March 15 , 2009 |
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| Women’s rights are
human rights?
Stephen Henry Lewis,
United Nations’ envoy for HIV AIDS in Africa, 2006, said:
“[Women’s rights have] never been made real, and so long as men control the levers and bastions of power… it never will be real. The demeaning diminution of women is everywhere evident… where freedom from sexual violence, the right to sexual autonomy, to sexual and reproductive health, social and economic independence, and even the whiff of gender equality are barely approximated. It’s a ghastly, deadly business, this untrammeled oppression of women in so many countries on the planet.”
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1 Simone de Beauvoir (January 9, 1908 - April 14, 1986) was a French author and philosopher. She wrote novels, monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues, essays, biographies, and an autobiography in several volumes. She is now best known for her metaphysical novels…, and for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women’s oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism.
La deuxieme sexe …was originally published as a two-volume book in France. These works were very quickly published in America as The Second Sex,…
In the chapter "Woman: Myth and Reality" of The Second Sex, Beauvoir argued that men had made women the "Other" in society by putting a false aura of "mystery" around them. She argued that men used this as an excuse not to understand women or their problems and not to help them, and that this stereotyping was always done in societies by the group higher in the hierarchy to the group lower in the hierarchy. She wrote that this also happened on the basis of other categories of identity, such as race, class, and religion. But she said that it was nowhere more true than with sex in which men stereotyped women and used it as an excuse to organize society into a patriarchy. Refer Wikipedia
2 The Hunger Project link to acid attack photo.
3 N.O.W.’s Action Agenda for 2009 and Beyond
. Economic Justice
. Reproductive Rights and Sexual Health
. Equal Rights and Ending Sex Discrimination
. Healthcare for All
. Stop Violence Against Women
. LGBT Rights (Lesbians, Gays, Bi-sexuals, Trans-genders)
. Educational Equity
. Promoting Diversity and Ending Racism
. Media Fairness and Accessibility
4 Saint Thomas Aquinas (born ca. 1225; died 7 March 1274) was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian… His influence on Western thought is considerable…and much of modern philosophy was conceived as a reaction against, or as an agreement with, his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law and political theory…Aquinas is held in the Catholic Church to be the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood. …One of the 33 Doctors of the Church, he is considered by many Catholics to be the Church’s greatest theologian and philosopher…. Refer Wikipedia
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Honoring Women’s History
If woman seems to be the inessential which never becomes the essential, it is because she herself fails to bring about this change…. The reason for this is that women lack concrete means for organizing themselves into a unit which can stand face to face with the correlative unit…They have no past, no history, no religion of their own; and they have no such solidarity of work and interest as that of the proletariat…They live dispersed among the males, attached through residence, housework, economic condition, and social standing to certain men—fathers or husbands—more firmly than they are to other women. 1
~ Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1953
International Women’s Day
I recently received an email from The Hunger Project honoring International Women’s Day. The main photo 2 within the email was of three women speaking out about acid attack victims in Bangladesh. Two of these women were horribly disfigured by this common ‘punishment,’ most likely inflicted upon them by men. The article didn’t specify ‘whodunit’ albeit the topic was about ending violence against women. My stomach began to turn flip-flops as I gazed at their faces, barely recognizable as humans. That night I had difficulty sleeping, as the picture of the women kept invading my mind.
A couple of days later, I was watching a TED talk by Chris Jordan, a photographic artist who brings attention to things like the number of plastic, non-recycled cups used in the U.S. each day, pollution of the environment, people dying from smoking, the number of prisoners in the U.S., etc. Jordan was attempting to explain how numb we are to the horrific statistics that tell us we are polluting our planet and choking the life from animals, including ourselves. He said our feelings are missing, and that humans have “lost our sense of outrage.” His words came just in time to spur me on.
It seems whenever I think I want to give up writing newsletters and ranting on my Web site, I find another lamentable reminder, such as the scarred faces in THP photo, of how excluded, degraded, and desecrated women are by the males they serve. Just because these conditions have existed since humans stood upright does not make them okay—habitual, perhaps, but not okay. Not with me anyway. And I hope not with you either, whether you’re female or male. Somehow, we must stop male barbaric behavior.
The Inessential Other
Never have women constituted a separate caste, nor in truth have they ever as a sex sought to play a historic role.
~ Simone de Beauvoir
I say it is high time that women give up all their allegiances, except to other women and girls, and begin to make history of our own. But I suggest we should call it herstory.
Perhaps if we treated gender as a caste system, it would clarify our nebulous position in the human family. By facing the reality of our assigned and accepted second-rate status we could begin to direct our fate, or at least do something about the sanctioned mistreatment of females.
