womens rights – windupmyskirt

This is something that I’ve been noticing for a few years now and I fully agree with the woman who unpacks the whole thing. It just seems as if women are being “put in their place “from all sides and in many more countries than feels healthy. The sad thing is that it’s coming from women too.

I’m sick and tired of hearing about how feminism is this big evil thing, when all feminism really is, is the right to choose your life’s path and not forced into someone else’s idea that you should be pregnant and in the kitchen, in pearls and heels, unless that’s what YOU want.

Please go and read the lyrics for the song I am woman. And remember that when I was born 57 years ago was when we had heard it all before and had been down there on the floor and just wanted to be able to enjoy the human experience, the whole human experience. We are humans after all aren’t we? And it still took years before we could rent an apartment without a man’s signature, or get a credit card in our name, and so on. Not to mention the right to our own bodily autonomy. Freedom is the ability to choose That’s something I learned the hard way just over 7 years ago. Think about all of the things that you are now ‘allowed ‘to do that you weren’t allowed to do in 1965 and ask yourself what you really want for your life to look like.

It’s important to remember to respect each other’s choices, ladies. If you want the Donna Reed existence I will applaud you and if you want to be Doctor Donna Reed I will clap just as hard because it’s what YOU WANT! All I ask is that you do the same for my choices whether or not you agree with them because you’re applauding the fact that we’re allowed to choose.

Moroccan women protesting the rape/marriage law

This week, the country of Morocco finally decided to take an ancient law off the books. A woman (or girl) will no longer be required to marry her rapist. A paragraph in Article 475 of the penal code allows those convicted of “corruption” or “kidnapping” of a minor to go free if they marry their victim and the practice was encouraged by judges to spare family shame. While it is a step in the right direction, it will, hopefully be the first of many steps to come with the end goal being equal human rights. Kudos and Brava to our North African sisters for fighting long and hard for their basic human rights amid such dangerous circumstances. This is another example of how women have finally had enough and are through accepting the status quo.

Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R),

In the United States, this week women’s reproductive rights have, yet again, come under attack. This time, in New Mexico… by a WOMAN! I cannot overstate how much of a betrayal this was, for women all around the world. A bill introduced by Rep. Cathrynn Brown (a republican, of course) who wants to make it so that a woman who is impregnated by her rapist would be forced to carry her baby to full term, or be sent to jail. House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for “tampering with evidence.” The bill goes on to say, “Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.” Her reasoning is that the bill would punish the person who commits incest or rape and then procures or facilitates an abortion to destroy the evidence of the crime.

When was the last time you heard of a case in which the rapist procured an abortion for his victim in order to destroy evidence? Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but can you not get DNA evidence from an aborted foetus? So what good is this law really going to do for the victim of the crime? This smacks of yet another republican attempt to shame the victim and reward the rapist, all in the name of religious “values”. Cause, you know the bible is all for the rape of women in order to keep them from getting all uppity.

Women in the US of A need to take a page from the women of Morocco and other countries where the fight is much more dire. Those women don’t have the luxury of introducing bills into law. Those women are too busy literally fighting for their lives. If the women of the free world (when I say free world, I mean all countries where women are free and equal, not just America) need to understand that if we allow our rights to be taken away, then we are dooming women in economically underdeveloped countries. If we let our rights go, then what chance for freedom do these women have? We must remain an example of what can be accomplished when you fight the good fight… because too much is at stake.