Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Where is the Outrage?

Seriously, we should be pissed and in the streets.  Have we just decided to accept whatever crumbs are handed to us?  Have we become so fearful that we take whatever our employers decide to give us?  The 99% by definition outnumbers the 1%; they may have more money and, as a consequence, more power but we have the numbers.  We do have the ability to affect how the we are treated if we’d just get UP!

Women’s rights are under assault like we have’t seen in years and yet … where are any women in power to stand up and lead a movement crying out for direction?  We seem to show more concern for the rights of women in other countries than we do in our own.  Where is Hillary?  Hell, any of the women of the Democratic Party?  I see tweets from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz talking more about the Congressional Softball game than I do about policy issues.   Where is the GOTV effort?  Somehow we could lose the Senate despite being smacked in the face because NO ONE is making a giant issue of basic women’s rights.  (I have’t decided in my own mind if Mrs. O is a good one at this point in time to be speaking out but in 2016?  Hell yeah.)

How about the workers who are now affected by the Hobby Lobby decision?  Setting aside for the moment those workers who agree with their employer what about those who don’t?  They need that paycheck so bad they’ll accept the decision?  I am not unsympathetic but there should be ways to support them should they walk out in protest much like the Occupy folks have bought up mortgages for people in need.  But we all seem to be scared.  We have heard bits of news about tiny protests, including the pastor who was passing out condoms in front of one Hobby Lobby as a show of support .  While not exactly on-point with the decision his larger point was that not all people of faith shun contraception.  But for the most part this whole story has been a tiny blip on the radar.

Where are the other public figures speaking out and offering support?  Why isn’t anyone looking for out-of-the-box solutions to making this a financial issue for those employers who seek to invade the privacy of their workers?  We can raise tons of money for starving children or victims of natural disasters, well, this is a disaster, too but we seem to be more than willing to shrug our shoulders and move on in our day-to-day lives.  Because it does not directly affect us; there are no terrible pictures to move us.  We’re afraid perhaps of being labeled “sluts” or “whores.”  Amanda Marcotte, who writes and tweets extensively on women’s issues, gets innumerable tweets calling her all kinds of vile names while making assumptions about her … all because she believes employers do not have the right to limit what health insurance covers.

This should be a huge issue during the 2014 mid-terms and the 2016 GE.  Women make up half of the population and, along with those from the male half, we should be able to make a strong case for the right of women to be treated as equals.  But we’ve already moved on to other news as we are being led around by what the media thinks is the issue of the day so we fade into the background much like we used to disappear into the kitchen, accepting whatever the male power structure is willing to give us much like we used to take a household allowance.

I’m angry and I don’t know what to do about it.  And, yes, I want someone to tell me; to lead me.  To lead US.  There are women in power, not many perhaps, who can be a voice to get a real movement started.


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 11 Comments

11 comments

  1. Diana in NoVa

    As to why women politicians aren’t speaking out, I can only suppose they’re afraid of alienating people who aren’t going to vote for them anyway. As far as I’m concerned, “Independent” means “Ashamed to admit I’m Republican.”

    As to where the women with flaming torches and pitchforks are, here’s my theory: they’re all preoccupied with trying to get through another day, another week, of working for employers who demand 24/7 dedication from them; dealing with a societal education system that takes no account of the fact that this is no longer 1952 and most mothers work outside the home; and just trying to handle the shopping, bill-paying, laundry, chauffeuring kids around, and cleaning.

    When our boys were young I had no time or energy at all to spare for politics. It was only when they were older and didn’t need me as much that I marched for the ERA in the 1970s and defended women’s clinics in the 1990s.

    I’m retired now but I still can’t take to the streets because I’m bringing up grandchildren. In this country of no paid maternity leave, my work helps my son and daughter-in-law weather the loss of income they’re experiencing while DIL is recovering from a C-section–at age 43!

    So I can call, I can sign petitions, I can donate to campaigns when I have a little money to spare, but for the next 18 months I’m going to be quite constrained as to how much I can do. Before Grandchild No. 2 was born and when Grandchild No. 1 was in day care, I did volunteer for the campaign of a woman I know who was running for the state legislature. She very nearly won–she came within 37 votes!

    Next time she’ll win.

    Also, I think outrage fatigue is a factor. People are dying every day from gun violence in this country. It’s as if we’re at war here on our own shores. People are struggling to survive because unemployment is so high. Yes, it’s gone down a bit but most of the jobs being filled are crap jobs at minimum wage.

    Perhaps we do need a charismatic woman leader, but she’d be Deaned by the effing establishment and trad. med.

  2. JanF

    Until our rights are codified in the constitution, we will always be “granted” rights by whichever party is in power. Right now that method pretty much sucks.

    Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY): Hobby Lobby proves need for ERA

    If you were to ask “Where are the women?” on the list of issues that the conservative members of the Supreme Court considered in making their Hobby Lobby decision, the answer is clearly, at the very bottom.

    Once again, because women are not specifically mentioned in the Constitution as being entitled to equal treatment under the law, the conservatives on the Court were free to render a decision that ignores the concerns and rights of women even though that decision has a disproportionately negative impact on women, and only on women.

