When it comes to being born, location is everything— especially for women. So I’m grateful that I wasn’t born in a part of the world where women are routinely denied rights by some fanatical element or another, or a place so poor that I couldn’t hope for an education or a way to support myself.
In some parts of Afghanistan, tribal leaders sanction the abduction of young girls to punish a family member for a misdeed. Custom also allows for the trading of girls, along with livestock. In terms of commodities, girls rank lower than goats in value.
Outside of rural, poverty-stricken Afghanistan, everybody knows that women are worth more than goats, we hope. But in the States, among right-wing politicians, there is a determination to diminish our standing as individuals, to take back our rights. Especially reproductive rights.
In Republican-controlled Virginia, politicians sought to force any woman considering an abortion to undergo a trans-vaginal ultrasound. The procedure would have involved the insertion of a type of wand into the vagina. Some have called this state-sanctioned rape. Fortunately, the miscreants backed off, after total annihilation in the media. But they’ll be back, with something equally insidious.
Rick Santorum is among the worst of a pack of rights-grabbing political hacks. He’s on a crusade to put women back in the house, and I’m not talking about congress. He thinks that instead of working, we should be keeping ourselves busy home-schooling our children, and indoctrinating them into the belief that education is actually evil. He is anathema to me, and to all women who cherish their rights.
The man believes some crazy, scary stuff. He thinks, for one thing, that the government should control our sexual practices as well as the number of children we conceive. This is a man who doesn’t believe in government controls on industries, by the way. He thinks that sex is a sin, except when used in procreation. What century is he living in? Sex is a sin? There is no place for sin in political discourse. Acts are either legal or not.
Let’s unite in opposition. Let’s write letters and blogs. Let’s boycott the man and everything he stands for. Let’s keep politicians out of our personal decisions, like whether or not to use birth control, for starters.
