on the insignificant and ignoring the consequential. With all the serious inequities heaped on womanhood: the fact that we don’t get paid equally; the fact that we’re often brutalized by incomplete males. What do we focus on? The freak show, giving women sports caster’s access to football locker rooms, young girls being allowed to join the Boy Scouts. I’m aware that I have benefited greatly from the women who made sure I had a right to vote and could attend school to become a doctor or a minister, etc. and I’m grateful. But things have changed since Nellie and Lucy broke onto the scene. Women don’t just want their rights anymore, they want more. As a proponent of father’s rights I have seen the way women have brutalized men. I have seen women in the so-called justice system rape men and terrorize them in ways they never would a female. Because I’ve witnessed such blatant acts personally I have a general distrust of women. I don’t think I’d feel that way if I knew more women like Nellie Bly. From the research I’ve done for this new book I believe women like her would have exposed injustice regardless of gender. I wish I’d known Nellie. I could have introduced her to my brother. Maybe she could have saved him from the succubus he married. It’s interesting how all stories seem to lead back to the same hurt.