Babe, baby, honey, dear, hon, sweetheart, mother of my children, gal, hey you and shall we continue. Names of affection are to be treasured, yet they are being applied to the worker next to you, to the stranger in the street for there is no dignity of a better name. Ma'am, Madam, Ms., Miss or any other honorific -but where are they?
Who am I? I suppose you had better guess by now or you are part and parcel of the problem. Women have been abused since time immemorial. In fact, in societies where it was a matriarchal line of command, the men did their best to overturn it, change it, to their own detriment. It was women who were held on those damned "pedestals" even as they were raped, taken violently, all in the name of "love", of religion.
Soon terms of affection began to be used as terms of insult, of demeaning intentions. It was okay to term any woman as less than one because after all, they were dear and honey and baby - even when you did not know them. They were infantilized, "deadultified", robbed of their dignity.
They became prizes of war, sex slaves, a piece of trash to be used as public plumbing, kidnapped en - masse, sold and trafficked, parceled out as prizes for the supposed hero warriors, given contraception to avoid pregnancies so they could continue to be raped, thrown to the side discarded as easily as an old shoe when no longer worth anything in the eyes of their captors - or husbands, or fathers or any male in commanding position.
Control over their own destiny? Ha!! A sad and cruel joke. No, they are so honored that they must be kept in shrouds if they are to be allowed to go out of a home or even in the home. They cannot drive, cannot take a trip, be treated by a doctor, get a job - at least not without male consent. And we are told that this is because the male members of our family are so loving of us, so caring for us, so aware, evidently of our intellectual lack, that we must obey them.
And even in so called more advanced societies the situation is no better. A young lady is given drugs and kidnapped, shuffled off to a room with a waiting crowd, each one eager to take his turn at raping her, but their mothers will say they were taught to honor women, her son loves her, has a sister - and yet, there we are.
Professors swap grades for a feel, for a sexual interlude for after all, it is their right, is it not? Athletes are given free range of action for think how useful and profitable they are to the university. Even when punished, rarely so at that, their fines are negligible, they are not removed from campus and there are basically no impacts upon their lives. The victim? Oh yes, she might have to leave, she suffers from PTSD, a valued life is ruined but ya know, that's life and she probably asked for it, ya know. As for celebrities or even our president elect - female bodies are there for the taking.
And how about bodies. This same abused victim, this same raped woman or child, yes, even a familial child, who becomes pregnant as a result of rape and/or incest, is told that nope, she has to carry that child to term, for it is a soul, blessed by G-d, she is meant to serve as a vessel for this child, and no, she cannot have control over her own body and abort this fetus. Nope, for society knows best what is right for her. She is a woman after all, a mere woman. Or perhaps she needs to be sent off to bear this fetus to term in shame, mistreated in the home for unwed mothers, worked in cruelty, even at religious homes, but no abortion, oh no.
And then this abomination is born and then what? Are there social programs to help this mother, a mother without her consent? Are there programs to help her feed this child, any other child she might have? Are there governmental aid programs for child care? Is there help to aid this woman in getting a job, for job training? And is there any respect for this woman or indeed any other woman at work? Are they being paid equal wages? Are they being hired for what their education and experience qualify them or are they shuffled off to a pool of secretaries and low wage and low consequence people? Why is that glass ceiling still there, sealed as tight as ever for the most part.
So, you know who you are, we are not your honey, or your babes and your supposed pet names are actually being used as terms of denigration and contempt and don't we know it! So Petey Boy - shut the hell up and go back to your cave of shame for I ain't your honey, and do not dare to use it and think you will get away with it. And for the rest of you men, examine your own behavior and vocalizations and that is not to say that one cannot have affectionate names for one's wife or daughters, but they must come from love and respect, truly so, and not cynically so. Do not sing praises of the ideal woman and then trash yours. Teach your sons, be role models for them in a good way. Respect the personhood of all women for men are not here to judge them nor to lock them up because men are weak and cannot withstand, evidently, the least little bit of inclinations of a sexual nature. They cannot even look at little girls without thinking these things evidently and don't I get nauseous at that!
Yes, we are your honeys, your dears, your sweethearts, your partners in life, your co-workers and even your bosses at work. So please treat us with the respect we deserve for we are people, equal - and yes, even better than you at times, for that is the human condition. So we sing of I am woman, hear me roar. We sing our fight song, the better to make it right, we sing how all this will make us stronger, how we will rise up and most of all how we will survive!
There is much of the way to go on the right path here for us all. Those of us who are lucky and blessed enough to have a loving husband, to have had some positive work experiences, to have raised good sons who respect their wives and daughters, those of us who are blessed this way - well, we must work to ensure that these rights of ours, this equality, must be permanent, enshrined in hearts and minds and souls and in the laws of mankind, tacit and stated, stated as such in the laws of the states and countries and all political entities.
So, honey, yes, you, mister, follow me. And dear, be prompt about it! Like that? Neither do we.
No comments:
Post a Comment