It’s ok. You guys can tell me.
We all secretly went back in time, right?
That’s the only way I can get my head around Wisconsin’s repeal of their Equal Pay Act on the argument that “Money is more important to men”, piled on top of the birth control “debate” and Georgia passing legislation based on the idea that women are anatomically and ethically identical to pigs and cows. We fell through a time vortex and it’s 1959 and half of the twentieth century didn’t happen.
That is, of course, what Scott Walker and the rest of the charming gentlemen who are signing these grotesque reversions into law without mandate or recourse want. Hey, if we take away their birth control and don’t pay them for work, everything will go back to the way it was when pwecious Scotty was a kid and women will just stay at home and back cookies for everyone. Yay! No one will be gay anymore and America will drink its milk and be big and strong and we won’t have to worry about recycling and breast cancer (ew breasts!) and unwhite people and that rock n’ roll music the kids listen to. We can law it all away.
Yeah. And fuck you, too. And fuck you to everyone who told me to stop swearing about this on Twitter last night. WE SHOULD ALL BE SWEARING. We should all be laying down so much shit that fucking roses grow on Twitter. WE SHOULD CARE ABOUT THIS AT LEAST AS MUCH AS WE CARED ABOUT SOPA. Funny how I don’t see anyone shutting down portions of the Internet in protest, though. I mean, it’s only women. The headline on Reddit about this is: “Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has signed a bill that prohibits workers from collecting damages in employment discrimination cases.” No outrage, no commentary, just a link. No mention of Walker’s contention that women don’t work as hard, aren’t “go go go” like men, and shouldn’t be paid as much. Women not even mentioned, despite being the clear and stated target of the legislation. Why get upset? Should be fine!
After all, there’s no war on women. The Republicans promise there isn’t. Just because the massive portion of their efforts are bent toward reducing the rights and freedoms of a single group within the American population doesn’t mean it’s a war. Not like the War on Drugs is a war. After all, drugs are bad and need to be controlled or else society will fall apart. Just like the ladies. This is just Good, Small Government. Why, next week, they’ll be repealing the Equal Pay for Caterpillars Act.
The conservatives are at least partly right: birth control and equal pay (somewhat equal, anyway) were the great victories of first and second wave feminism. They are trying everything in their power to take those things away, in the hopes that it’ll activate a Time Turner that will erase the source of those changes as well as the changes themselves. They say we are pigs, they say we don’t need any silly pin money, they say these things and they should be embarrassed, they should be ashamed at what just came out of their mouths, but no one is shaming them. The news treats it like a simple partisan debate. Point for blue, point for red. But no matter what young folks might say, these men know we’re not in a post-sexist or post-racist culture, that they can rely on old, ugly misogyny and the reluctance to stand up for women’s rights that has tinted gender relations in this country for pretty much ever to lube their legislation up nice and slick. When women are outraged, you don’t have to listen, after all. Bitches be crazy.
I know Walker will almost certainly be recalled in November. Doesn’t really matter–he’s fiat’d this into law and there’s an inertia there. I’ve heard rumors that Walker is a top candidate for the GOP VP slot, so don’t get smug in the knowledge that he’s going away. I shouldn’t be surprised, you shouldn’t be surprised–but we should all be terrified. And angry.
I’ve seen a lot of people saying things like “only in the US” and “America is crazy” and “thank god I don’t live there” flitting around, both here and on my gendered online discourse post. (And I want to thank the BSFA for proving my point, that the sexist jackasses, they live everywhere.) And I want to say: knock it off. First of all, no matter how much we like to take credit for things, Americans did not invent sexism. I promise, it could not “only happen in the US.” Many countries, if not all of them, have huge gender problems and many of those are boiling over with regressive assholes in power. And since the UK, Canada, and Australia are all having trouble with conservatives in their government pissing in the punchbowl, I wouldn’t get too excited about your immunity to this kind of crap.
But more importantly–stop thinking you’re special and it can never happen in your country. That is how America got like this in the first place. By thinking we were special, specially liberated and enlightened and awesome and only those other lamer countries had problems. That arrogance allows us to continue to let everything circle the drain, because we’re the best and OBVIOUSLY we’re not really sexist and stuff, it’ll get fixed, don’t worry. Our system can’t have been redesigned to let a few people destroy our economy–we have the best economy! USA! Everything’s fine! GROWTH 4EVAH.
I hate that shit. I know you hate that shit. So stop telling me Americans are so weird and where you live this could never happen. It could. If you’re not vigilant, like we haven’t been, it will.
Doesn’t mean I know what vigilance looks like. I’ve been told not to call myself a feminist my whole life, well before the current skirmishes. I’ve seen vast swathes of young women grow up couching every sentence defending their right to exist in “I’m not a feminist, but…” Because feminists are bad and they hate men and they’re ugly. But I’ve also been told: well, obviously you’re not serious about marriage if you don’t take your husband’s name, if you must be pro-choice make sure you insist that you could never make that choice for yourself, don’t make the first move or boys will think you’re a slut (also you will be a slut), you can have a full time job but don’t think that means you get to slack off on cooking, cleaning, and childrearing, you lazy baby-hungry girl. Men work so hard. They shouldn’t have to worry about the home. After all, you’re just naturally better at cleaning–men just don’t see clutter like you do!
