Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Sometimes an idea hits me leading to an epiphany. Epiphanies for me usually take the shape of the realization that a 
belief I’ve held for a long time, is actually more important in the scheme of things than I had previously thought about. This happened with me some few years ago when the opposition to gay marriage defeated a voter initiative. I had been a believer in the need for equality for Gay men and women since I was a teenager. After all the bullies who were beating me up kept calling me a “fag, or “queer” and while I wasn’t, I got insight into what it must be like to be homosexual. In life you have the choice of identifying with the bully, or those who are bullied. I’ve always chosen the latter. So as a young adult I cried tears of joy when “Stonewall” happened and the police found that Gays would no longer be easy targets. Working for NYC’s Human Rights Administration and then living in Manhattan gave me the privilege of meeting and befriending Gay people of both sexes. When AIDS hit the scene I had many friends die and I worked to help the Division of Aids Services as a Budget Director. Yet while I always completely supported LGBT rights, for a while I believed the focus on Gay Marriage, shouldn’t be in the forefront of the movement. The argument over Proposition 8 in California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition_8 gave me an epiphany that led me to see that not only was the right to marriage an essential part of ensuring the Constitutional Rights of Gay people, but it was the key element. Being unable to assist in the health care choices of long term partners, in some cases even being barred from the funerals, or participating in ones’ partners Health Plan are important Constitutional issues and the essence of the battle.
Last night my wife and I saw and were very moved by Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln”. There was a scene in it during a congressional debate where one congressman said in effect “If we grant Blacks freedom, then we’ll have to give them the right to vote……and if we give them the right to vote we will have to give women the right to vote. In truth it was another six decades before this country bestowed upon its’ women the basic Constitutional Right of voting as my wife pointed out to me. Later in the evening we watched the Bill Maher Show and during the discussion reference was made to the frequency of abuse and murder of women throughout the world and suddenly my epiphany. While I’ve always supported women’s rights, it is so easy in a world where so many wrong things occur daily to not place the abuse and murder of women particularly at the top of an agenda decrying unjust war, drone attacks, racism, economic disparity and torture, to name a few. As it became clear to me last night, the murder, rape, bondage and the degradation of women is part and parcel of all these issues of evil and not merely one aspect of them. Considering that women comprise at least half of humanity, the mistreatment of women worldwide is actually the most important issue humanity faces. We must solve this before we can even hope to solve any other great issue. Because I’m not really a great thinker, many of my “epiphanies” are ones that are obvious to many. However, when they do occur I am willing to reconsider the hierarchy of my beliefs. Unlike my other guest blogs I will not tire you with the evidence of what to me is self-evident. Do you agree, or do you have other world problem solving priorities?
And yet, so many states are enacting “Jane Crow” laws to remove women’s access to reproductive health. To me, this is just another form of abuse heaped on us by Republicans and Religion. This crap needs to stop!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/16/most-dangerous-countries-women-_n_877706.html#slide=more29745 None of them are in the west.
Behind every beaten child there is a beaten parent. Beaten by society.
Who is society? Is it us? Or whom?
How did society get the overhand?
I am sure that society has some co-workers here among this blog’s members. I don’t expect them to snitch, nor even be aware of their internalization of the “goals” we see implemented.
The battle rages between “rugged individualism” and collectively achieved equitable “togetherness”.
To each according to their needs—-and mansions don’t count as a need, nor the other glitz used as ranking symbols by our real rulers.
Of course, power exceeds mansions in status terms, but even the powerful usually manage to reap mansions too. Our system assures that, even though they might not be White Houses. (how many has the infamous former Presidential candidate from AZ?).
I recognize there is this need among some to criticise the US whenever there is some mention of a problem elsewhere. In this case it is, the following format:
Commenter 1: Women in Saudi Arabia are often imprisoned for adultery after they report being raped.
Commenter 2: So what. Women in the US are abused by our their own government.
For the record, I will stand by any of my comments or others here in the suggestion that women in the United States presently are treated with far better rights by the government than they are in Saudi Arabia or many other countries. Certainly there are cases everywhere in the world where women are abused by their husbands. But what is the official response to that here compared with those other countries?
Every state that I know of has a mandatory arrest statute for domestic violence. Women here can vote, drive cars, attend university, be public leaders, marry who they choose, marry nobody if wanted, have access to health care, be able to walk in public unattended by their husbands, leave or enter the country. These are not permitted in several countries and Saudi Arabia is one of the worst.
Western governments tend to be held more accountable for their actions regarding women by their own citizens and by those of neighboring countries, yet the US and many other Western governments do not demand to any relevant degree the same rights be provided to women in countries where the abuse is apparent but the perceived strategic / economical / political issues are of greater importance. Often the excuse is “it’s their culture”.
Just because I point out there is significant abuse of women in other countries and that western gov’ts often enable this through inaction doesn’t mean that my statement is not valid because there are cases of inequality here.
I have said this before in another topic. Should we just let the plight of women who are subjugated and abused in other countries go unaddressed because of what is going on here? No, it should be addressed everywhere.
