Early Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, my mother-in-law was gathering clothes off the clothesline. She and her sister needed their clean slips to wear under Sunday church dresses. She heard the planes as she dropped the last bit of laundry into the basket. She hadn’t seen that many planes come in from the ocean and flyover so close to her house. She didn’t want to dawdle, because she would get scoldings from her mother.
But she looked skyward and saw the red sun on the side of a plane, and that’s when she knew this was no ordinary Sunday. She grabbed the basket and ran for the backdoor yelling in her thirteen-year-old voice, “They are coming.”
Nanny, my mother-in-law’s mother, would not be deterred, “Stop the yelling and get ready for church, or we will be late!” Needless to say, they never made it and watched as the bombs blew up the ships in Pearl Harbor on their way to St Elizabeths’s Church in Aiea.
That day in infamy changed their lives forever. They weren’t allowed home since Pearl Harbor and the surrounding peninsula were off limits. They didn’t see their father for another month because he was confined to the base as an essential civil servant worker. Martial Law was enacted and the hardships of living under military rule began. Curfews were enforced and school was canceled.
In another part of town, women who worked in the sex trade were now under military control.
“The girls were ruled by the so called “10 Commandments of the Red Light District,” stating the prostitutes of Hotel Street were not allowed to have lives outside of the brothel, and if they tried they were severally and brutally punished.” One such woman, Jean Ohara, tried to leave the house after curfew to be with her husband and was beaten so badly by the police that she sustained broken ribs, a broken jaw, a broken nose, multiple bruises; the officer even ripped her silk pajamas. To make matters worse she was arrested and denied medical treatment for three days.
Medical treatment or lack of it has been used as a weapon of power and control over women’s health and well-being. It’s nothing new and continues as Ohio attempts to legislate, https://www.theguardian.com/, (from angmar)
and…
...would require doctors to attempt to re-implant ectopic pregnancies – a medical impossibility – or face charges of “abortion murder” (a legal invention)… a sign of the disturbing push from the “pro-life” right to treat women’s bodies as incubators, no matter what the physical toll.
As elencarlena describes; Amy Dunne on her lonely, harrowing abortion fight,
This will be America if the Republicans have their way:
https://www.theguardian.com/…
The war on women doesn’t end with reproductive rights, Thanks to mettle fatigue for her contribution of an article from the Journal of Academic Medicine https://journals.lww.com/.... a study on “Common Types of Gender-Based Microaggressions in Medicine"
Women in the medical profession according to the post hoc analyses… (experience)
… “mircroaggressions” which “fell into 6 themes: encountering sexism, encountering pregnancy and child care related bias, having abilities underestimated, encountering sexually inappropriate comments, being regulated to mundane tasks, and feeling excluded/marginalized.
The study concluded:
Privilege is often invisible to those who have it, whereas bias and discrimination are readily apparent to those who experience it. Knowledge of common microaggressions will allow for targeted individual, interpersonal, and institutional solutions to mitigate disparities in medicine.
(my bold)
This idea of privilege was not lost on Jean Ohara and in spite of her beating she went on to help organize the working women in the red light district seeking to live outside of the red-light zone.
“Prostitution in wartime Hawaii was an illegal, but a necessary and empowering evil for white female sex workers across the islands, many of whom hailed from the mainland. The 25 brothels stabilized the economy, improved medical treatment for STD’s nationwide, and boosted American soldiers’ morale in the darkest days of WWII. Even as they challenged American social norms around gender, race and class, these women did not have the freedom of movement or freedom of choice to spend their earnings and to enjoy the beauty of the islands as they pleased.”
In 1942 Jean saw an opportunity and was able to convince her co workers to strike…
which endured for three weeks in July of 1942, demanding the basic human rights of American citizens. The prostitutes pointed out that their work was vital to the war effort, and they had already collectively purchased $132,000 in war bonds. The establishment was humiliated and the newspapers were ordered not to print a word about the strike.
These marginalized women supported the war effort and helped build moral. Soon after the bombing,
With a shortage of hospital beds and an abundance of injured servicemen, a brothel on Hotel Street was turned into a makeshift medical ward. The women gave up their beds and assisted in caring for the soldiers who came in.
They will never be honored as were recent worthy National Women's Hall of Fame inductees, Angela Davis, and Supreme Court Judge Sonja Sotomayor, (contributed by ramara).
Inspite of their profession, their unique talents and notoriety the women of Hotel Street helped win the war. However, at what point do we forsake good sense with a certain notoriety?
I, for one do not want people like Victoria Beckham and Gwyneth Paltrow up in my business. Thanks to mettle fatigue, an article, Is the Wellness Industry Friend or Faux from medscape. I joined, (it’s free), so I could read the article which confirmed my beliefs about celebrity endorsements and my genital health.
There's a whole rebirth of, let's say, the more quackery psychological sciences, and patients are deeply, deeply involved with some of it.
