Tag Archives: sexism

Add Another Woman of Color to SCOTUS, Please

Civics, General, Social Justice, Women, ,

“People ask me sometimes, ‘When do you think it will be enough? When will there be enough women on the court?’ And my answer is when there are nine.”

~ Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, PBS Interview, February 5th, 2015

Imagine that: NINE women on the U.S. Supreme Court!

And why not?

The Supreme Court has been in existence since 1789. That’s 232 years and counting. One hundred ninety-two years passed before President Ronald Reagan nominated the first woman nominee, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981.

Since then, only four women have become U.S. Supreme Court justices.

That is slow-as-molasses progress, don’t you think?

The sex ratio in the United States continues to favor females. In 2010, there were 7.43 million more women, with the difference projected to decrease to 7.42 million by 2025.

Simply put, there are more females than males in America!

Why can’t our nation’s highest court reflect that fact? We’ve had over two and a quarter centuries’ worth of mostly (white) men deciding issues for everyone in America.

Now, President Joe Biden has the privilege of nominating a woman to join SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States). An African American one no less.

‘Bout time!

These politicians whining about Biden being politically correct for making good on his campaign promise to nominate the first Black woman to SCOTUS have convenient amnesia. What they don’t say is that Presidents Reagan and Trump each made a similar promise and nomination during their presidencies.

Here’s a tiny sampling of the cynical, racially-tinged bellyaching out there:

“But which Black woman, exactly? Biden didn’t tell us. Biden didn’t mention the Supreme Court nominee’s legal qualifications or judicial philosophy or ability to perform one of the most important jobs in the country. He didn’t even tell us she was a nice person. All he said was she’s going to be Black and she’s going to be female, because to him, that’s all that matters.

Bridget Floyd would be the obvious choice. She is not a judge or a lawyer or whatever, but in this case, who cares? Clearly, that’s not the point anymore – this law stuff.”

~ Tucker Carlson, Fox News host

“Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is solid prog & v smart,”
“Even has identity politics benefit of being first Asian (Indian) American. But alas doesn’t fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman. Thank heaven for small favors?” [tweet]

~ Ilya Shapiro, Vice President, Cato Institute, and incoming executive director of Georgetown Law School’s Center for the Constitution

“The fact that he’s willing to make a promise at the outset, that it must be a Black woman, I gotta say that’s offensive. You know, you know Black women are what, 6% of the US population? He’s saying to 94% of Americans, ‘I don’t give a damn about you, you are ineligible’.

And he’s also saying — it’s actually an insult to Black women. If he came and said, ‘I’m gonna put the best jurist on the court and he looked at a number of people and he ended up nominating a Black woman, he could credibly say, ‘OK I’m nominating the person who’s most qualified.’ He’s not even pretending to say that he he’s saying, ‘If you’re a White guy, tough luck. If you’re a White woman, tough luck. You don’t qualify.'”

~ Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)

Oh, boo hoo hoo!

(Note: in 2019, Black women represented 7% of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.)

Black women have too often been dehumanized throughout our history, from the days of slavery to the present day. For example, enslaved women were used for gynecological experiments because of a prevailing perception that Blacks had a higher tolerance for pain – a perception that persists today. African American women and girls are seldom seen as victims and instead seen as deserving of harm or unable to be harmed, a dangerous perception that has perpetuated a long legacy of impunity for violence against them; when abuse occurs, they are less likely to be believed and supported. A report published by Georgetown Law Center found that “adults view Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers.” The men mentioned above and their like-minded supporters seem to think Black women have little or no brains. That they can’t possibly be qualified enough to be a judge, let alone a SCOTUS justice.

But of course there are Black women who are qualified! They are part of a very long line of trailblazing women from many fields who continue to contribute to our society. I only included one link about extraordinary African American women under my Sources, but there are countless links to explore!

Those men and their colleagues will say whatever brings in the bucks or votes, of course. Likely appealing to their fan base or voters with more puke-worthy, disgusting comments that reek of racism and misogyny, similar to the ones mentioned above.

Meanwhile, may President Biden choose the best candidate possible. And hopefully, may he get another opportunity to choose another female SCOTUS justice before the next election, maybe even a Chief Justice. That’d be a good bit of progess.

Methinks Justice Ginsberg would have made a good Chief Justice.

Sources

PBS
Wikipedia – Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court
Wikipedia – History of the Supreme Court of the United States
Statistica
Population USA
Salon
Daily Beast
Portside
New York Times
The Guardian
CNN
Business Insider
ACLU
Ohio State University
Huffington Post

21st Century-style Bounty Hunting

Civics, Social Justice, Women, , ,

What explains my absence from not posting a blog entry this month so far?

