THE 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.
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