Obviously, males are not going to fix the problem of violence against women—they’ve had thousands of years to do so. Rather, they ignore, or approve by their silence, the battering of women and girls—physically and emotionally. Yes, there are some men on our side, but not nearly enough to be effective.
The Hunger Project and other organizations 3 are taking some steps to ease the torturous existence that most women and girls face. Unfortunately their well-intentioned donations and actions are ruled by male-dominated religions, governments, traditions, and systems historically favoring masculine supremacy.
One of the worst in these categories is religions. Whoever would’ve thought that clergy could and would be elevated to sainthood in spite of spouting their poisonous attitudes against half their congregants:
As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.
~ Saint Thomas Aquinas 4
Nearly eight hundred years have passed since Thomas spewed these thorny word-seeds, but undoubtedly, their influence on mankind has been immense. There’s no going back to retract, rephrase, or rescind this kind of error-thinking. I wonder what is currently being taught about women by men of the priesthood and in other religious positions.
Not an Idle Idol
Any student of human history knows how lop-sided it appears to be. The favored male gender became gods and females became their subjects. Women were excluded from events of importance and have long been denied access to basic freedoms.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, women began to seek and demand a semblance of equality in the modern world. But progress was slow until the advent of reliable birth control. Freedom from maternity will allow females to excel in almost every arena of endeavor, and will likely be considered the turning point in women’s history. This modern day marketing miracle story is quite removed from reality, but perhaps it will one day be the stereotypical norm:
Circa 1942, Barbara Millicent Roberts, better know as “Barbie” was soon to be born into American culture. Probably not even a twinkle in her creator Matel’s eye yet, she was destined to become America’s princess and more. Seventeen years or so later, in 1959, she made her debut as a teen model, giving little girls something to immolate and idolize.
Made of hard rubber and locks of synthetic hair, her ideal figure was designed with disproportionately long-thighed legs, enviable big boobs, and a waist that had never experienced French fries. Her view of the less than glamorous world she came to rule was through glassy blue eyes, and she quickly set the appearance standards for females young and not so young.
Here’s a partial list from AARP of what Barbie has been through during her half-century reign:
- 1959 Barbie debuts as a teenage fashion model.
- 1961 Ken Carson meets Barbie on a TV commercial set; the two begin dating.
- 1965 Astronaut Barbie debuts a year after NASA scuttles training for women.
- 1973 Nurse Barbie goes to medical school, graduates as Surgeon Barbie.
- 1975 Gold Medal Barbie sweeps the Olympic Games in skating, skiing and gymnastics.
- 1980 Barbie goes multiracial with the debut of Black Barbie, Hispanic Barbie and the International Collection.
- 1989 Barbie joins the Army. By 1992 she serves in four military branches, sporting Pentagon-approved uniforms.
- 1992 Barbie first runs for president.
- 1997 Barbie discovers that Share-a-Smile Becky’s hot pink wheelchair doesn’t fit in the Dream House elevator.
- 2004 Barbie and Ken break up after 43 years together, then reunite in 2006.
- 2009 At 50, [actually 67 counting from birth to teen years] Barbie is the world’s highest-earning doll, with $1.2 billion in annual revenue.
Barbie’s herstory is likely better chronicled than any real life femme’s tale of existence in this man’s world will ever be, but I doubt her accomplishments would have been so great if she had gestated, birthed, and reared one or more children.
Albeit, after 50 years on the market, Barbie has defied gravity in all respects and still looks 17, regardless of her age. She has been accepted into the AARP demographic. More fun Barbie facts. Refer AARP Bulletin, March 2009.
Outrageous Expectations
…the whole of feminine history has been man-made.
~ Simone de Beauvoir
Thanks to our fore-mothers (and perhaps even Barbie), women and girls are beginning to emerge as complete, competent, and critical components of societies otherwise doomed to patriarchal stagnation and disintegration. Those who have or will survive masculine brutality deserve our admiration and consolation.
Idealist that I am, I must confess to my vision of a future herstory worthy of the women who will inherit and inhabit the planet during the next thousand years. But if history is any indication of what might be, I’m glad I won’t be around to see my sisters suffer as most did during the past thousands.
But until I go, I will not shut up. I will not close my eyes to their scars. I will not close my ears to their cries for help and their wails for mercy. My outrage will continue to be nurtured by the daily atrocities of which I learn, and will be expressed openly and unashamedly on behalf of women and girls everywhere. Outrage is good. Outrageous outrage perhaps even better.
#0056 Albeit Rantler |