The real answer is procrastination…but it feels better to blame the Texas legislature and Texas Governor for writing and signing the Texas Heartbeat Act (SB 8/HB 1515), which was assigned into law on May 19th, 2021 and became effective on September 1st, 2021.

This law is the first six-week abortion ban in the United States, and the first of its kind to rely on enforcement by private individuals through civil lawsuits, rather than by the government through criminal or civil enforcement. The act establishes a system in which members of the public can sue anyone who performs or facilitates an illegal abortion for a minimum of US$10,000 in statutory damages.

Think bounty hunting. Vigilantes.

Instead of civilians encouraged to hunt for slaves escaping to seek freedom, it will be civilians hunting for anyone who supports women seeking to terminate unwanted pregnancies – be it physician, clinic, driver who took the pregnant woman to the clinic, etc.

ABC News reports that the Texas law bans abortions after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Remember, however, back in June I noted:


Obstetricians say the term “fetal heartbeat” is misleading, and that this scientific misunderstanding, among countless others, may contribute to negative public opinion toward abortion, reports The Cut.

Robyn Schickler, OB/GYN and Physicians for Reproductive Health fellow explained to The Cut that what is detectable at or around six weeks can more accurately be called “cardiac activity. She and others argue that what doctors can detect is essentially communication between a group of what will eventually become cardiac cells.

Jennifer Kerns, an OB/GYN and professor at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF), added:

These are cells that are programmed with electrical activity, which will eventually control the heart rate — they send a signal telling the heart to contract, once there is a heart.” It is this early activity which ultrasounds detect — not a heartbeat.

Also, the law requires minors have parental consent to obtain an abortion, which may be difficult to come by in cases of incest. Texas minors can get judicial approval to get an abortion without parental consent, but it may not be realistically feasible for a teen to confirm a pregnancy, go through the court system for a judge’s sign-off, and book an abortion appointment within two weeks of a missed period after being raped.

Perhaps the scariest aspect of the bill is that there are no exceptions for cases of rape, sexual abuse, incest, and fetal anomaly diagnoses.

Well, to me anyway, that is not only scary and stupid, but also disrespectful to more than half the population of America.

Oh yes, let’s not forget that five of the six conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court denied the emergency motion filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights on August 30, 2021, seeking to block the Texas Heartbeat Act from going into effect. So I’m a bit pissed at those justices, too.

Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s more liberal members, Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, all wrote or joined dissents. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sotomayor wrote that “presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand”.

Hear, hear, Justice Sotomayor!

This Texas Heartbeat Act business has gotten me tied up in a knot of fury!

I’ve said before that I passionately believe Uncle Sam needs to stay out of every woman’s womb. Who wants the government to interfere with one’s intimately personal affairs? Who wants the government to interfere with a woman’s medical visits with her health provider?

Do YOU want anyone other than yourself telling you when and whether you ought to have offspring?

And if you do not, and you unexpectedly became pregnant, do you want the government and society to force you to carry the pregnancy to term, regardless of YOUR circumstances – in effect, having strangers who know absolutely nothing about you dictate to you what to do with YOUR body?

These politicians who dream up anti-abortion bills to control women’s reproductive choices and the governors who sign said bills into laws in the name of “pro-life” – do they ever imagine what it might be like to have Uncle Sam interfere in THEIR private lives? Could they imagine if someone wanted or needed a vasectomy or an erectile dysfunction medication that he had to jump through invasive, non-medically necessary procedures and interrogations deemed mandatory by medically-ignorant politicans?

And could they imagine if someone decided to seek a procedure because they didn’t want to be a father anymore, there might be a posse of civilians who thought otherwise about his reproductive choice and hunt down anyone (e.g. physician, clinic, driver) who supported this individual – with lawsuits, greenlighted by the state?

Methinks they would neither appreciate nor approve that!

You do notice that the White House, Congress, and state and local legislatures around the country are still predominately comprised of white males to this day, right? They don’t possess a uterus. And I don’t think they have a clue what a woman feels when she’s pregnant, or what she’s endured if she’s been brutally violated – let alone have any clue about menstrual cycles and the myriad reproductive health issues that can occur monthly or during a pregnancy.

So why the hell are politicians making laws governing women’s bodies?

If men were impregnated by a rapist or family member, would they happily accept Uncle Sam and society telling them they HAVE TO carry the pregnancy forward, NO EXCEPTIONS?

