Republican Misogyny Marches On
Whether it is pretended ignorance or actual ignorance, it is a war on women either way
Two issues, same level of ignorance, same misogyny, the same Republican war on women. Whether these particular examples of misogyny succeed or not, the war marches on, and various versions of these tactics will continue.
- That Texas lawsuit to end access to FDA-approved abortion pills for the entire country. The excuse is that the pills are “not safe,” which is a disingenuous allegation, since mifepristone has been safely used for more than 2 decades.
- Florida’s proposed legislation to ban “gender studies” in colleges and universities. Rest assured other Republican states will soon propose something similar, as it is monkey see, monkey do when it comes to Republicans ogling and worshiping Ron DeSantis.
There are two key problems to both of these issues, besides the obvious misogyny.
One is the fact that they are both fascist notions. Putin would be proud of both. As a matter of fact, I don’t even need to fact check or research, but can simply assume that under Putin and Orban, two of the authoritarian white males so beloved and admired by modern Republicans, such policies have long already been in place.
The second key problem is the display of ignorance that is truly staggering. Obviously, though, facts do not matter to these Republicans.
Here is one obvious fact, however: the modern Republican party is at war with women.
So, I say bring it on.
Don’t think for one minute we are going down without a fierce, furious, and fateful fight. Hell hath no fury like … the Furies, the Valkyries, and suburban women who are mad as hell and not going to take this anymore.
I am going to share some “facts” to balance out the ignorance being weaponized by white male neanderthal Republicans.
Mifepristone
The two-drug regimen used in America to accomplish an abortion involves mifepristone and misoprostol. In many parts of the world, women use misoprostol alone. Why do clinicians in America also provide mifepristone? Because in addition to its function in inhibiting the hormones necessary for pregnancy, it also diminishes pain, cramps, nausea, bleeding, diarrhea, etc., which can be potential side effects of misoprostol used alone.
Think about that for a moment. A lawsuit was filed in Texas to block the use of mifepristone across the whole country. Yet misoprostol, not mifepristone, is the drug that actually, technically, aborts the fetus. They are seeking to block all women in America from having access to mifepristone, the drug that reduces the suffering of women who need or want an abortion or who are being treated for a miscarriage.
They are, in effect, fighting to make sure women physically suffer to accomplish that abortion.
Are they sadistic? Or are they just stupid and ignorant? Or do they just not care either way? I think maybe the latter. I think maybe they just picked the first target they could think of to point and shoot at in a courtroom with a trumped-up case before a Trump-appointed judge.
What U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk rules in the case doesn’t really matter in the long run, because one way or another, the fight over abortion pills is going to eventually land in the Supreme Court. This actually is a civil war, but just fought with lawyer’s briefcases instead of cannons and muskets. Red state AGs are joining together to file cases to get rid of mifepristone, and blue state AGs are filing counter-suits to keep it available.
Here are the two big facts about the mifepristone battle you need to know.
First, the lawsuit is ostensibly about the safety of mifepristone. Ridiculous. Mifepristone has been used safely for over 2 decades. As a matter of fact, mifepristone is safer than Viagra. I don’t see anyone filing lawsuits to ban Viagra. Can you imagine the howling if anyone tried? The Republican Patriarchy would not like anyone messing with that pill … even if a Viagra ban might actually reduce the number of needed abortions. Just sayin’.
Secondly, the lawsuit in Texas was brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom. What a sweet-sounding name. There is your first clue, Sherlock. Beware of sweet-sounding names. It turns out that they are listed as a designated hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. ADF also offers what is called the Blackstone Legal Fellowship to train lawyers.
While participants hail from various denominations, they all commit to using their legal careers to “reorder society” according to a “christendomic” worldview, in which there is no separation between church and state.
You see it is a Republican religious war upon women. For those who don’t know much about history, there happens to be a poor track record of how some religions have treated women.
As a matter of fact, if there was better education about the history of women, maybe we wouldn’t be dealing with so much ignorant misogynistic neanderthal Republican BS masquerading as “pro-life.”
So, let’s talk about education, shall we?
Gender studies
Fresh off success with the mischaracterization of Critical Race Theory, a Republican in Florida — Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola — decided to try and pull the same stunt with “gender studies,” proposing legislation to ban it. Whether he himself is actually that ignorant regarding what “gender studies” actually is or whether he is just playing the same CRT manipulative game is up for debate. However, either way, it is obviously targeted to appeal to gullible and ignorant “culture war” voters.
