The war being waged against women in 2012 finds me spending a lot time in a heart-fluttering ALL CAPS rage. There’s so much rage and fear and utter incredulousness that I don’t even know what to do with myself or if I can even articulate this in a way that does come out as many many swear words and strangled nonsense like SJE3J23HSIH83YGGSSLK103NF NG!
The misogyny is everywhere and more blatant than ever. It’s on the TV with tons of white men turning access to birth control into a religious debate. It’s in my Internet news with so many anti-choice bills making their way through various state legislatures. It’s even infecting my favorite pastime, reading, with the appalling and depressing VIDA count. And the music industry? The awfulness that was Chris Brown at the Grammys? I can’t even. . .
What is going on? Why is this happening? The misogyny feels more blatant and more obvious than it ever has before.
Is it that the patriarchy is so afraid of losing any little bit of their massive power that they must try everything they can to keep women down? Is it that men are so blind to their privilege they can’t even see they are waging a war on women?
I like to think it’s because women are actually getting more power/recognition and this crap is just noisy backlash. But I’m probably kidding myself. However, I’d rather be a woman these days than any other time period.
For what it’s worth, it depresses the holy hell out of me, too. It really does seem as though the Old White Men’s Lodge had a meeting and decided that their womenfolk were getting a mite too uppity and needed some seeing to.
I hate being a member of that privileged class, too. I feel like I should be able to do more to help stop this trend, but these Old White Men are also Rich and Powerful Old White Men and I am certainly not a member of that cabal.
I second that emotion. As a guy, I’m appalled at the regressive turn of events this year, as the old guard tries to cling to their control of women’s rights. I did enjoy it when the “Viagra hypocrisy” thing was pointed out, though! 😉 What a bunch of boners!
Part of me has to think they’re sitting back and trying to figure out the most insane crap they can just to see how much they can get a rise out of anyone who actually has a brain. It’s somehow less troubling than believing they actually believe in what they say.