Why don’t these anti-choice politicians get off their high holy horse and stop fucking with women’s lives? They scream freedom and independence until it comes to controlling women. They don’t want freedom and independence for women? (or perhaps, only for the women in their families, but not poor and minority women?) Most of them are not doctors! And the few who are and who also endorse regulating women’s reproductive choices…well, they’re beneath comment.

Do these “pro-life” (mostly male) politicians know anything about women’s reproductive health?

Granted, probably a lot of us aren’t wholly familiar with the intricate details of female reproductive health and pregnancy, but the difference between everyday citizens and sanctimonious politicians is that the latter have publicly made morons of themselves by expounding on their “knowledge” of women.

Recall these lovely gems:

“From what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist.”

~former Representative Todd Akin (R-MO), on pregnancy caused by rape. August 2012

“It [the new law] doesn’t require that [carrying a rapist’s baby to term] at all, because, obviously, it provides at least six weeks for a person to be able to get an abortion.”

~Texas Governor Greg Abbott, on being asked why a rape victim would have to carry a pregnancy to term. September 8, 2021

Gestation, as an ABC reporter recently clarified, is measured from a person’s last menstrual period, and ovulation – when a person can become pregnant – occurs about two weeks after that. So the new Texas Heartbeat Act, in reality, gives a person about four weeks after conception — or two weeks after a missed period — to confirm a pregnancy and book an appointment for an abortion within that tight timeframe.

Moreover, some victims of rape or incest are young and may not yet have a full understanding of or familiarity with their menstrual cycles to be able to so quickly identify a pregnancy.

Leave women alone, dammit! It’s their bodies, their lives. Especially leave them alone if you don’t support taxpayer-funded safety net programs to help these women raise their children. Allow me to indulge by reposting the following comment I take to heart:

“I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”

~Sister Joan Chittister, Benedictine nun, 2004

A woman’s body is hers alone. What’s her pregnancy and reproductive choice got to do with your lives, Mr./Ms. Anti-choice politician?

It’s not like pregnancy is a highly transmissible virus and an imminent threat to public health.

Her body, her choice.

Worry about your own morality and look in the mirror first, please, dear elected “pro-life” officials.


Sources

ABC News
CNN
Wikipedia
Planned Parenthood
Huffington Post – Todd Akin on Abortion: Legitimate Rape …
The Cut
NBC News
NPR
The Guardian
PoliticusUSA
Media Matters
Huffington Post – No, Virginia’s Governor Did Not Endorse Killing Babies

A Governor’s Sense of Entitlement & Disrespect for Women

General, Women, ,

Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced he would resign amid allegations of sexual harrassment by 11 women. Another woman has come forward since then with similar allegations. According to an explosive investigation into the allegations by the New York Attorney General’s office, the governor’s office was a “hostile work environment for women” in which he sexually harassed several current and former employees over years.

For an elected leader who has seemingly prided himself on standing with women and signing into law important bills like the 2019 Reproductive Health Act, a key component of his 2019 Justice Agenda – as well as legislation in later that year to to beef up sexual harassment protections for women in the workplace. This is bad optics, at the very least, for an elected leader.

It’s good he decided to step down (though not for 14 days from the time he made the announcement), right?

According to the New York Attorney General office’s investigation report:

In an instance involving one of Cuomo’s unnamed executive assistants, the governor was found to have “reached under her blouse and grabbed her breast.”

The same woman also recounted a circumstance in which “the governor moved his hand to grab her butt cheek and began to rub it. The rubbing lasted at least five seconds.”

Governor Cuomo responded,

“I take full responsibility for my actions. I have been too familiar with people. My sense of humor can be insensitive and off-putting. I do hug and kiss people casually — women and men. I have done it all my life,” Cuomo said.

“In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone. But I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn,” he said. “And I should have. No excuses.”

Okay, so you’re a hug-and-kiss man, Governor; you say it’s what you’ve done all your life, what your parents taught you, what Italians do (kiss on both sides of the cheek). But apparently you don’t have a sense of boundaries – of when to stop making contact with others, like inappropriately touching women’s bodies without their consent.

All the good you have done for New Yorkers through signing of landmark laws for greater equality for women, workers, and the LGBTQ community, as well as guiding New York in the first weeks of the pandemic, will now be overshadowed by these serious allegations of sexual misconduct.

Publicly championing the rights of women and others doesn’t excuse your despicable behavior. Other men on the left have been called to accountability for sexual harassment or misconduct and resigned: former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman; former Senator Al Franken of Minnesota; and former Representative Anthony Weiner of New York, thanks to his sexting to multiple women – at least one who received an unsolicited photo of his junk and the same to a minor – for which he went to federal prison for 21 months and had to register as a sex offender. Those are just a few to name; how many others are there whose sense of entitlement and lack of respect for women caused harm to others?