I am going to pass. However, I diagree with the author’s idea of a “ ... whatever-wave feminism we're now in makes female celebrities more influential than ever in generating profit for commercialism.” How is this exploration anything different from the days of Jean Ohara, who by the way, became very wealthy, owning prime real estate in Honolulu?
And because Lisa Page is a women, and had a private affair which become a public mistake. She had garnered notoriety and the wrath of the orange one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/...
thanks to ramara, Lisa Page interview, her first after Trump's continual demeaning.
“The president of the United States is calling me names to the entire world. He’s demeaning me and my career. It’s sickening.”
What is so sickening is that the president’s actions, tweets and speech are vulgar and uncouth, an assault on all of us.
However, on this day of rembrance I want to embrace the living, all of us with hope. Because of our gender we have been raped, burned, maligned, lured, sexually assaulted, and on and on: We women will save this scared earth as these women in India are doing.
Video from KarmaTube
Namaste,
Pule4Puna.
(Please read the following contributions and mahalo to all who provided help and great material for this Dec. 7 2019 WOW).
WAR on Women and Survivial
Angmar
Protests in India after woman gang raped and burned to death
Four men arrested over murder of veterinary doctor that has left country in shock
https://www.theguardian.com/.…
SandraLLAP
Oy… This is related to Angmar’s item, about the woman in India who was gang raped and burned to death (God, that made me weep…) “Idiot filmmaker claims ‘rape should be legalised and tells women to ‘co-operate’ and carry condoms ‘just in case’”: https://www.thesun.co.uk/…
”Dua Mangi: Slut-shamed in Pakistan for being abducted”: https://www.bbc.com/.
“More than 600 Pakistani girls and women were sold as brides in China, but diplomatic ties threaten investigation”: <./big> https://montrealgazette.com/...
ksmoore777
Another Washington Post piece about a Russian domestic violence victim -- her husband chopped off both of her hands -- using her voice to address gender violence in her country.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/...
ramara
Lisa Page interview, her first after Trump's continual demeaning.
https:www.thedailybeast.com///...
If this wasn't covered last week, “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence” is an international campaign from November 25 (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) to December 10 (Human Rights Day). https://16dayscampaign.org/ The UnitedNationsWomen website where I got the top link from is here https://www.unwomen.org/...
SandraLLAP
Hi- here's the item I had put in the other thread- "Tinder Lets Known Sex Offenders Use The App. It’s Not The Only One.": https://www.buzzfeednews.com/...
ramara
A New Zealand barbershop becomes a movement "She is not your rehab" against domestic violence.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/…
I thought of last minute gifts, T-Shirts urging abusive men to tackle their traumatic past
SandraLLAP
"Sex Trafficking via Facebook Sets Off a Lawyer’s Novel Crusade": https://www.nytimes.com/...
"Ms. McAdams is waging a legal assault against Facebook and other tech companies, accusing them of facilitating the sex trafficking of minors.
It’s about time someone fights back.
Section 230 states that internet companies are not liable for what their users post. Ms. McAdams argues that, in the case of pimps using Facebook and Instagram to lure children into prostitution, separate laws require Facebook to warn users of that risk and do more to prevent it.
Her logic:
If you sell a lawn mower and the blade flies off and chops someone in the leg, you have the responsibility to fix it and warn people,' she said. 'Nowhere else has an industry been afforded this luxury of protection from being held accountable for anything that they’ve caused.
This one has NO LOGIC!
The Senate is about to confirm a judge who opposes reproductive rights, including fertility treatments. And I'm sorry to say it's a woman.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Daily Kos petition, related to Tara’s item: https://www.dailykos.com/…mahalo
But then again there is hope for the future in spite the wackiness.
Besame
https://www.gucmakale.com/...
Jane Fonda Is A “Proud Grandma” As Her Grandchildren Got Arrested For Civil Disobedience
karij
https://jezebel.com/…
https://jezebel.com/…
(Again, SEX sells!)
ksmoore777
Saw this in the Washington Post: young people leading the movement for gender neutral language in countries where every noun is male or female. I am thrilled.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/…
Okay, last WaPo piece: https://www.washingtonpost.com/...
>>3000 reports of sexual abuse on Uber
How can that be? Oh, I remember. Women make up sex abuse reports and it's all "he said/she said."
Perhaps it is time to take up martial arts as mettle fatigue advices,
I found it in an article on an unusual Israeli grandma that's here https://www.israel21c.org/… --"Her hair is purple, her belt is fourth-degree black and her heart is pure gold"-- who survived longterm sexual assault and an abusive marriage, and developed an empowerment form of self-defense for women, children, seniors, LGBT, ultra-Orthodox, women prisoners,.and others with special needs in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe - also Costa Rica, Belize, Nicaragua, Greece, Myanmar, Ireland ... 39 countries with instructors to date. And she has a youtube video, "The role of Empowerment in Self Defense" https://www.youtube.com/... Start at 1:10 into the video (after the introduction)
We are not helpless, we are strong and when we unite it is a force unstopable because it’s grounded in love. IMUA (Onward)!