There has been much in the media and on this blog about Obama's concessions on health care to women's right to health care coverage for abortion.
Never mind the abominable attack on the struggle for single -payer universal health care coverage in the US, this most recent reactionary move denying women's right to choose, should be putting chills up the spine of men and women alike.
Unfortunately , but not surprisly There is little evidence of the kind of outrage that we should be expressing and hearing - unfearing, livid and mass anger.
I am not surprised , but I am dismayed , no more though than I have been dismayed for decades at this form of reaction and assault , not merely in the abstract regarding women's lack of choice, that is pervasive in all aspects of women's lives,
but on women's bodies and lives and of disregard and care for workig women who choose to bear their children.
Making connections is always key and I found my mind being directed as well to the increasing number of sexual assaults on women in the military . In my mind these abominations committed on women's bodies are related .
Patriarchy, under the capitalist system means literally that men own women's bodies.
Own them to rape and harrass them, own them to deny them the right to abortion , own them to make sure that the blessed holy family remains intact, own them to represent them is exploitive ways in the all pervasive media.
Some women are conscious of this-most are not. I would venture to say that most women know in some way that this is the case but so little is done to assist women to come to full consciousness of this, in schools, in the media , in the home.
In 2003 Deputy Field Director of Women's Veterans Health program in the US reported that 29% of the 67,000 women veterans experienced sexual assault by their fellow male soldiers in the US military. In 2008 a Pentagon report revealed a 24% increase in sexual assault against women in the military in ONE YEAR.And in Military Medicine in 2007 it was reported that 34% of females in the military reported rape or attempted rape during active duty. Many reported being raped more than once and a staggering 14 % reported being gang raped. 75% of women soldiers do not report these assaults and 20 % stated that "rape was to be expected in the military."
It does not take a genius to make the connections here between control and ownership of women's bodies and our right to make our own choices as to whether or not to have a child.
I live one block from a free standing Women's Health Clinic in Toronto. Several times a week I have to look at 2 to 5 men parading around with disgusting and graphic anti-abortion signs (just a block away from an elementary school) and on the same street as Canada's largest public housing project, housing primarily poor and immigrant women and their children , a huge number being single-parents.
All of these men are white and over 50, very rarely do I see a woman .I have had my share of fights with these hateful idiots over the years, but no longer waste my time with these men whose minds are closed like a trap.
I have asked them if they are prepared to make sure that universal free day care is available for women, if they are prepared to picket for women to have good jobs at decent wages to support these women they harrass, if they will come out to support women workers on picket lines , make sure that welfare entitlements are raised so that women can house and feed our children.
Of course they look at me like cows in a field, dumb and stupid, until I push them a bit further and then you can see the rage rising. Not so dumb , just hateful and full of rage at women. I just give them the finger and walk away.
The issue is so pressing and so deep and it has been such a long battle, that most women are surprised at nothing.
So I blog again, the rage still there, but like most women we are so used to it, and the largest emotion among those of us of an age is "why be surprised?" It is an ongoing smouldering rage , that really never goes away. But I worry about the young women, times are a different from the days when my consciousness was raised .When I was able to have an abortion, with concern and worry and immense pain but with no shame and with free access. The IMF predicts 10 years of deep cuts to public services and attacks on workers, 10 whole years and we all know that women are the poorest and will suffer the most.
How may coat hangers will be used-how may will die? And who will care?
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