Having political power does not entitle you to have limitless access to other people’s bodies to make you feel good, Governor Cuomo.

How do you think YOU would feel if a powerful elected official groped your wife, daughter, son, relative, or friend, or better yet – yourself, just because he (or she) felt like it?

And then you or your loved one are told by the perpetrator’s henchman (or henchwoman) to keep your trap door shut about the violation? And if you choose not to stay silent, your perpetrator publicly gaslights you by telling investigators that you processed what you heard through your own filter, and that it was “often not what was said and not what was meant”.

Y’know what Governor? There’s probably many other people who share your political beliefs who DO NOT inappropriately touch others without their permission or make lewd comments and who have the necessary experience and skills to run for office .

The same can be said for politicians on the right who have been accused of sexual misconduct, such as, of course – our former President “Grab them by the pussy” Trump, no less.

However, because you’ve championed women’s rights and signed laws to support more than half of America’s population, your actions are particularly egregious.

To my mind, the only way forward is for you to be held accountable for every complaint made against you. The women who have accused you of inappropriately touching them and making lewd comments to them deserve to be heard.

That’s 12 women who’ve now come forward. Are there more? The NY AG’s investigation interviewed 179 witnesses and reviewed 74,000 items including emails and texts. That sounds like they mean serious business.

“I do it with everyone,” you said in response to the testimony of one of the 11 women, Anna Ruch, who testified that she felt “distraught and uncomfortable” at a 2019 wedding party when you (whom she says had never met), cupped her face in your hands and said: “May I kiss you?”

As CNN’s Chris Cillizza observed, “‘I do it with everyone’ is an interesting defense of sexually inappropriate behavior.”

Sounds like disrespect toward Ms. Ruch to me. And entitlement – reaching out (literally!) to any young woman who strikes your fancy.

Reports have you responding to the accounts of your accusers with a potpourri of outright denial, appeals to failing memory, suggestions that the women had “misunderstood” your actions, and darker insinuations that they and the investigators were motivated by political or other animosity towards you.

Making defiant denials, gaslighting your accusers, and appealing to a myriad of excuses is not leadership.

I’m glad and relieved you stepped down. You’ve potentially left a painful mark on the lives of 12 women – something they’ll have to live with for the rest of their lives. They consented to do their jobs, not to be your plaything.

And to anyone dissing the governor’s accusers with lame comments like “the women just want the money” or “the women just want their 15 minutes of fame” or belittling them with name-calling, I ask you:

Just TRY imagining for a moment if someone in a position of power put their hands on your ass, your junk, or your breasts without your consent. Would you enjoy it? You’d have to live with that moment of violation forever.

Likewise, how do you think you’d feel if a powerful elected official violated your loved one? Would you start blaming your loved one for how she dressed or where she was? Or would you focus on the perpetrator and seek justice for your loved one?

Think about it.

Sources

MSN
State of New York, Office of the Attorney General
NBC
The New York Times
The Guardian
CNN
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo – The Reproductive Health Act
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo – Legislation to Protect the Rights of New York’s Working Men and Women
Wikipedia -Anthony Weiner
Salon
LegalMatch
News 12 Connecticut

Celebrate Women!

General, Social Justice, Women, ,

March is Women’s History Monthh in the United States, established by Congress to coincide with International Women’s Day (IWD) which falls on March 8th. The latter is observed around the globe to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women and is often an event organized as a rallying point to build support for women’s rights and participation in the political and economic arenas.

I don’t know if I’ve been asleep at the wheel (I hope not!), but only in the last couple of years did I notice that major network news as well as my own local news actually mention International Women’s Day.

What took so long?!

Didn’t US media want to recognize half of humanity? Just for a day?! Or are we as the United States of America – the wealthiest, most powerful nation on the planet, so full of ourselves that we don’t need to to participate in acknowledging women’s contributions to society on a global scale? We’ve got Women’s History month – which covers women in the US (though the UK, Australia, and Canada have their own versions) and that’s good enough?

Let the rest of the world and countless NGOs (non-governmental organizations) address and celebrate women’s achievements and call for addressing inequality?

International Women’s Day isn’t titillating news?

This year marks the 110th anniversary of the first official International Women’s Day, which was on March 19th, 1911, and which was observed by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. Across Europe, women demanded the right to vote and to hold public office, and protested against employment sex discrimination.

