is that some people believe my freedom as a woman is debatable. Some women give up their hard fought for rights and think the rest of womenkind should follow their lead. Some women "encourage" other women to be less than they are.
Deceiving women is one of our most cherished myths. It's a basis for a lot of religious theology. The religious back drop in turn shaped our laws for millennia.
Thinking of women as addlepated is respectible in many cultures of our crazy world. It's respectible in the United States. We have a history of loving silly women. We loved George Burn's Gracie. We loved Lucy. Today, a new generation follows the likes of Snooki or tries to keep up with a Kardashian. On a more serious note we have a political party that promotes the idea that Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell and Michele Bachmann are role models for what young women in the GOP should aspire to be.
I remember my father telling me as a teenager, "Boys don't like smart girls". I didn't think he was right, but I was smart enough to not disagree with him. I smiled and nodded as if he dispensed the wisdom of Ghandi which suited him just fine at the time. That is what women do. We often let the men in our life make stupid pronouncements without protest. It's easier than going through the drama of disagreement. Our acquiescence or capitulation is mistaken for agreement. Then, we wait until the men are out of sight and we do what we had in mind in the first place. In my case, I developed my mind.
My Dad's advice confused me. He was trying to scare me into wanting to be desirable by the opposite sex, but he scared off just about any boy who came to take me out on a date. He wanted me to delay "getting serious" and go to college and start on a career. If he thought that I needed to be dumb, then why go to college? This conundrum was common to young women in the 70's. Were we to be sex kittens or professionals pursuing a career - the idea we could be both seemed to be out of reach. I never asked him that question. I figured it wouldn't be worth the answer. I suspect that I was being told to be smart when necessary, but be dumb around a guy I liked. I figured it out. I decided I wanted to be smart. If a guy wanted me to play dumb, I went looking for another guy. Maybe it was predictable, but I ended up cutting loose every Republican I ever dated.
There's an unspoken rule a lot of women go by. It's the one where we are to always try to make sure the man we are with feels good about himself and feels confident. I don't think men have a similar rule. Oh, there's the one where they like the woman they are with to be "hot", but not too "hot"; but that simply makes the woman they are with an expression of their prowess. A lot of men (not all) think a woman's self-worth should stem from them or they think as long as her shell is attractive, she has nothing to worry about. The idea that women need self-actualization is not on most people's radar. This could be the crux of the current problems within the GOP in that they expect women in the party to not only accept but promote whatever boneheaded idea comes along. Tragically, there are many conservative women willing to sign up for this insanity, but there are signs that the GOP can push too far.
I like to believe my husband enjoys my intelligence. I certainly enjoy his quick wit. Current op-eds suggest nobody understands this controversy surrounding the ACA birth control mandate. I've read it's a mistake to take it as a men vs. women issue. It's a mistake to ignore the religious freedom issue. It's a mistake to call it anything at all. From where I've been watching, it looks like it's about power. People want the power to enforce how they want people to live and no amount of spin will change that. The Catholic Bishops want power over their laity. The GOP wants power to do what they do. Women want power over their own gonads. Men don't want unwanted babies either, but for some reason too many are silent on this subject. Make no mistake, big pharma is delighted with the birth control mandate and they are wisely keeping their heads down at the moment.
Then, in comes Rush Limbaugh and he goes there. He actually says it. He lays out the idea that if a woman wants sex, she's a slut or a prostitute. It's one thing to think something. It's another to actually say it. Rush picked on a woman trying to make something out of her life. He picked on a women who looks like the girl next door. When the average person looks at Sandra Fluke they see someone they identify with as a sister, friend, girlfriend or young mother. Our sisters, friends, girlfriends and (yes) our mothers often like to have sex and we'd never call them sluts or prostitutes, but Rush did. Boy, did Rush blow that one; and he's clueless as to where he went wrong.
One man at work mused out loud that he thought it would have been better at Fluke's hearing if a man testified that he wanted his girl friend or wife to use birth control and then (mostly due to the stares he got from the women in the room) he stopped talking. That's a core issue isn't it? Women aren't saying valid things until a man agrees with her? Too bad, too many women believe that they aren't making sense until a man believes her. Too many women believe this hogwash and fail to shed their doubts and believe in themselves as trustworthy stewards of their fate.
One of the scarier parts of being a woman is, like many women, deep down I have self-doubt. Those doubts are shamelessly exploited by anyone with an agenda that needs my support. I'm no dupe. I've never responded to an email from Nigeria. I got a pretty good deal the last time I bought a car. My doubts aren't personal. My doubts concern the bigger picture. What is the common good? I know what's good for me, but what about everyone else? The scarier part of being a women is when I contemplate the idea that someone who doesn't know me thinks they can run my life better than I can. Scarier still, is the proof I see in the media of the huge block of voters that thinks it's ok to legislate their religious theocracy into our civil and criminal law. I'm very concerned that someday some religious zealot will actually get some legislative traction and really eff up my life along with a lot of other people's lives. Scariest of all, is the concept that this can happen while casual voters ignore what's going on their state's capitol or Washington D.C.
These last several weeks of trashing women, the attempts to rescind women's rights and doing these things behind the cover of "religious freedom" is bewildering me. The obvious flaws in the logic seem to go unremarked by the media. The ACA birth control mandate is a power grab and it rightly places the power where it belongs; in the hands of the woman and her partner and not in the hands of her employer and pastor. The media seems to be more about throwing gasoline on the fire instead of doing any real reporting on this issue and are falling for the corporate religious freedom meme. What about the woman's and her partner's religious freedom? The media is focusing too much upon corporate religious freedom while ignoring individual religious freedom.
Over the years I think my father's advice has evolved into, "Nobody likes smart people". We love stupid. Don't believe me? You need to go no further than to look at our entertainment. Look at how Joe Scarborough uses spurious arguments to shout down anyone who disagrees with him on his show. Look at Twitter, Facebook, TMZ and Gawker and tell me we don't celebrate superficiality. Somehow, the power players misjudged the reaction of the casual voter on the ACA birth control mandate. They failed to realize just how many people have sex organs and use them. They failed to realize the birth control is health care. They failed to understand people would like to have sex safely. They failed to understand that the Catholic church hierarchy isn't the boss of millions of people in the U.S. In one simple, executive order, President Obama proved by deed that he is for the average woman and man in the street. The GOP leadership and candidates are still fumbling the ball while stumbling toward the opposition's goal post.
We've devolved into a society that seems to be saying that the person with the most megaphones or the biggest megaphone or the loudest megaphone is right. These loud mouths aren't concerned by the facts. There's no such thing as a low blow. There's no lie not worth telling if it advances a preselected agenda. Even our fact checkers lie. Oh, it's not "lies". It's just not the truth. These are "misunderstandings" or it's just part of the spin cycle. There's hope. Somehow, this fight over the ACA birth control mandate is cutting through, is penetrating through the superficial screen. The average person is starting to see that there's a group of conservatives out there that plans on screwing up their life.
The scariest part of being a woman is the idea that some people think they should be able to legislate control over what I say and do and what I do with my reproductive organs in the name of their theocracy. To those people I have a statement. All is well with my soul; now, get out of my womb!
Thank you for putting this up on the rec list. I'm glad this resonates with you.