My eroding rights

Happy Birthday, America. You’re looking pretty good, for the most part. But we need to talk.

I am a woman. My female ancestors fought hard for their rights to vote, hold office, acquire property (and debt), live independently, get reliable and legal contraception, and get paid fairly.

In the last century, we made great steps forward on many of these fronts. I am especially glad that I can purchase property and have full title to it without the permission or interference of either a husband or male relative. I am glad that I do not have to be married to own a home. My title even says that I am ‘an unmarried person’. And I am glad that I can still get contraception- even though the damn co-pay is punitively expensive- if I need it. I get paid almost as much as a guy in my field- but I am still not at equity. And it’s worse for women who chose to take a break to raise children. They’ll never catch up, salary wise. Funny- everything costs the same no matter what gender you are. Why is this?

Worse, of late, my rights as a sovereign human being (who happens to be female) have been steadily eroding- particularly in the reproductive front. I already mentioned the expensive (and often dangerous) contraceptive medicine. But were I to become pregnant in spite of taking precautions, terminating that pregnancy safely and without hassle is becoming harder to do. In fact, it’s impossible. Even the simple purchase of “Plan B” is fraught with difficulty- just try finding it.

Congress and state legislatures, which have been swarmed by regressive, gynophobic and misogynistic religious conservatives (some often campaigning in moderate sheeps’ clothing and hoisting the Jolly Roger after taking office!), are passing more and more regressive and punitive laws against women who have sex- and get pregnant. They’ve de-funded Planned Parenthood. They muffle sex education and family planning classes. They’re prohibiting the teaching of the abortion procedures in federally funded medical schools. They create onerous regulations that hinder and bind the few clinics that provide abortion services. They make the woman jump through increasingly absurd hoops to get treated- including long (and for many, expensive) waiting periods, mandated reporting and legally required sonograms, and misdirection to religiously funded fake ‘clinics’ that try to convince her to bring the pregnancy to term. In short, they have turned having sex into an act- that if the woman becomes pregnant- that is now expensively punitive.

It isn’t just reproductive rights that are being eroded. Our civil rights are being steadily erased, also. The decision of the Supreme Court not to take on the Wal-Mart sexual discrimination class-action suit is one of many cases in point. And we still cannot get legally binding equal pay or any decent sort of maternity (or paternity) leave.

We pay more for many things- including medical care. We do the majority of child-care, and hold the majority of low-paying jobs. Yes, we’re past equity in college education- but at what price? Young women mortgaging their future on the hopes of getting a job that pays almost as much as that of a man, and possibly being passed over for promotion without any hope of recourse against obvious bias?

That isn’t right, America.

The exceptionalists like to call us a ‘beacon on a hill’, but more and more, that beacon is dimming. We’re coasting on a steadily eroding reputation and self-image. For the first time in our history, our children will not live longer than we will. Our daughters might wake up one day in a country that is not too far off from Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”.

Is that what we want? I sure don’t. There should be some sort of means to prohibit regressive legislation. Any law -federal or state- that takes away rights from ordinary, law-abiding citizens – like half the population of this country- should be repealed, stricken, or otherwise removed from the books.

We must turn this trend around- while we still can. Consider this- we are only as ‘great’ as those who are considered ‘least’ among us. Here, this means women- no matter how powerful they are. I don’t know about you, but I am very tired of being a second-class citizen in this country. I am tired of being ‘less’ than any male. I am tried of being patronized, legislated against, paid less, but made to pay more, hassled, ignored, and swept aside.

Women make up 50.9% of the US population. Is it right for half the population of any nation to be repressed?

I didn’t think so. Let’s fix this.

Further Reading…

Watch this.

ETA: Jason Pitzl-Waters: Dark Thoughts

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