This event was preceded by the first “Woman’s Day” celebration which took place in Chicago on May 3rd, 1908. Organized by the U.S. Socialist Party, it brought together an audience of 1,500 women who demanded economic and political equality, on a day officially dedicated to “the female workers’ causes.”

The following year, on February 28th, 1909, in New York City, the Socialist Party of America celebrated “National Woman’s Day“, with 15,000 women who protested long work hours, low pay, and the lack of voting rights in New York City.

Inspired by these American initiatives, an International Socialist Women’s Conference was organized in August 1910 ahead of the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen, Denmark. Leading German socialists Luise Zietz and Clara Zetkin proposed the establishment of an annual International Woman’s Day as a strategy to promote equal rights, including suffrage, for women.

More than 100 female delegates from 17 countries unanimously endorsed the proposal!

International Women’s Day became an official holiday in Russia in 1913; however, women still experienced difficulties caused by WWI. While men were off at war, women dealt with food shortages and a government who wouldn’t listen to them.

Not listening has consequences…bad move, dudes!

On March 8th, 1917 (February 23 in the former Russian calendar), tens of thousands of Russian women took to the streets demanding change. The unified cry for help paved the way for Russian women to be granted voting rights soon after. The official International Women’s Day eventually switched to March 8th.

Though gaining broader recognition in the United States only recently (according to my observations), it’s been widely celebrated worldwide.

According to Wikipedia:

IWD is an official holiday in several countries worldwide, including Afghanistan,Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Germany (Berlin only), Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia,Nepal, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Zambia.

In some countries, such as Australia, Cameroon, Croatia, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Chile; IWD is not an official public holiday, but is widely observed nonetheless.

Regardless of legal status, in much of the world, it is customary for men to give female colleagues and loved ones flowers and small gifts. In some countries (such as Bulgaria and Romania) it is also observed as an equivalent of Mother’s Day, where children also give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers.

Can you imagine having a day off of work for International Women’s Day?! Woo hoo!

I was quite pleased to see my local news station as well as a major network news channel mention IWD on March 8th this year (finally). Kudos to them.

On the national level we have Women’ History Month, which began much later in our history; March was designated as Women’s History Month by Congress in 1987. Women’s History Month is a celebration of women’s contributions to history, culture and society, inspired by the first International Women’s Day in 1911.

But it was not until 1978 – when the school district of Sonoma, California organized a week-long celebration of women’s contributions to culture, history and society – that the seeds planted for the future Women’s History Month. Presentations were given at dozens of schools, hundreds of students participated in a “Real Woman” essay contest and a parade was held in downtown Santa Rosa.

The History website states that a few years later, the idea had caught on within communities, school districts and organizations across the country.

And in February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first presidential proclamation declaring the week of March 8 as National Women’s History Week.

He said:

From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well.

As Dr. Gerda Lerner has noted, ‘Women’s History is Women’s Right.’ It is an essential and indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long-range vision. I ask my fellow Americans to recognize this heritage with appropriate activities during National Women’s History Week, March 2–8, 1980.

I urge libraries, schools, and community organizations to focus their observances on the leaders who struggled for equality – Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and Alice Paul. Understanding the true history of our country will help us to comprehend the need for full equality under the law for all our people.

This goal can be achieved by ratifying the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that ‘Equality of Rights under the Law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.’

(Carter was referring to the Equal Rights Amendment, which was never ratified, not to the amendment which did become the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution after his presidency.)

The U.S. Congress followed suit the next year, passing a resolution establishing a national celebration. Six years later, the National Women’s History Project successfully petitioned Congress to expand the event to the entire month of March…after a series of joint resolutions, that is.

In contrast to the creation of International Women’s Day – which took just a few years, it took nearly a decade for the United States to officially recognize and celebrate the contributions of women. Think about that. I thought we’re supposed to be the the leader of the free world. The most powerful nation on Earth that other nations look up to?

Why was it so hard for our elected leaders to recognize and commemorate women’s contributions to America?

I don’t know the answer to that. But I suspect that there was strong resistance from some elected officials and members of society alike to lifting up half of humanity – by recognizing women who throughout history have advocated and continue to advocate for women’s health and freedom to control their own reproductive health without governmental interference, family-friendly workplace conditions, suffrage for just not themselves but every citizen, laws to protect them from domestic abuse, laws to protect them against gender discrimination at work, laws to eliminate gender discrimination in the home (such as in matters of abuse, finance, divorce, and inheritance), and so on.

Maybe this resistance is really rooted in a power mentality, in which certain folks have the idea women should “stay in their place”, that women need to stay put at home – barefoot, pregnant, and uneducated so they can be controlled?

