Roaring Back and the War on Women
March 21st, 2012 © by Susan SwartzThe continuing war on women makes me think of the relative who comes to dinner and talks stupid. An Uncle Ralph with his tired sexist jokes. Others roll their eyes but give him a pass because the poor guy never caught up with the times and can’t help himself. He’s just harmless Uncle Ralph trying to get your goat.
Well, my goat, for one, has been gotten.
When this Republican wave of attacks on women’s reproductive rights and health services began I thought, here we go again. A gender war reenactment, circa 1960s and 1970s. But it’s gone on too long and oozed from Republican primary rhetoric into state houses, health clinics and now even the boss’ office. I’d love to not take them seriously but I don’t dare.
I think it’s a real threat. Not harmless at all. I think there is big money and more power on their side than we want to think. Why else would they keep on this nutter if they didn’t feel encouraged? Don’t worry, I hear, they’re just blowing smoke. Never happen, just a sideshow. Any law they manage to push through would be challenged. It’s just political theater.
Maybe, but something has emboldened prominent members of the Republican Party to push against women’s health services, even while insisting there’s no war on women. Some 77 percent of Americans say birth control shouldn’t be a public debate but right-wingers keep up the jabber.
GOP leaders even resist the Violence Against Women Act because it might shelter immigrant women fleeing for their lives and expand protection to same sex couples. As if some domestic violence is acceptable.
There’s the Arizona bill that would compel a woman employee in a group health plan to explain to her boss why she wants birth control. How creepy is that?
I live in coastal Northern California where the predominant thinking is as blue as the Pacific. The war on women doesn’t get very scrappy here. We watch it from a relatively safe distance and can become complacent. But outside my comfortable bubble, I see things that make me nervous.
It’s not just the warbling of a choir boy who believes that sex should only be for procreation and wants to turn the country into a theocracy. It’s a growing roar against women with one wild-eyed effort after another to attach new laws to women’s bodies.
The thinking seems to be if it’s good for our health it’s bad for taxpayers, anti-male and offends some religious group.
You wouldn’t think there would be such a hysterical effort to put women in their place at this time in this country but as Hillary Clinton said, “Extremists, no matter where or what religion, want to go after women.”
So, what can we do? We can always write checks to causes and candidates on the side of women but that doesn’t seem visible enough.
We could get Women are Watching signs and plant them in our front yard.
We can work to get more women elected, from both parties, who don’t like what’s happening to women. We can say thank you to women, like Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski for standing up to their party.
We can do like the 150 women and men in Huntsville, Alabama who last weekend put on a Stop the War on Women Rally in their park.
And we can go bigger. Finally, there’s an organized cross-country push-back set for April 28 – a national Enough is Enough march and rally supported by groups like the League of Women Voters and Planned Parenthood.
We can roar back. And we can show Uncle Ralph the door.
Tags: abortion, birth_control, choice, contraception, Enough_Is_Enough, Hillary_Clinton, Juicy_Tomatoes, League_Of_Women_Voters, Planned_Parenthood, Susan_Swartz, War_On_Women, women's_health
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March 22nd, 2012 at 10:58 am
And did you see Barbara Boxer’s most recent mailing @ Idaho, requiring two!!! sonograms including the transvag one before an abortion!!! Good we’re marching let’s all go together, and then there’s May 1 for Occupy Everything by joining up with others wherever people are getting together to protest and celebrate. Perhaps it’s not such a bad thing when the latent fears and hatreds come out and can be stood up to, which is why we have to stand up!!
March 22nd, 2012 at 12:02 pm
You’d think they would learn! We have more elected women now because of the work of feminists who rebelled against the male chauvinists leading the civil rights movement in groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and who said really dumb things, like “The only position for women in SNCC is prone.” That little slip led directly to the Feminist Third Wave with its emphasis on inclusiveness and equality. This War on Women, with its many front lines, may revive that spirit, and awaken the many women who think there’s no need for a women’s movement because “things are pretty good for women.” There’s a good history of that at http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/archive/resources/documents/ch34_02.htm
March 24th, 2012 at 8:29 am
I think I understand that men put down women because they are afraid of losing power and afraid of women, period! But has a study been done to try and understand why women go along with the war against women? Are they just ‘standing by their man?’ or is there a belief on their parts, too, that women aren’t capable of taking care of themselves and making their own decisions, including making choices about their bodies? It boggles the mind. Good column, Susan!
March 26th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
There are so many fronts on which war is declared now…the Patriot Act is a war on long established freedoms of speech, the war on the environment with talk of reviving the pipeline from Canada, the war on women’s right to choose. These fights are all linked. Very depressing and being active on the local level in any way we can….demonstrating, signs on lawn, voting for candidates who will fight for us…is the only way to go. Keep writing Susan. As Margaret Atwood said, “A word after a word after a word is Power.”
March 26th, 2012 at 5:28 pm
We can get pretty complacent here on the east coast where our thinking is as blue as the Atlantic. It’s the thinking of the land-locked states in the middle that I worry about. I remember calling two former college roommates in the midwest during the last Democratic primaries to see if they were leaning towards Hillary or Obama and not getting too far because I learned they’re Republicans. It never occurred to me!!