Is There Really A War On Women? Hell Yes!

This post was originally written on 4/22/2012

     If you take the time to read about history, whether it be the history of man or just the history of the United States, it becomes clear very quickly that almost all of the leading roles belong to men.  In the context of American history, usually white men.  Women, if they are mentioned at all, are typically cast in the role of supporting wife or worse they are described as the radical antagonist whom the wise male characters must contend with and appease.  Even today the term "radical feminist" has negative connotations, as if there is something wrong with women who think women kick ass.  So when I hear or read about people questioning whether there really is a War on Women going on, I think "Duh, of course there is.  It isn't a new thing; in all honesty it's probably the longest running war in the history of mankind."

     Here in the United States, pretty much everybody now understands that every person in this country has the same unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would read the words of Thomas Jefferson that comprise the Declaration of Independence and then say "But that isn't talking about me, because I'm not good enough to deserve having that said about me"  The only thing that you will find is people who can read those words and make claims that those words apply to them but not to someone else.  In our time, each American understands those words to mean that every person living in our country has the right to expect to be treated the same by our government, even if it rarely happens in practice.

     This was not the case for everyone who lived in this country when that document was distributed to the masses in 1776.  For many who heard and read those words then, they were merely a symbol of hope that one day they might actually be applied to them.  What I think a lot of people today fail to comprehend is that women living at the time that our new country was beginning were treated much like the women who live today under that dreaded Sharia law that everyone keeps ranting about.  In some cases they may have even been worse off, because American law in that time didn't have much in the way of rules outlining the responsibilities that men had towards the women under their care, so it was pretty much anything goes. A whole lot of women at the mercy of the menfolk in their lives.

     In the past year I've done a lot of research into my own family, learning about those men and women who had some sex, made some babies, and passed down the DNA that eventually turned into me.  The process has been enlightening to say the least, and I can't help but wonder what would have resulted from my double X ancestors having the types of freedoms and choices that I have today.  Chances are pretty good that I wouldn't be here, because I have strong doubts about whether all of those women would have chosen for themselves the paths in their lives that led to my string of ancestors and eventually led to me.  Should I be glad that those women were forced to suffer from all the consequences of their actions and the actions of those around them since I ended up alive because they were?  That seems like a shitty kind of attitude to have.  I really cannot bring myself to celebrate the chain of deaths and despair and beatings and hopelessness that gave me life.

     By the time I was born, our law and our society had matured to the point where the fact that I was born sans penis didn't necessarily mean that I couldn't take control of my own life and make decisions that would lead to me living not only a longer, but also a better life than my brother who was born shortly after me.  No more barriers existed to prohibit me from education, employment, or any of the tools that my brother had access to in order to build for himself the life that he chose.  I've been free to be just as good, or as bad, at living out my life as he has- and I've definitely taken advantage of those opportunities as they arose.  The only difference that my gender has implied in my lifetime is that sometimes I have to work a little bit harder than he does to accomplish the same goals, and I'm still the only one of us who can (or has to) carry a child in my body and give birth to it.

     The last few generations of Americans, born in the years since the Sexual Revolution of the 60's, have shown us that there really isn't anything that a determined woman can't do just as well as a man.  There also isn't anything short of pregnancy and labor that a man can't do just as well as a woman when he wants or needs to.  There is no denying that we are absolutely equal in all respects, save that one, when  we want to be.  Now that this has been proven out, we have those within our society who are trying to legislate and berate women back into their rightful "place", and the actions of those people constitute the most recent battle in the War on Women.

     In our country, straight white men have always had the freedom to determine the course of their own lives, and they have often used their "majority status" to determine the course of the lives that those around them will live.  They have had control of our economy, our governments at every level, every political party that has ever held power over the candidates we may choose to elect, and to a large extent they have had control of the thoughts and actions of every single person in this country.  They have defined for the last 236 years what the roles of everyone within our society were supposed to be.  Why now, when we know for sure that there isn't anything all that special about straight white men, is this still acceptable?

     The reality is that straight white men have almost never comprised the majority of our population.  They have at various times made up a group that was larger than any other group, but there have never been more straight white men in our country than there have been people who aren't straight white men.  In our country that so loves it's system of "majority rule" the one group that far outnumbers all other groups, no matter how you combine them, is women.  The simple act of being born cleft rather than cloven has entitled every woman born for at least the last century to claim supreme status.  Kind of makes me wonder why we don't already have our own political party.

     I read the news just about every day.  Thanks to the wonders of technology, I can do that as I sit right here by accessing the online versions of several different news sources.  Definitely a nice little bonus to having the internet, since the cost of having all those different publications delivered to my home would be beyond my budget, and it would add tons of clutter to my home.  The only downside of reading my news on the internet is that I cannot resist the temptation to scroll down and read the comments section that now fills the space below every article.  Reading these comments, it starts to seem like there are at least 250 million complete fools living in this country.  Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than below an article that concerns topics of interest to women.  Suspiciously, many of the more idiotic and hateful comments are posted under male names.  I spend an awful lot of time shaking my head while reading comments that espouse the belief that we need to return our society to the good old days of the 1980's or the 1950's or even the 1930's.  Back when women stayed home and took care of their families and nobody had sex before marriage or created poor little unwanted babies that were aborted by their heartless heathen mothers.  When the economy was in tip top shape and all was right with the world.