    Yes, men are impacted by family planning issues (and probably don’t want their spouses or loved ones to suffer) but here is where contraception is ultimately a woman’s issue:

    Unlike men, women must rely on contraceptives as a critical element of their health care. For the sake of their health, women have a substantial interest in limiting the number and timing of their children. Some women have health conditions that make childbearing dangerous, including congenital heart disease, pulmonary hypertension, and Marfan syndrome. Contraceptives can reduce the risk of certain cancers, relieve menstrual disorders, severe PMS, and the sometimes excruciating pain of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.

    The ERA would force the court to consider more than just the religous feefees of a company:

    But if the Equal Rights Amendment were in the Constitution, this case could have had a different outcome. The decision in Hobby Lobby made clear that the only question the Court considered worthwhile is whether Hobby Lobby’s religious rights are burdened by the employer mandate to cover FDA-approved contraceptive methods. It did not consider the issue of equal treatment of women under the law, as it should have. […]

    To make it abundantly clear that women must always and forever be accorded equal justice and equal protection under the law, women need the weight of the U.S. Constitution to ensure that the principle of “liberty and justice for all” applies equally to women in all areas of society. An Equal Rights Amendment would constitutionally protect American women against discrimination on the basis of gender.

    I think we should turn our outrage into something productive like working to get our rights codified. Maybe this time around (unlike the 70s) we are stronger and smarter and less likely to fall for the “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” meme that made it seem like feminism and the ERA were optional. Now we know that “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” had the subtext “But Don’t You Dare Think You Can Have It All!!!”.

  3. princesspat

    Sen. Patty Murray is providing strong leadership but I wonder how much support she will have. I received this email today….


    Patty Murray

    Sharon,

    Last week, the Supreme Court made a huge mistake. With their disastrous Hobby Lobby decision, they turned the clock back on women’s health by giving for-profit companies the green light to deny their employees coverage for basic health care.

    Now we’re fighting back.

    This morning, I introduced the Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act — or, what many of us are calling the Not My Boss’s Business Act — in the Senate. This crucial legislation will respond to the dangerous Hobby Lobby decision by ensuring CEO’s do not get in between women and their health care, period.

    But I need your help to build strong grassroots support for this important bill.

    Please sign on as a citizen co-sponsor of the Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act now — and stand up for women’s health!

    My bill would forbid employers from imposing their own personal beliefs on their employees by denying health insurance benefits. And it would reaffirm the requirement we passed in health care reform for companies to provide contraceptive coverage and other basic care in their employees’ health insurance plans.

    Employers should not be allowed to discriminate against women by denying them access to basic health care. It’s that simple.

    We must act swiftly to pass this legislation, to fix the damage that the Supreme Court has done, and ensure that women across the country don’t have this important health coverage revoked.

    Please sign on as a citizen co-sponsor of the Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act now — and stand up for women’s health!

    Your health care decisions are not your boss’s business. But since the Supreme Court decided it would not protect women’s access to health care, I will — and I hope you will stand with me.

    Thanks for your support,

    Patty Murray

    U.S. Senator

    http://www.pattymurray.com/act…

  4. JanF

    I understand their concern about abortifacients if their religion is anti-abortion and they have been told, wrongly, that the birth control methods would produce an abortion.

    But the Twitterstorm that erupted about women having “consequence free sex” caught me by surprise. Unless I am missing something, the kind of sex that requires birth control also requires a male partner and no one was seemingly upset that birth control also allowed men to have “consequence free sex”.

    This article sheds some light on this: New Study Helps Explain Why Hobby Lobby Supporters Are So Fiercely Opposed To Birth Control

    Throughout the ongoing debate over Obamacare’s contraceptive coverage requirement, a common theme has emerged among many of Hobby Lobby’s supporters: the idea that ensuring access to affordable birth control is harmful to society because it leads to promiscuity and infidelity. Several right-wing groups filed amicus briefs in favor of the crafts chain arguing that women simply shouldn’t be having consequence-free sex. But where exactly does this idea come from? One research paper offers a theory.

    According to new research published in Archives of Sexual Behavior, the attitude that women shouldn’t be having sex can at least partly be traced back to the idea that women are supposed to be economically dependent on men. The researchers suggest that this link may drive conservative religious communities’ insistence on sexual purity.

    It appears that the paternalism that gave us coverture laws is still very much in play:

    They found that the people who believe that casual sex is wrong also tend to believe that women need a partner to support them financially. Within that worldview, sex outside of a serious monogamous relationship is simply too risky. If women don’t have “paternity certainty,” then how will they know who they need to rely on to support them and their future child?

    The researchers conclude that this outdated attitude toward women’s pregnancy risks and financial needs hasn’t totally gone away, despite the fact that modern contraception, legal abortion rights, and greater workplace equality have created an entirely different society.

    “The beliefs may persist due to cultural evolutionary adaptive lag,”

    Holy mackeral! “cultural evolutionary lag”? Ya think? Maybe we should wake up the women who still feel that making their man’s sammich is the highest glory a woman can know. Now that would be a challenge.

  5. rb137

    the Hobby Lobby case in terms of Christian Privilege. It doesn’t get mentioned much, because there is so much of it that any public argument that gets framed that way is an automatic loser. I think Christian Privilege is the glue that holds Male Privilege and White Privilege together.

    Yeah, I know I’m insulting god by saying that. What was it that Jesus said about the Pharisees again?

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