“Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That’s their natural and first weapon.” ~Gloria Steinem
Alongside much of the turmoil and debate many of us are currently experiencing, one persistent target I have noticed throughout this pandemic is gender and particularly women.
First, by moving most people home, society has become emersed in domesticity and has consequently taken on many of the roles that previously existed in separate spaces. For example, many more women have been forced to take on many more roles of teaching, cooking, as well as working, all from home.
Freedom has also been a frequent debate in that so much of the conflict as well as one of the reasons that the pandemic has continued to surge is because many people still want to hold on to their freedom to choose.
In essence, I think we have even more so than ever moved in the direction of a war on women as the center of the politics surrounding our current cultural war. The most tangential example that terrifyingly dominates our news coverage is the continued threat to the women of Afghanistan who now face even more so the violent rule of the Taliban. Many women who helped the US, now face death, and women who protest are being whipped for their exercise of using their voice. Many women who were making strides in education, now face no possibility to continue their work, and women are being pushed out of their political office and other places of employment as well.
Closer to home, the US continues to battle about the issue of abortion as an even more severe ban in Texas has now been signed into law, giving private citizens the right to prosecute people who assist in supporting pregnant women. Paralleling this discussion of freedom is the right to choose for your body, what that means from the Right and the Left, and what it means in regard to a citizen’s body, whether they are a female, a male, a transgender, a vaccinated or a masked body.
Not only is it a war on women, but it is a war on bodies — Black bodies, Female bodies, and the bodies of the unborn — all targets of personal agendas, all completely horrifying in their implications.
Furthermore, rape culture has continued to surface on college campuses, the workplace, and in sports. Simone Biles and many of the other survivors of Larry Nasser’s abuse have continued to be vocal in standing up for the many on their team.
In my university alone, there have been three sexual assaults reported in the first three weeks since school has started. Students have gathered in solidarity with victims asking the administration and the fraternity to be accountable, and petitions have even been sent around asking students, faculty, and community members to agree to allow students to carry weapons of self-defense, pepper spray, tasers, and knives.
It is so very sad that increasingly, it seems we cannot guarantee the safety of students both in school and in recreational spaces.
How could this be? The intersection of all of this is at root a hatred for parts of all humans' identity whether its gender, sexual preference, race, or religion, all manifest themselves in a different way whether its misogyny, homophobia, racism or Anti-Semitism, our society continues to see this in the cultural events of our time. While these are all very different experiences, at root the behaviors are enabled by hatred for a part of a person’s identity which makes them who they are, and that is a very dangerous slope.
Don’t believe me? Ask yourself the following…
What happens to the woman in Afghanistan who now has to hide away at home in a burka when she was once teaching or leading other women in policing her community?
What happens to a woman who continually hears that what a woman puts on her body determines whether or not she is safe from the predatory nature of some men? Or when a woman in Pakistan hears the same thing from the leader of her country who insists she cover almost every part of her body for the same temptation that she poses?
What happens when a Black body is held down by a police’s knee in front of the whole world?
This makes us all not able to breath.
This is the threat to freedom that we should care about, and these are the freedoms we should be fighting for. Instead, it seems we are listening to politicians and the news, causing further division, instilling fear, and causing violence surrounding the freedom to choose.