     I have to wonder just how many of these people were adults living back in the 30's or the 50's or even in the 80's.  I am curious as to just how many of them are straight white guys pining for a time when they were still the top dogs and they only had to worry about comparing themselves to other straight white men.  I wonder how many of them are suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.  How delusional are these people that they honestly believe that there has ever been a time in our nations history that the people in it all lived good, wholesome, productive lives and never had sex outside of marriage or without the express intent of making babies?  How do they imagine that we got to be a country with a population of over 300 million people that is broke and constantly fighting amongst ourselves over stupid shit?  Everything that I have ever read or heard from those who lived before me indicates that America has always been pretty much the same as it is now.  The only difference is that now we have more people who have been given the freedom to fuck up or do well in their own lives- not just the straight white guys.

     With regard to sex, because that is what the majority of the battles in this War on Women are focused on, people in America have always had sex.  Just like today, pretty much the only people who wait around for the marriage vows before doing it are those who have deep seated religious views.  Even then, a fear of hell isn't exactly a foolproof recipe for abstinence, which is evidenced by the fact that organizations like Catholic Charities got into the game of dealing with unwanted babies early enough that they still have a corner on that market today.  What's that old saying about the preacher's daughter again?

     While I was putting my family tree together I started noticing something that surprised me.  In every single generation in my family there has been at least one kid who was conceived or born out of wedlock.  As far back as I have been able to trace, people have been enjoying the nookie without a ring on their finger.  That's just in my direct lines.  I saw a whole lot of it while I was helping my husband with his tree, and in my 3rd cousin's family- it was hard to find a couple in his tree who didn't get married cause the had a reason to on the way.  I know that I talk about my family being completely whacked and everything, but they are really pretty average folks.  Almost all of these ancestors I'm speaking of have had ties to one church or another, been fine upstanding members of their communities, and I'm sure most people would consider them to pretty average.  So if people were having sex before marriage in 1824, 1916, 1938, 1956, and 1980, just exactly which golden age in our society are we supposed to revert to?

     Throughout history, sex has always been treated by male dominated society as though it is a man's right and a woman's fault.  Surely a large part of the blame for that attitude can be laid upon the various religions that are practiced around the world that buy into the whole Adam and Eve story. Current legislation is screaming out that myth over and over again in state after state.  The message is getting through loud and clear.  Nobody should be having sex unless they are married and trying to make a baby.    The question is why the hell not?  Because God doesn't want us to?  Tough, American law cares diddly for what God has to say on the subject.  Because that isn't the way that our ancestors did things?  Baloney, we've already covered that argument.  Because it isn't fair for American taxpayers to carry the burdens of a bunch of hussies?  Here's something you may not realize, but there haven't been any claims about a virgin birth in over 2000 years, so all those hussies share the blame equally with someone who has a penis.  If she was having sex and getting pregnant without a signed and sealed marriage license, then some guy was right there with her committing the same bad act, and she is no worse than he is.  Where's the legislation requiring every man who wants a box of condoms to submit a note from his doctor stating that he is allergic to vaginal secretions?

     I'd bet that almost every person in this country has heard someone spout off at one time or another about some woman trying to trap some man by getting pregnant.  We've also all heard that any woman concerned about getting pregnant just needs to hold an aspirin between her knees.  Where are all these men who are too feeble minded to grasp that they have a surefire way to avoid that baby "trap", that they also have an inexpensive means of birth control at their disposal?  Heck, they don't even have to shell out for an aspirin tablet- just take a few minutes to figure out whether they're a righty or a lefty, then introduce themselves to Miss Rosy Palm.  It's free, it's quick, and it's guaranteed she won't send you a Father's Day card next year.

     So what about the poor unfortunate unwanted babies who are being created by all this wanton behavior?  What about the ones who are being murdered in abortion clinics and growing up without fathers to guide them and overloading our welfare system?  For the love of heaven, what about the children?  Seriously, do people honestly thing that kids with crappy lives are really a new concept in America?  Do they think that abortion was invented in 1973?  Do they even know what the hell they are talking about?  For starters, you don't solve the problem of unwanted babies by forcing women to have more of them, that's pretty contradictory, and I don't think that one is going to work.  All of the suggestions that I've heard tossed around have already been tried by the Americans of past generations, and for some reason there were enough people who thought they didn't work that people got elected and made those particular choices up to the people who are involved.  Seems that people who had to live here when abortion was illegal didn't care much for being told they had to have babies they didn't want.  People who had to marry someone they didn't want to be married to didn't really dig that idea.  People who were told that they had to support and care for children they didn't want said "screw you, I'm not gonna"

     The laws and freedoms that we have today exist because there were people who lived during a time when they didn't exist, and those people convinced their representatives in government that the way things were didn't work.  Change comes pretty slowly in this country, I think it's a pretty safe bet that when it happens, it's because things couldn't go on the way that they were.  It's fine to want to see change happen in your time, but it's rather arrogant to think that it is enough for you to try and force an entire nation to give a failed ideal another try just because you have made it work for you.  If you want other people, whose lives probably aren't anything like yours, to change then you're gonna have to come up with something new and improved.  That means a solution rather than just a list of prohibitions that don't even apply to you because they are things you're doing or not doing anyways.

