Sunday Roast — Get your government hands out of my vagina

RMuse over at PoliticusUSA has written a great post about the Republican/Religious war against women, entitled Republicans Have [Awakened] a Sleeping Giant and She is Furious.*

The true motivation for a war is not always clear in spite of proclamations by a nation or its leaders…

…Over the past couple of weeks, there have been important clues to what the conservative’s endgame is and although contraception, abortion rights, and women’s health issues are at the forefront, it is male dominance that drives the assaults.

There it is, right there.  Male Dominance.  Of course, not all men want to dominate women; I would say that a majority of men don’t want to dominate women, but a bunch of loudmouths in the extreme rightwing of the Republican Party (i.e. all of them) and the ever-present blowhards in the American Taliban-wannabe religious right have declared outright war on the women of this country.  Apparently, we have forgotten our “place” as second class citizens, and they are determined to force us into that position again.

We can’t ignore them and expect them to go away — too many of them are in positions of power, and there’s a lot of money invested the Republican agenda.

The rightwing (I’m not going to use the qualifier “extreme,” since only a few sane Republicans exist anymore), in addition to their decades-long attack on our reproductive rights, now they’re attacking the Girl Scouts.  Cuz why not wage war on female children, as well as female adults?

One Republican from Indiana claimed Girl Scouts “promoted homosexual lifestyles” and although there is no truth to the Planned Parenthood connection or promoting homosexuality, it is stunning that the claims were made in the first place.

Beat ’em down while they’re still young, right?  “Tradition” is all important to these ideological freaks even (and especially, it seems) when it simply doesn’t work.  There might be quite a few women out there who would like to have babies and then stay home to raise them, but in today’s world, unless the spouse or partner has a large income, it simply isn’t possible.  It doesn’t matter how much they beat the old “women should be at home caring for their children” meme, it is not economically possible.  Or desirable in many cases.

Now we have the ridiculous contraception flap.  Again, it’s the control and dominance; keeping women in our place.

The Republicans, especially Ron Paul, like to throw out words like “freedom” and “liberty” in regard to their alleged political philosophy, but they treat these important and valuable words like they mean whatever they need them to mean at the moment.  It doesn’t work that way.

Freedom (noun):  1) The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.  2) Absence of subjugation to foreign domination or despotic government.

Liberty (noun):  1) The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life.  2) An instance of this; a right or privilege, esp. a statutory one.

Hmmm, I don’t see anything in there that says “except for girls.”  Women have the right to act and think as we want without hindrance or restraint.  Wow!  That will be disturbing to the radical religious/Republicans.  Those two definitions reveal Ron Paul, the candidate most fond of throwing those words around, as a fake Libertarian, since he’s against women being in control of our own bodies.  (There are a lot of other problems in Ron Paul World, but that’s another post.)

Certainly there are things in the Christian Bible and other religious books that say something about keeping women under the male thumb, but we don’t live under the authority of the Bible or religious books, no matter how much Rick Santorum (ew) or Newt Gingrich might want it to be so.  I’m leaving out Mitt Romney, since he feels strongly in all directions, depending on his audience, the day, the weather, or something.

We live under the authority of the United States Constitution, thank goodness, a flawed but living document that gives us considerable freedom (even if we’re constantly trying to whittle away those freedoms).  Sure, the Constitution refers to “men,” and when it was first written they really meant only white men.  But the Amendments — the things that make the Constitution a living document — refer to “people.”

Guess what?  The members of the female sex are included in “people,” no matter how much Republicans or the religious right might not like it.  Get over it.  Deal with it, you clueless misogynistic men.  You have picked the wrong fight!  Not just because we out-number you, but because it really is the wrong fight.  You may have trained your wives and daughters into thinking of themselves as “less than” and “subservient to,” and if they really choose to live in that fashion, well okay, I wish them well, but there are simply not enough of them.  You may win some battles by making abortion almost impossible to obtain or defeating the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, but you will not win the war.

There is one thing for certain; it is not just women who are furious at Republicans. The assault on women affects every man with a wife, mother, sister, and daughter and there are few willing to stand by passively while their women are assaulted. In an age where most families require two incomes to survive, it assaults decent men’s senses to think a few members of clergy and Republicans are intent on forcing all woman back into the kitchen giving birth every  ten months. There are conservative women who support the idea that their sole purpose in life is birthing and serving men, but their stupidity is not epidemic in the entire population. Republicans have awoken a sleeping giant and she is furious, driven, educated and certain to put the evangelical male supremacists where they belong; out of power and out of their misery. They are not alone because for every woman who opposes the GOP’s religious war on women, there are sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers eager to exact revenge.

Understand this:  Women don’t want to dominate men; we are demanding our Constitutional right to equal standing.  It’s all there in writing, and we are claiming it.  You keep your nose in your own business (and private parts), and we’ll do the same for you.  It’s as simple as that.  Really, it is.

We are women, and the men who love and respect us; we are strong; we are many; and we are persistent.

*I switched out the word “Awoken” for “Awakened” in RMuse’s title because it works better.  Does that mean I have control issues?  Read the whole article, it’s worth it!

This is our daily open thread — Get your rant on!