Not!

Women are no less worthy than men. And no one is entitled to have their way with women. We are not property. Not sex objects. Not punching bags. Not cute doggies meant to obey, sit, cook, and clean, at anyone’s whim. Not brainless dolls meant to stay quiet, not think too much, and be told “Don’t worry your pretty little head!”

And certainly not prisoners meant to be told when and where to go beyond the confines of our home.

Women ought to go anywhere they damn well please! I’m not into dehumanizing women, thank you very much.

I don’t think one day internationally and one month nationally to put women front and center of our attention is asking too much. Not when women in the United States and all around the world are still experiencing pay ineqity, gender discrimination at work or school, threats to their reproductive health, threats to their well-being if they are in an abusive relationship or living in a conflict-ridden area, threats to their livelihoods if they’ve lost their jobs due to a pandemic, and relentless misogyny if they dare speak their minds.

Let women speak their minds!

Clearly and loudly. Without fear of retribution. Without any apology for being who we are and regardless of what we look like and where we came from.

I say hurray to all those who made International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month possible!

I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
~ Audre Lorde

Sources

Wikipedia – Women’s History Month
Women’s History Month.gov
History.com
International Women’s Day
Origins – Ohio State University
Good Housekeeping
Wikipedia – International Women’s Day
ThoughtCo
United Nations

No Badge Needed

General, Media, Women,

Last Monday, February 1st, 2021, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Congresswoman from New York, shared on Instagram her harrowing experience on living through the January 6th, 2021, insurrection on the Capitol. In part, she said:

These folks who tell us to move on, that it’s not a big deal, that we should forget what’s happened, or even telling us to apologize. These are the same tactics of abusers. And I’m a survivor of sexual assault.
~Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), 2/1/21

Take in that last line: And I’m a survivor of sexual assault.

A number of people have taken offense to that, saying that she, as a politician, was using her experience as a sexual assault survivor as a tool to manipulate the public in some way or to make herself the center of attention.

The Spectator writer Amber Athey wrote:

This is gross manipulation, and AOC should be ashamed. Not for sharing that she was sexually assaulted — I have no way of knowing whether or not her story is true and, ultimately, it’s irrelevant to the issue of the storming of the Capitol.

The real story here is that AOC used her alleged trauma as a cudgel against her political opponents. She has weaponized her alleged experience to silence anyone who criticizes her and even went so far as to compare them to the person or people who abused her. This type of behavior cheapens sexual assault.

To which conservative media personality Rush Limbaugh added during his February 2nd radio show:

And to show you how it’s working, I have a friendly supporter who calls and says, “You better be real careful what you’re saying here. It’s obvious you’ve never been abused.” How is it obvious? Maybe I should be proud that I don’t wear that around. That’s also something generational. You just didn’t talk about things. You just lived your life. You dealt with it as it happened.

Now, you wear the badge. Generational changes, generational shifts. But Amber Athey believes that AOC “weaponized her alleged experience to silence anyone who criticizes her.” I know the left does that. They have become champions at that, in fact.

Badge?

There’s no fucking badge. Except in your head.

Generational changes, yes, Mr. Limbaugh. Generational shifts. You said it. Many people change their thinking on different matters over time, like sexual assault and rape. Thanks largely to social movements like #MeToo, survivors of sexual assault can feel safe that they are not alone – that they have the option to reveal they’ve experienced horrific violation, either publicly or privately – rather than burying their emotions.

In more survivors coming forward, they build solidarity in numbers and in shared experiences, so that society, rather than constantly blaming and dismissing them, begins to respect and believe them. And importantly, survivors expose and hold to account their perpetrators.

And maybe you are actually fine with that, I don’t know. But I’m gonna pick on you because you have a record of debasing women to your audience over many years. Notably, women who speak up for themselves: women who might talk about an intimately painful experience in their past, women with whom you disagree politically, or women whom you perceive to be an obstacle to the advancement of your favored person’s position (like a judge or a president). Does the name Sandra Fluke ring a bell? Dr. Christine Blasey Ford?

And now you cast aspersions on Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

You started your broadcast on February 2nd introducing her Instagram video with “Have you seen this video, folks …If you haven’t, it’s amazing acting.”

ACTING?!

So most people besides Amber Athey aren’t gonna have the guts to properly characterize this. But you ought to see this video if you haven’t. I mean, it’s filled with acting and gyrations of the body in order to transmit the nature of the assault she feared was happening all over again. And it was a sexual assault that she was being reconnected to.

