A Woman in Not a Kangaroo

I am disgusted and sickened by the expressed views of the religious among us when it comes to women's issues. These are coming mostly from men of a certain age, of course. They continue in the fine tradition of the Red Tent, where women are banished during the days of their "uncleanness" to quote the wonderful folk who bring you the great traditions of never sit in a chair where a woman has sat lest you become contaminated.

I'm talking, of course, of the religions coming out of the Near East, of which Christianity is part whether it wishes (it usually doesn't) to deny its participation. Judaism is an enthusiastic participant in the process of defining its manhood against the backdrop of the horror of what it might have been: having been born a woman. When the Jewish men give their thanks every day in prayer for not having been made a woman, any self-respecting woman ought to shudder.

It's not a huge jump from thanking god for providing a man with an external sex organ to looking down on women with horror and fear--and telling them to cover themselves up since desire for them is shameful and obviously a woman who shows an ankle or face is a temptress who must be stoned to death.

But is this just the Near East?  I think not. Not after listening to the idiocy, paranoia, and plain bigotry of men--always men--who think they deserve to be voted in to represent us.

If it's "true" rape, one of our dimmest bulbs out of the Midwest says--the woman can choose not to get pregnant. Well, kangaroos can--but biology says that women can't. If there is sperm and there is contact, there she blows. He must have gone to the same schools that taught you would go blind if you masturbated. And he thinks he is qualified to pass laws for this nation?  Only a man could believe so--no forgive me, I forget Michelle Bachman.

Then there's the bundle of joy who believes that a child conceived by rape is God's will. So the rapist was doing god's will when he forced himself on a woman who didn't want him? Why on earth, then, are we bothering to try Holmes for murders in the Aurora movie theatre? Wasn't he just doing god's will? Didn't god intend for those victims to die? By having any judicial system at all, aren't we going against god's will since he clearly intended for all this to happen? You can't just pick and choose where god chooses to insert himself--he's either in or he's not (no pun intended).

Plus--what about free will? St. Augustine argued pretty persuasively about this. Human beings have free will. They can choose to do good or do evil. So what about the free will of the rapist? He chose to be evil, but did his victim also have free will to accept his decision? It seems like there may be some free wills more free than others--and you can be sure it is not the woman's.

In my youth, I walked the picket lines for the National Organization of Women to protest the lack of legal abortion. I had friends who needed illegal abortions and they were risky and terrifying. I wanted to save the next generation from the horrors of what we saw. I wanted them to have the economic opportunities that were denied us. I fought the dominant hierarchy (male, of course) by competing and winning--I wanted to make it easier for the young women behind us. We all felt that way. We fought for a cause.

And now I watch in dismay as the next generation of women, lulled perhaps by the concessions we won for them, seem ready to let them erode. They do not realize that we older women were never able to kill the impulses that would limit women in future. It required us to pass the torch to other generations willing to value what we had done and to recognize that arrayed against us were the very fabric of society and the massed force of religious opinion.

To those women voting the conservative ticket, all I can say is as you give up the things we hoped to achieve for you,  I hope you will give some little thought to the women who fought to give you the vote, those who fought to get you decent wages, and those of us who fought for your control over your own body.