But everything’s fine in America now and all feminism should worry about are the poor ladies living in the Middle East so why are you complaining that you only get 80 cents to the male dollar? YOU GOT 80 CENTS, BITCH, AREN’T YOU HAPPY?
So yeah. I feel fucking miserable and helpless. The fact is that our system is only loosely democratic at this point. We vote nationally on a President and that’s it. We as citizens have no recourse when executive branches decide to get all War on Caterpillars on our asses, and it’s been made abundantly clear that not one fuck is given about organized protest at that level of government.
This is why Wikipedia shut down to protest SOPA. Because that’s all we have, really. Disrupt commerce and consumer culture. But I just can’t see that kind of concentrated action happening in defense of women, no matter how much what happens to us happens to the whole culture. Go ahead: take our birth control and our jobs and call us pigs, tell us to obey the Catholic Church’s most panicked and regressive ideas whether or not we are Catholic. Take our humanity and wipe Congress’s asses with it.
But don’t you dare take away smoothly torrenting Mad Men episodes. How else will we get new ideas for how the country should look?
This may be one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.
I’m certainly guilty of thinking “I’m so glad I don’t live there” when I read about America’s problems, but every nation has its own issues. Canada has a Conservative government in power right now. Thankfully our Prime Minister has promised not to touch abortion or marriage. But a careful look at Canada’s parliament reveals that it is a room full of angry, self-important, middle-aged white men. That there are so few women in Canadian politics is worrisome to say the least.
Harper’s promises don’t mean anything. There’s a bill going around that a conservative is trying to get passed to have a group made of politicians revisit when a “fetus” becomes a child. Currently, it’s when it’s born which makes space for abortion rights in our country. If it’s re-defined as before that, that could threaten our rights to have an abortion.
So, I’m a white guy with a good job. I can reasonably even be said to represent “the man” on occasion since I work for the government. But honestly, I just am baffled by this whole thing. I don’t understand this misplaced nostalgia for “Back when men ruled the Earth.” My mom worked growing up. I saw strong women working hard for what they could get. I’ve worked for women in almost every job I’ve ever had. No it wasn’t perfect, but I never thought I’d have to worry for my daughters that somehow it would be _worse_ for them.
What I don’t understand is where all the male politicians (on both sides) shitting a brick are. Where are all the strong Republican women freaking out over this? Do they believe in this themselves? I’m honestly just baffled.
Thank you for your passionate comments. Preach it … swearing and all!
Oh my god. Thank you so much for writing this. You have done an excellent job of summarizing the experience and giving a bird’s-eye view of problem.
I am going to do everything I can to get as many people to read it as possible.
Sorry, I have also been on the “I’m glad I don’t live there” camp, but as an American living in another country I absolutely hate the “Only in America” about everything (sometimes followed by “no offence” as if that makes it better. )
It is pretty revolting all these laws Republicans are passing lately and I understand your anger. i can’t talk to my family about politics as they think they are the only option?! Astounding really. It sickens me how anyone could be thinking they have good ideas, especially women.
I agree everywhere should be worried. There is supposed to be this separation between church and state, but it seems to be increasingly blurred.
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Thank you for appropriately swearing! I noticed that Walker quietly signed in a slew of bills attacking women’s health and rights without the publicity and usual fanfare… because these bills are WRONG. Abortion coverage will be barred from policies obtained through the health insurance exchange that will take effect in 2014. You know, to go along with women getting screwed over financially at work. We’ll be bent over again by our state government if we want to fight back.
His fellow republican, Senator Grothman, introduced a bill that would emphasize single parenting as a major cause of child abuse and neglect – not, you know, women earning less than men and the resulting stress of raising kids in poverty being a major contributing factor – not, perhaps, acknowledging that single parenting may be the result of a mother leaving an abusive spouse and trying to create a better life for herself and her children… or heaven forbid that some people don’t want to be legally married (gasp) yet raise a child (double gasp). Grothman is the guy who said, “You could argue that money is more important for men.”
Agh! I cry, I am so frustrated and angry and outraged! I write, but haven’t finished any of my dystopian stories that deal with women’s health and rights. I get upset, so what I write still reads as too didactic, too preachy. But I’m pissed off enough to keep trying, keep working and revising… maybe approaching it from a utopian perspective is the key. But it’s the darker world I’m seeing living here in Wisconsin.
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Thank you so much for writing this! Sometimes I feel like the only person who is outraged. I can’t believe I live in the 21st century and I’m a second class citizen because I’m female.
I like reading your blog, because it’s like you are reading my mind. I hate everything going on in politics now and i don’t know why more people aren’t screaming in horror at our supposed leaders, at the news media, at the blind hateful regime trying to steal our freedoms, at the ignorance and violence and fear. I stumbled on your blog with only a passing familiarity with your name, since i travel a bit in steampunk and fantasy circles but havent yet chanced to read your fiction….but i like the way you think. I want to tell you not to panic, but the situation looks critical to me, too and i think panic may be in order. Instead i will offer the hope that maybe there are some sane people out there yet… Sane in that way that means they aren’t into fascist conservative regimes and rampant homophobia and misogyny at the very least. You give me hope, i’d like to give some back!