So you have no right to be critical, because this is a traumatic event, and so forth and so on.

But when did you ever hear Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez say that you can NOT criticize her for revealing she is a sexual assault survivor?

Those are YOUR words, dude.

YOUR WORDS.

Later in your broadcast, a caller implied AOC and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford were pretending (acting?) when they revealed their traumatic experiences:

CALLER: Right. So when you have Christine Blasey Ford and AOC as someone, you know, pretending — and what they did to Justice Kavanaugh — what it does to people who really lived through it.

RUSH: Oh, yeah.

CALLER: — is it minimizes or diminishes —

RUSH: What a great example.

CALLER: — those of us who go through it.

RUSH: What a greatly [sic] example. Christine Blasey Ford and all these people piling on Kavanaugh.

So you agree with the caller that Dr. Ford and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were just pretending about their sexual assaults? Do you think they were making stuff up to grab attention and/or elicit sympathy?

If that’s not making light of one’s experience, I don’t know what is.

Or maybe or a more accurate term for casting aspersions on them is cynical.

Cynical, according to Merriam-Webster, means:

Having or showing the attitude or temper of a cynic: such as
a) contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives
b) based on or reflecting a belief that human conduct is motivated primarily by self-interest

You apologized for a misunderstanding at first. Namely, that you thought Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez said she was sexually assaulted during the January 6th insurrection. Later, you said your primary point was not disputing that she has been abused and you weren’t making light of it or laughing about it, yet you continued to minimize her experiences she had both during the insurrection and her mention of being sexually assaulted (along with some of your callers).

You know, the question that got all of this started about her divulging that she had been sexually abused — the question that got it all started — was, “Why don’t you guys just move on? The January 6 thing was January 6th. The siege of the Capitol is in the rearview mirror. It happened. Why don’t you just move on?”

That’s what triggered her to talk about her alleged sexual abuse, and that’s when she said (summarized), “Look, these instances of abuse don’t ever go away. They compound on one another,” meaning the impact is added to each new instance of abuse and what she went through during the siege on January 6 was abuse on top of — which she then shared — was her sexual abuse and so forth.

So put another way. She was asked why she can’t move on from January 6, and she said because of her alleged sexual abuse. She politicized it, not me. She did.

“…and she said because of her alleged sexual abuse.” Not.

You conveniently glossed over horrific insurrection by dismissing Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’ revealation as a sexual assault survivor as she spoke about the fears she experienced that day, comparing the tactics of her some of her naysayers as similar to abusers. And you said she politicized her trauma.

How cynical of you.

According to trauma experts interviewed by USA Today, Ocasio-Cortez’s reaction is normal and expected, and her account aligns with what science shows happens to a mind and body under extreme forms of stress. It’s likely, experts said, that Ocasio-Cortez’s experience with sexual assault intensified what she endured at the Capitol. Clinical psychologist Seth Gillihan told USA Today:

Trauma isn’t processing ‘sexual assault’ or ‘Capitol assault.’ What it’s processing is an overwhelming sense of danger, of feeling powerless, feeling my life is out of my hands. From an outsider’s perspective the sources look different, but inside our bodies and minds … it’s exactly the same message.

People died because of the assault on the Capitol! It was a potentially life-threatening attack on members of Congress, and for Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, it was a trauma compounded by her experience with sexual assault made all the more terrifying by the death threats she has received since she was elected to Congress.

It’s not triggering trauma, it’s trauma overlaid on trauma, Gillihan said.

Experts also said that Ocasio-Cortez’s gender is likely influencing reaction to her emotional disclosures. It’s much easier to suggest Ocasio-Cortez is fragile, oversensitive or even politically motivated than it is to accept the horror of what happened to her. They agreed with AOC and said denial and victim-blaming are common tactics abusers use.

One of the experts, Jennifer Gómez, a psychology professor at Wayne State University stated:

Abusers demand silence. The trouble is such a silence mandate is crazy-making for people who experience the violence and who see the world for what it is: a place that includes such violence just as much as it includes joy.

Screw silence on demand.

I believe as some observers have noted, that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez spoke in such personal terms in order to reject calls to move on from the events of January 6th. “We cannot move on without accountability,” she insisted. “We cannot heal without accountability.”

Accountability, indeed.

So go take your cynicism to the nearest toxic waste dump where it belongs, Mr. Limbaugh. And throw your imagined badges in there while you’re at it, please.

