One of the things that has been foremost on my mind is this war on women. I woke up one morning and suddenly it felt like it was 1960 all over again and women had to defend their right to reproductive health care. Women are having to defend themselves against sexist slurs and comments made by people in the media about their sex lives. What the hell is going on here? After reading Zinn about the "Intimately Oppressed" I'm left wondering, are we taking a gigantic step backwards? Are we really telling today's young women to hold an aspirin between their knees so that they don't get pregnant? Are we saying that if a woman chooses to have sex that this makes her a slut or a prostitute? Am I really hearing these things correctly? Because I'm confused. I thought this was 2012 and I thought women fought a long and hard battle to be treated equally and for respect. Didn't women burn their bras back in the 60's to demand equal rights? What the hell happened? I realize that this battle is still being fought and I realize that there are still many ways in which our rights as women are still not equal. But, we've come a long way, or have we?
I saw this 3 minute video on facebook: Ann Coulter explains why it would be better if women didn't vote.
Unbelievable.
Stand for Children
Because this has been a difficult couple of weeks, I was really looking for some inspiration from Jonah Edelman. I was a bit disappointed in the seminar, but I was able to find a bit of inspiration. I bought his mother's book, The Measure of our Success. It's a small book, less than 100 pages, but it really spoke to me. I realize that I need to find the inspiration within myself and remember why I wanted to be a social worker in the first place. In her book she says, "Service is the rent we pay for living. It is the purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time." That's just what I needed to hear.
This has been a difficult semester, not just for me as a student, but for me as a woman, as a mother and as a human being.
RIP Trayvon Martin
I had to tell my son about Trayvon yesterday morning. How do you explain the unexplainable? As a mother, I feel his mother's pain. I feel his mother's pain as I think about my son, just a couple of years younger, sitting at school while Trayvon sits in a cold grave. My heart is truly broken. And I am outraged. I am outraged and I feel so sick and helpless and I want so much to do something. I'm also scared. I'm scared of the hatred that this reveals and I scared about what this means. I'm scared that someone like Zimmerman would kill a young boy in cold blood. What does this say about us as humans? My husband has said before, "We have a thin veneer of civil behavior that can be easily scratched to reveal our true barbaric nature". I've always disagreed with this. But now, after this, I'm left wondering...
I have a hard time believing we are back in this place again also. During Spring Break I was sitting around the campfire with my family (we were camping) and talking about this whole ordeal. Of course, my dad steps in playing the devils advocate.
ReplyDelete"Why should I have to pay for a woman in my company to get birth control if it is completely against my beliefs?"
"Well dad, because if you're going to eliminate that, what else can you eliminate?"
I argued that every leader of large corporations will soon "convert" to Christian Science so that they no langer have to pay for any health care.
He couldn't argue with that.
But, I feel ashamed to even have to be having conversations like these. What is our world coming to?
I agree that it is a rough time for many minority groups. Starting with the birth control issue and then leading to Trayvon Martin and the Iraqi woman's murder, it just seems like there's something new everyday. Sadly, these events show us that we don't live in a post-racist/post-sexist society. I was outraged by Rush Limbaugh's attack on the Georgetown law student. I can't believe Ann Coulter was suggesting that women shouldn't vote. It also angered me to read in the news that people were suggesting that Trayon wouldn't have been shot if he wasn't wearing a hoodie. It's just mind-boggling that we seem to be regressing instead of progressing. On that same token, I think this could be a chance for us to get our voices heard and advocate for these causes. Whether it is attending a rally or writing to our congressmen, I think this could be an opportunity for us to speak out and express our concerns.
ReplyDelete