Moreover here is another analogue of this. There are persons in the US who are advocating for wider availability of clean drinking water in some African nations. But because there are wells in Wisconsin that are infected with cryptosporidium we are unjustified in demanding better drinking water for people in Africa. That is essentially what is being argued. I mention the abuse of women in other countries, but some will import from this that I am ignoring what is going on in the United States. That is not the case.
Great job Mike.
The same people who claim that women should not be paid the same for equal work are the same people who vote against the VAWA. I put the blame on religion. Most of the major religions consider women second hand citizens of their respective faiths and in some cases, mere chattel. If we don’t get around to including women in all phases of our society on an equal basis, we may not get around to the LGBT equality issues.
By the way, I agree with you Mike that Lincoln was a great movie.
I only think other things are more important because I think they are prerequisites to solving the major unfairness issues against women, against gays, against minorities, against the poor, and the preferential treatment of business and the famous and the wealthy.
I am not saying these prejudices are symptoms; they are not. But I do believe most people (more than 90%) lean toward “fair” treatment, and over generations what is “fair” will make progress toward full equality, if it is not purposely thwarted by some that want to preserve subjugation for their own personal benefit (usually, financial benefit).
If you objectively consider the brutal maxim that a man shall not beat his wife with a stick thicker than his thumb; it is a call to end excessively brutal wife beating. It was the televising of the Selma beatings that caused the public outrage (over grossly unfair treatment) that ultimately triggered the civil rights laws.
I could list many examples, but my premise is that people do not like to see “unfair treatment”, and in each successive generation what they define as “unfair” is the worst treatment they see perpetrated on a class, treatment to which other classes are not subjected. That is the definition of “unfair treatment,” and in time that worst treatment is barred and a new “worst” takes its place for the next generation, until there is so little difference in treatment that the previously denigrated class has lost coherency as an inferior class, and a generation arises that sees them as equals.
That progression is challenged when there are physical markers for a class (skin color, language, gender, body size, body art, dress). It is also particularly challenged by those that benefit, financially or socially, from the existence of an inferior class. The south benefited from both slavery and Jim Crow laws with cheap labor. Businesses benefit from the cheaper labor of women. In societies where women are still considered the property of their husbands, those men gain the benefit of a full time worker and sex slave. While they are the property of their father (or brother or uncle if the father is deceased) those men often benefit from the sale of the woman as a slave to a man, the benefit is financial and/or social.
(I am not sure there is a clear financial or social benefit to anyone for having homosexuals be an underclass, except perhaps those that earn their living from religious intolerance, and that is why I think homophobia is on a steep decline in the college-aged generation.)
Although it is possible to work on women’s rights directly, to try and end that sort of injustice, I think for the most part these problems would dissipate and be much easier to address if we first tackled the problem of moneyed interest trying to thwart demands for equality because they are making money from it.
MikeS,
This was the first Crusade that I saddled up for. No epiphany other than it seemed self-evident one day—perhaps that is no epiphany, but no blinding lights or feeling of the divine. Probably confused as to what epiphany is.
At any rate it seemed clear that exclusion of women from full participation in all aspects of society was stupid, put simply. I hoped simply for a better society if they were unchained.
Now that they have taken women away from a very important task: child raising; it seems we have lost something in our race for goodies or the need to simply feed ourselves. (How did they manage that?)
Here in Sweden, at least we see the moms leaving the child at kindergarten and the fathers fetching them in the evening. I at least am up to see the at times heartwarming contact between father and child as they stroll home together.
Giving suffrage to women, forcing them out onto the working market (WW2), etc may have left a great deal to be answered by whatever support functions (private or public, familial or remote) which were in fact unavailable.
Women as a whole had to make too large a step, and all were not prepared for it. All women are not Susan B. Anthonys..
Confused or confusing. Not sure which but summarily, we failed women again. Dianne Feinstein and her feminine ilk are not the answer to using the natural capabilities of women to counter the male dominance.
“Go see this movie. Take your children, even though they may occasionally be confused or fidgety. Boredom and confusion are also part of democracy, after all. “Lincoln” is a rough and noble democratic masterpiece — an omen, perhaps, that movies for the people shall not perish from the earth.” A. O. Scott, New York Times
Human Rights! At Nuremburg War Tribunal several issues were addressed. The Germans had murdered millions and did so by catagories of religion, sect, nationality, ethnicity. The Soviets would have been content to shoot a lot of Nazis and let it go at that without the trials. We Americans were The Exceptional nation. The Soviets got into it though. The French collaborators got off the hook. Americans at home had some issues with our own Exceptional Nation. Blacks were treated like dirt, women were second class in many ways, Jews were still discriminated against even after Nuremburg. In the 1950s and ’60s many so called Country Clubs would not admit, as guests or members, blacks, jews, catolics, foreigners, or white trash.
Now, Europe and the World are taking on human rights issues. America is no longer in the forefront, unless you call the abusers of human rights the forefront. I am glad to see the Womens’ Rights issue taken up today. But dont forget the waterboarding. It is a human rights crime to torture anyone, no matter what the purpose. The next Nuremburg trial of great scope will have Americans there again– in the Dock.