Y’all stop invalidating @AOC’s experiences because you aren’t hearing about the experiences of other members. Everyone deals with trauma differently, her stories are validating for so many of us with similar experiences and she is showing people that vulnerability is strength.
~ Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Congresswoman, 2/1/21

Sources

Nation
Washington Post
New York Times
Merriam-Webster
Newsmax
The Rush Limbaugh Show
The Spectator
Alternet.org
MSN
USA Today
NY Post
Wikipedia
CBS News
Wikipedia
New York Times
Real Clear Politics
Media Matters

A Ray of Sunshine

Civics, General, Media, Women, , ,

Do you know who Maria Ressa is?

I only vaguely knew of this renowned journalist who was accused of cyber libel in June 2020, and then the other night, PBS’ Frontline show had a great documentary on the threatened status of press freedom in the Philippines, focusing on Maria Ressa. She is a dynamo! Intensity and reslience packed into a small stature. Check out this documentary:

A Thousand Cuts

With press freedom under threat in the Philippines, A Thousand Cuts goes inside the escalating war between the government and the press. The documentary follows Maria Ressa, a renowned journalist who has become a top target of President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on the news media. …

Her resoluteness, her confidence, and her forthrightness shine bright – so much so that she has remained ingrained in my mind for days. And I’ll venture to say, for years to come.

Ressa is a top target of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, having been an outspoken critic of his policies for many years – in particular, the extrajudicial killings, human rights violations, and fast-rising death toll from Duterte’s brutal war on drugs as well as the alleged pro-Duterte online “troll army” who were pushing out fake news stories and manipulating the narrative around his presidency. She has posted bail 9 times and has endured relentless political harrassment by the Duterte government and its supporters. Yet it doesn’t deter her from battling disinformation.

Bullies like Duterte don’t seem to faze Maria Ressa. (Would you expect less from someone who spent many years investigating terrorist networks in Southeast Asia?)

And she says she will not let herself be intimidated.

I love that about her!

For me, Maria Ressa is a ray of sunshine in these dark days of the pandemic. She is an inspiration for those who are deeply disgusted by the US wanna-be dictator who has repeatedly called the press the enemy of the people and has denounced any journalist who has committed the “crime” of criticizing him. She may be in the Philippines – she is by the way also a US citizen, but she nevertheless is an inspiration to many around the world who value and respect a free and open democracy.

Amendment I of the US Constitution clearly states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Similarly, Section 4 of the Bill of Rights in the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines clearly states:

No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.

Nice to know the US Constitution has inspired others around the globe to enshrine similar rights into their own countries’ constitutions!

But not-so-nice to know that the most powerful man on earth has been inspired by the dictators of the world with regard to how to treat members of the press, as per his own acknowledgment.

Neither the leader of the Philippines nor the soon-to-be former leader of the United States like the press, let alone respect it. Well, arguably, no political “leader” does; however, but when you, Presidents Duterte and Trump, publicly single out journalists by belittling them in front of their peers at a press conference or at a mass rally of your followers because they wrote something you didn’t like, arrest them on allegedly politically motivated charges, insinuate that a certain journalist “could be a target for assassination”, laugh when your dictator buddy calls the press corps “spies”, announce in a jesting tone that you think it’d be a good idea to arrest and maybe “get rid of” journalists who criticize and contradict your mistatements with facts just like another dictator buddy, and worst of all, say that the press is the enemy of the people, then I’d say that you, Dear Leaders – and there’s more than two of you on this planet, have an unimaginable contempt for your fellow citizens. For those who elected you as well as those who did not.

Journalists are here to hold our elected leaders accountable! Every last one of them, from the local level all the way to the president.

It disturbed me recently that CBS News had recently put out a promotional ad about themselves stating the obvious: without a free press, we don’t have a free society. Probably not the exact words – I can’t think of them at this moment…but you get the idea.

I thought to myself: What?! This is what our president inspired – that a national media company felt compelled to remind the public of this?

Fortunately, we have courageous journalists like Maria Ressa here in the US, too. Like Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, who is one of my favorite investigative reporters and no stranger to having put her life on the line as has Maria, to report the news.

To Maria and Amy and all the intrepid journalists like yourselves out there in the world: you are essential to our freedom to live and breathe safely by keeping check on those in power, informing the public when you expose abuse, corruption, and goodness knows what else has occurred. You shine a spotlight into the dark nooks and crannies of our world for the public good. America needs you now more than ever. The world needs you.

I need you!

We can’t fight monsters by becoming monsters. ~ Maria Ressa

Sources

PBS Frontline
Rappler
Elle
Wikipedia
NPR
The Guardian
U.S. Constitution
constituteproject.org
Vox
Washington Post
National Review
Global News
The Guardian