THE STEALTH WAR AGAINST
WOMEN
Part 2
"Land, like
woman, was meant to be possessed" was in our textbooks only a short
time ago. Since then laws have been passed
inferring that woman is equal to man, but that concept has not caught up
to the reality that our culture does not support this.
"Who gives
this woman to this man in marriage?"
is still heard in the land although it is argued to be mostly ceremonial.
It is just another way women are trained to submit, using cake and fluffy
gowns to mask the whips.
However, the facts
belie perceived or legalized woman's equality and one need only see how
differently little girls are raised compared to little boys. One need only
note how things considered male are deemed important and revered while
things considered female are trivialized and derogated.
Not so different
from the rest of the world as Marilyn French reports in her book, The
War Against Women. The back cover blurb reads: "In this stunning
work of research, Ms French creates a devastating portrait of today's male-dominated
global society with its underlying aim of destroying, subjugating or mutilating
women." http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/book-sum/warwmn.html
 And
she's not the only one. In an article titled A Menacing Tide Against
Women Who Speak Their Minds [ref. below] Andrea Otanez writes, "The
glorious Internet offers us more ways than ever to triangulate the truth
and then opine about it on our favorite blog. But, oh my, the inglorious
invective that pockmarks those virtual town squares. In the past week,
I've read that retired anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan is an "opportunistic
idiot." Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a "feminist
twit." And that Lilly Ledbetter deserved the lower pay she got from
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. because she wasn't smart enough to prove
earlier in her career that she was earning less than her male counterparts."
Otanez notes that
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's oral dissents are a clarion:
Women's rights are being weakened. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/06/1694/
Margaret Thatcher
was una bella gnocca, a "great piece of pussy", Silvio Berlusconi
declared this week, eulogising his ideological heroine as he lashed out
at Romano Prodi's government.
Women aren't the
only observers of causation. Mark Dery writes in The Hidden Costs of
America's Hypermasculine Culture: " Doesn't
all this chest-thumping machismo and locker-room homophobia protest a little
too much? Paging Dr. Freud, pink courtesy phone: What can we say about
a country so anxiously hypermasculine that it can give rise to Godmen,
a muscular-Christianity movement that seeks to lure Real Men back to church
with services that feature guys bending metal wrenches with their bare
hands and leaders exulting, "Thank you, Lord, for our testosterone!
The trouble with manhood, American-style, is that it is maintained at the
expense of every man's feminine side -- the frantically repressed Inner
Wussy -- and the demonization of the feminine and the gay wherever we see
them." http://www.alternet.org/story/51626
Meanwhile the war
goes on totally beneath the radar of the media. Courts may issue restraining
orders against abusive and potential murderous men but they are mostly
ignored. Women have learned to either lives battered by their companion
or seek help from other women.
So as the emphasis
on the public discourse is "insisting on battering-ram stiffness (stay
the course! don't pull out!) as the truest mark of manhood", women
hear the implied threat of rape loud and clear right from the top.
To counter this
stand are community organizations such as Women Helping Battered Women.
The people in this group put their lives on the line 24/7. They provide
a safe haven for these battered women and their children and in doing so
incur the wrath of the batterer. They are heroes just as are the military
fighting in Iraq.
But the counter
force is stronger; tradition trumps equality in law. Steroids and Viagra
intensify the hormonal and societal control over the minds of men. Profit
on these drugs blind our corporate controlled media to the ever burgeoning
war against women.
gapperserve-at-peoplepc.com
http://gendergappers.blogspot.com
2007-028
Copyright
2007 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished
for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that
this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: gapperserve@peoplepc.com.
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