Betty Kath,
Thanks for answering Darren. Sometimes I suspect that he does this just to see if he can successfully drag a red herring across our path.
NickS,,
Evolutiion would weed this out (ie child beating) were it not for the factor is not entirely genetic, as any soul can see, if he stops to think.
Mike,
Here’s the thing. If more people read Kant, equality among the sexes wouldn’t be a debate; it would be a given.
That aside, per your comment:
“Last night my wife and I saw and were very moved by Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln.””
You mean C-SPAN after dark; right?
Sorry, but parliamentary procedure in the passing of an Amendment does not a great film make. Good film; educational film; inspirational film; perhaps. But not Oscar worthy.
“Sorry, but parliamentary procedure in the passing of an Amendment does not a great film make. Good film; educational film; inspirational film; perhaps. But not Oscar worthy.”
Bob,
It made me cry and when a movie makes me cry (other than in pain) I personally consider it a great movie. Of course in Les Miserables, for instance I started weeping at the first chords. Lincoln took me up until the black soldiers dialogue in the beginning. Then too, as my younger Daughter often relates “Daddy cried at the Little Mermaid” and she isn’t wrong. 🙂
“If more people read Kant, equality among the sexes wouldn’t be a debate; it would be a given.”
In that case maybe more people should read Kant, however, I don’t think he’d be welcome in many climes.
In substantially all cultures including ours, albeit in a less physically intense way most of the time, both women and children are defenseless. They stand without protection before courts of law, men who are supposed to be religious leaders and political leaders. Too often the “it’s their culture or their religion defense” leads the US to join hands and empty our collective wallets to protect, defend and often enrich the worst sort of governments and leads some of us to turn a blind eye to the worst type of abuse.
Women and children deserve our attention. Young girls should not be gunned down in the street for wanting an education or burned with acid. Young boys should not be forcibly “recruited” as child soldiers or abused by men who are supposed to be both their spiritual leaders and their protectors. Women should not be raped as part of a military strategy, a religious punishment, political strategy or as a result of a breakdown of military discipline or the disinterest of a military establishment.
Unfortunately, while woman and female children are not the only targets, they are most often the targets whose abuse is often seen as part of god’s plan or acceptable because of some religious or cultural beliefs. We need to take a stand and make sure that any country or organization or individual who engages in this type of abuse is cut off from our support and shamed out of office.
Thanks Mike for another timely post.
Darren,
Are you proving Susan’s assertion “that the abuse of women is made all the more invisible because it hides in plain sight”? You point to other countries and suggest that we are the gatekeepers to dealing with the abuse there. While there is certainly significant abuse of women worldwide, there is also significant abuse of women right here in this country and it’s on a path of even more abuse.
nick’s absolutely correct in pointing out the abuse of children, worldwide, including in the US. It’s shameful. Far too frequently the abuse of women includes abuse of children a side effect. I believe that better treatment of women would result in better treatment of children.
SwM,
😉
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/01/23/more-rape-and-violence-among-polygamists-study
I would put the plight of children, male and female, above women. Don’t say it’s the same, becaause it is not. The vast majority of women victims are by the hands of men. Children are abused by both men and women and hardly ever have any resources. A woman has @ least a “fighting chance” in some cases..a child does not.
“Eight Senators on Monday voted not to consider the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a bill that protects victims of domestic violence. The Senators who voted against moving to debate on the bill were: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Tim Scott (R-SC), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Rand Paul (R-KY), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and James Risch (R-ID).
VAWA’s reauthorization has been caught up in partisan gridlock over added provisions that would protect undocumented immigrants, as well as LGBT and Native American victims of domestic violence. Congress failed to reauthorize the bill by the end of 2012, and the Senate is now considering the same legislation again, in its new legislative session.
All of the women in the Senate, with the exception of Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), co-sponsored the legislation.
Once Senators consent to take up the measure, it will be voted on in its entirety. It is expected to pass, but will face a tougher battle in the House.” Think Progress
It is noteworthy that Marco Rubio is giving the GOP’s response to the State of the Union address and Rand Paul is giving the Tea Party’s response. Both of these men are contenders for the 2016 GOP nomination, and they are already out front in staking anti-woman positions.
Yes
I have been very dismayed at the amount of slack we in the West provide some nations that treat women horribly but yet “it is their culture”. Essentially providing them license to do so. That’s no excuse in my book. But I think it has a lot to do also for what MIke and Susan suggested.
“women are expected to take a backseat to whatever other issues are deemed more important. Economic, military and other political issues eclipse the abuse of half of the world’s population.”
Susan Apel,
Thank you that is a more elegant restatement of the essence of my point.
You are absolutely correct. Would that your epiphany were shared by everyone. I would add that the abuse of women is made all the more invisible because it hides in plain sight. So much, in so many places, in so many forms makes it so commonplace that it barely registers. Secondly, women are expected to take a backseat to whatever other issues are deemed more important. Economic, military and other political issues eclipse the abuse of half of the world’s population.