Ever listen to pundits yammer on about a topic and totally miss the significance? I feel that way about the melding of the topics of reproductive medical care with children who live or die through school shootings.
The stance of Vance and every head-bobbing MAGA rally attendee has nothing whatsoever to do with children. I mean, the media steps right up to it but doesn’t seem to understand the significance.
They say that the MAGA stance toward women and their reproductive lives is not in alignment with their response to school shootings. MAGA says that any fertilized egg should be treated as a person. But when kids are killed by shooters at a school, their response is, “eh, shit happens.” It doesn’t make sense, they say. How can they be so hard-assed about women and pregnancy but so callus about children dying in school shootings?
Absolutely. When looking at these two things, it doesn’t make any sense. These two things do not make sense because the fight to remove women’s reproductive rights has nothing to do with children.
I want to say this again, because it’s’ killing me that everyone’s missing this. The rules around reproductive freedom have nothing to do with children. Nada. Not one thing. This whole mess, all of it, is revenge for all the years that Roe v. Wade gave women 100% control over their bodies. Men couldn’t decide if a woman was going to keep or abort a fetus. If she decided to run a pregnancy to term and become a single mother, the guy couldn’t force her to abort. He could even be nailed for child support, and there was nothing he could do about it. But say he wanted a baby, and she decides to abort. It simply wasn’t his decision to make.
This is the only situation that has ever existed giving women 100% say over something, men be damned. I believe that all of the effort of this largely white-male movement to regain control of women’s reproductive decisions is a temper tantrum. We must be put in our place, and that place is where white men are in control. It has nothing to do with children.
Of course, lots of unwanted babies will be born. Men have never been very good at taking responsibility for unwanted children. Why would that change? It’s no skin off their noses.
What about women who spew support for losing their bodily autonomy? I’m talking about women who stand with these white men. Women who are complicit are almost worse. I know these women. I grew up in a family of rednecks, where the only good woman was one who followed her husband’s lead. These women are utterly convinced that they need a man by their side in order to be safe in the world. If they have any thoughts of their own, they keep them deeply buried.
Has anyone ever wondered how big this group of women is? I’m talking about women who are enslaved in their belief that they can’t survive without their white male counterparts, who understand that, by opposing these white men, they could be thrown out onto the streets to be consumed by the countless dangers awaiting them. “Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world. Hard to get by just upon a smile.”
I belong to a Facebook group of women over 50 who love to travel solo. It’s a great group, with women sharing their plans, adventures and sometimes mishaps. But I see posts, daily, from women who are intrigued but terrified at the prospect of doing anything alone. They think that going to a restaurant and asking for a table for one will bring down all kinds of judgement. Everyone will stare. The serving staff will resent having to serve a table of one. So many women firmly believe that going to a public place without a man by their side will make them the subject of ridicule and scorn. I find this to be profoundly sad.
Is everyone assuming that these women, who have been misinformed their entire lives can’t be reached? Or is it that no one is thinking of these women at all? What if someone told them that they are, indeed, allowed to think for themselves. Cast their own votes, not just what their husbands would do. In my travel group, we sort of do that…we coax women into facing their fears and going out into the world. Most of these women are the ones left behind. Either their husbands of 30 years have died or left them for a younger model. They’re left spinning inside their own heads, wondering whether they can figure it all out or if it’s just time to die.
So, I see in the news that there are efforts to bring in Black voters, especially black women, latino voters, LGBTQ+ voters, young voters. I want to see some new targets. Women who are married to MAGA white men. Women who are learning to use their voices for the first time, mostly older women who find themselves alone at a later stage of life.
I tried joining a group called Red Wine and Blue. It’s a group of suburban women who are claiming their voices in the political landscape. They are a vibrant, strong group. But they are not my tribe. When I offered comments regarding older women, they were not only not interested. They refused to include me in their discussions. I know I am very opinionated, and it has to be difficult to moderate a group with tens of thousands of members, but it was clear that their mission statement differed from my own. And I am certain that these women are not the ones I speak of who are married to MAGA white men.
This demographic of white women, married to and enslaved by MAGA white men, and those who formerly were, is all but invisible. But they’re ripe. Waiting to be plucked from the tree and saved from themselves.
