Last night as I watched the mostly female speaker-lineup for the DNC, they said the words!
What words would those be?
That we should trust women, and give them the freedoms to make their own choices.
Choice being that key word.
I am so tired of feeling angry, afraid and unsupported by any party, as a woman. So many times, I felt that the response to the constant assault on women's rights was at best lukewarm, or even nonexistent.
Perhaps the Dems thought they were avoiding a firestorm. But from my end, it often felt as if Women were being thrown to the wolves.
The War on women has been a nightmare for me. Because I understand how creepy, invasive and paranoid these people are towards women, I have no problems imagining the world they have in mind for us. Us being women.
I thought Tammy Duckworth's speech was dead on. Women have been in every war since the inception of this country, as both women and as "men". We have served in combat many times over, as well as support and logistics. It's time to stop trying pretend otherwise.
If a strong military woman makes you uncomfortable, then don't marry one. Don't date one. Holding a person back from reaching their full potential because of their gender is WRONG.
Nancy Keenan's speech blew my socks off. Dignity and Privacy--now there are some concepts right there. I cried tears of relief when I watched this speech. Because what Tammy Duckworth spoke of, cannot be achieved without the rights Nancy Keenan is trying to preserve.
I would take it further. Women in America cannot trust the GOP, for all the reasons that Nancy Keenan said that we cannot trust Mitt Romney.
What is at stake for us, is the future of our daughters. I will teach mine everything I know about female anatomy and function, including the reproductive process. I have had to warn them about the males in their future who will attempt to control them through one means or another. To hold out for a partner who respects them, and who values their independence as women and citizens.
I have had many discussions with them about domestic violence too. Sadly as females we face more hazards in the dating world than males do. And some of those hazards are life threatening.
Women negotiate an entirely different reality than men do.
I have taught them, never to trust a male to "take care" of birth control. Because males rush things in their selfishness and excitement. And because the gravity of the potential outcome will not fall in that male's lap. It will fall in ours. Males don't get pregnant. It's a simple fact of life.
If we don't win this election, the already disappearing clinics, and the threats, and the unbelievably invasive laws being passed in states to commit rape by instrumentation in order to practice state sanctioned "SLUT SHAMING" might become the law of the land. Doctors, Nurses, being able to refuse to transport, pharmacists refusing to fulfill prescriptions for Birth Control Pills or RU486, etc.,
Already women deal with the possibility of judgement and abuse during any medical procedure that involves reproduction, whether it be birth, abortion, or just exams or treatments. People imagine that women just go to a doctor and we all get outstanding care, and even that isn't true, hasn't ever been true. And now these new laws make it easier for misogynists to hurt us and shame us during vulnerable times in our lives, where dignity and privacy are paramount for sanity.
Our enemies know that. They know they can hurt us psychologically by denying us dignity and privacy, which is what makes their attacks so unbelievable, and so nasty and low. Some of them will attempt and even succeed in hurting us physically. Literally kicking us while we are down.
As usual, the world that the GOP wants, would in reality be a bad one, a more expensive one filled with traumatized women who have been raped by an assailant and then raped by the state, or who had an unplanned pregnancy, who were then raped by the state. Women who have been psychologically brutalized by state sanctioned bullies when they are physically and psychologically vulnerable. It will affect their ability to work, to function, and it will adversely affect their ability to care for their children, should they already have a family. This doesn't even address the possibility of the return of coat hanger procedures and all the effects that will have on a woman's life and reproductive capability.
What the GOP wants from us is suffering and silence. We aren't suffering enough for their tastes, and we certainly are not silent enough. If they were really about preventing abortions, then condoms and BC pills would be dispensed from machines on every street corner for free!
It was just so nice to hear the words from the DNC. I have been waiting to hear the words, embraced by the Party for a long time.
We are American Citizens. We are voters, and we have been here from the beginning. We helped build this country. We make the next generation, we parent future leaders, and workers. And many of us do all that, while often holding down paying jobs and unpaid jobs to boot. We also defend this country. We serve in so many capacities, even though we are often not as valued as we should be simply because we are female.
We do so much, and beyond that we are human beings. Our rights to reproductive self determination are human rights.
Anyone who seeks to deny us these rights, is in reality denying our innate humanity.
Women's rights are not special rights.
Women's rights are human rights.
6:07 PM PT: 'Tonight's lineup also features some of the Democrats' most high-profile reproductive rights activists: Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards and feminist activist Sandra Fluke, best known for supporting the Obama administration policy requiring full health insurance coverage for contraception.The RNC said today, "The Democratic National Convention has signaled from the start an unapologetic, and at times, confrontational, liberalism, marked by details like the presence of reproductive rights activist Sandra Fluke."'
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
The Nerve of us Democrats! To advocate for the Reproductive Freedoms of all Women, even conservative females who would certainly not return the favor.
Democrats offer Options and Freedoms, Education, and the power to choose your own destiny via Family Planning.
Conservatives offer reproductive slavery, state sanctioned rape by instrumentation and the removal of informed consent.
The choice is clear ladies.
You can only have human rights, if the powers-that-be see you as fully human.