     I'll be honest.  I don't much care what any man thinks of me, or my decisions, or the way that I think and act.  I don't live for any man, not even the one that I have chosen to be married to.  It's a fairly safe bet that if some guy disapproves of the way that I have lived or am living my life, or dislikes me for my choices and beliefs, then I'm probably going to dislike and disapprove of him with equal fervor.  In addition to my nonchalance over the opinions of men, I also don't need to check with any women to make sure that they are okay with how I'm handling my life.  They are free to judge me as much as they want, and I'll judge them right back, but I'm not going to change for them and I don't expect them to change for me.

     Most of the people who are waging the War on Women in this election cycle seem to be rather convinced that everything would be perfect if they could just make all the women in the country behave exactly as they do.  It seems so simple to them that since the choices that they have made in their lives have turned out okay, then every woman should be able to follow their instructions and get the same result.  I think it's ironic that these people would call me a delusional idealist.  It's great for you if believing in God, saving yourself for marriage or getting married to the guy who knocked you up ahead of schedule, staying at home to raise your children while your husband provides for you, homeschooling your children, never even considering an abortion under any circumstances, eschewing all forms of government assistance, accepting that you had no need for higher education for yourself or your children if you couldn't earn enough to pay for it, and never needing any medical care that you can't afford has worked out for you.  I'm happy for you.  Don't expect that every other woman in the country can have what you have, or is required to want that for herself.  I am not you, many women in this country are not you.  Many of the women who have lived in this country over the last 236 year have not been satisfied with just living their lives according to your rules.

     In many respects I have a lot in common with the same women who are supporting those candidates that write the anti abortion, anti birth control, anti welfare, anti women laws.  I share opinions with those who espouse the belief that educating our children should be turned over to parents and the Federal Department of Education should close it's doors.  I am married.  I am a stay at home mother.  I have always believed that my children need both a mother and a father.  I believe that parents are the ones who best know their children and thus should be in charge of deciding how they are educated.  I think that public school should not be the only option that parents have for their child's education.  I've never had an abortion.  I feel strongly that people need to take responsibility for their own choices, and that relying on welfare should not be accepted as a long term solution, nor should it be a way of life.

     The difference between me and many of those women, is that I don't see things in black and white.  For one thing, this is the choice that I am living now- I have made other choices in the past that led me here.  I am not ashamed of those choices, nor do I have any reason to be.  Some of them were wrong, some of them were simply the best option that I had at the time, and all of them have made me the person, the wife, and the mother that I am today- so I wouldn't take any of it back.  I also recognize that my choice works for me now because I got lucky.  Many things could have happened to make my life very different than it is, and I wouldn't have been able to change them.  Without my husband, I wouldn't be able to stay home with my children (nor would I have to if he had a different job).  I'm living out the choice that I made in a way that conforms to the conservative ideal, but I've made this choice before and had it end badly.  Without the freedom to walk away from that marriage, and to work to support myself and my daughter, I would have been forced to rely on welfare.  Had I not been free to choose to be a single mother, living without the support of my child's father, I may have had to bury my child.  Thanks to birth control and Planned Parenthood which was there to provide it for me (when I couldn't afford shoes, let alone the only form of birth control that was foolproof for me) I was able to ensure that my first unplanned pregnancy was my only unplanned pregnancy- and I did not have more children than I could manage on my own when the time came to walk away from my marriage.  My daughter attends public school, because for her, that is the best educational option.  Should that change, I will do whatever is necessary to exercise the option that seems best at that time.  While I've never had an abortion, I have also never had an easy pregnancy.  I am past 30 now, my health is so so, and I do not intend to have any more children.  Luckily I was able to convince my husband to get sterilized, and our insurance paid for some of the cost.  If our plan were to fail, and an unexpected pregnancy were to threaten my life or interfere with my ability to care for the children that I have I could very well see myself choosing to have an abortion because for me, the possibility that my children might be left without a mother when the means to prevent that was in my power is unacceptable. 

     I know that of the more than 155 million women who are living in America now, there are many, many women whose lives are very different than mine.  Some of them may be similar to me, but at a different point on their own path, facing difficult choices and weighing their options.  I refuse to support any person who chooses to act in a way that will limit those women's options.  I firmly believe that women are strong enough, wise enough, and valuable enough to be treated the same as men by being allowed to make their own choices and deciding for themselves just how good or how bad they want to be.  I don't care if our society ever reaches a point where women actually exercise their majority and start calling the shots for everybody- frankly I don't think that would work any better than having everyone follow the straight white guys' lead- but I'm for damn sure not going to do anything that propagates the idea that women are somehow inferior to men in their ability to govern themselves and their own lives.  I'm certainly not going to stick women with shouldering the burden alone for doing something- with a man- that has consequences for her that no man will ever have to experience.