Those voters are so obsessed with transgender people that now you can just utter the word “gender” and their tiny little brains jump right there. These people probably think that “gender studies” has something to do with a combination of teaching people to use the wrong bathroom and indoctrinating them into the gay lifestyle or some such fever dream, not unlike their bizarre paranoid fantasies over CRT which have nothing to do with actual CRT.
How about some facts? I’m going to belabor the point on some obvious facts here, but these days in America, one has to belabor obvious facts. Unfortunately. So, let’s get some things straight, no pun intended.
- “Gender studies” is “women’s studies.” That is how it originated. The fight for equal rights for women and feminism inspired some smart women to launch a field of study. It was about wanting to study something other than famous important men and what famous important men did, where you got maybe at best a small footnote now and then about some little lady lab assistant who was so helpful to a famous important man; she made a great pot of coffee and brought in the tray of donuts to the men every day like clockwork, what a lovely little lady.
- “Women’s studies” over time had the name changed to “gender studies” out of a recognition that the crux of the issue is that “gender” is a socially constructed concept. As Alice E. Ginsberg put it: “Perhaps the most compelling argument for changing the name to gender studies is that it invites men to look at their experiences in American culture, as well as how they may be complicit in the continuation of systems of power and privilege. (emphasis added)”
As noted in this article in US News:
Gender studies … investigates power dynamics that relate to sex … This field includes men’s studies, women’s studies and queer studies … “It’s filling in the gaps for all the things that were left out when history and all of the fields were focusing more on men,” says Emily Meghan Morrow Howe.
So, there we have it in a nutshell. It is obvious why white male Republicans are leading a charge against “gender studies,” isn’t it? It is the same reason they ban Critical Race Theory, the same reason they demand that the content of African American AP history be “adjusted” into something they deem to be of actual historical value.
It is the dying gasp of white male patriarchy. It is pining for the good old days when education came from books written by, for, and mostly about white men.
The victors write the history.
If Blacks have their history taught, if women have their voices amplified within a “gender studies” major, if queer people are allowed to even be mentioned at all (small ask there, they just want to say “gay”), that means adjusting to a new set of victors, doesn’t it?
It is not, however, a zero-sum game. I cannot emphasize this enough, since that seems to me to be the greatest tragedy about the whole Republican war on women (and on Blacks and on LGBTQ). They act as though — perhaps even actually believe — that they are defending themselves from attack. No, not true. We are not against you.
Gender studies in particular can be uplifting and freeing for men.
As also noted in that US News article:
…a frustrating myth about the academic discipline is that its mission is to denigrate masculinity. The field is not intrinsically antagonistic toward men, Howe says, because “everyone benefits without social norms forcing them into a box.” … Taryn A. Myers, an associate professor of psychology (notes that) “For example, the same patriarchal factors that say women are weak and disregard women’s strengths also say that men cannot express emotion, which is linked to men’s mental health issues and the higher rates of death by suicide for men” …
That Republicans in Florida would even contemplate banning it as an option of study for adult college students is the single most staggering case of shoot-yourself-in-the-foot action I have ever seen contemplated by any man.
Stop this war and join the human race, guys
Hey Republican guys, the Furies and the Valkyries and even ordinary housewives in suburbs are pretty damn pissed at you. You will never take a course in gender studies I’m sure, but you are going to get a lesson in what happens when you stir up a hornet’s nest of women. You should have left us in peace. We might even have still made you sandwiches once in a while if we could just have kept our bodily autonomy and the freedom to study what we damn well want to study. But you just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?
Sorry to break the news to you, but the white male patriarchy is going to lose. It is already losing. Were you paying attention at all at the midterm elections? If you want to continue to hide in caves with your rifles for the coming decades — like some Japanese soldiers did after WWII — continuing to fight a war that is already a lost cause … well, good luck to ya.
If you would instead just drop the damn rifle and come out of your man cave and join the human race in celebrating and promoting liberty, you might end up quite a bit happier. I might even make you a nice big sandwich to munch on if you are nice to me.
Make war on me, however, and my mission in life will be to bring you down. The mission in life of a lot of women — cisgender and transgender — will be to bring you down. The mission in life of men who respect women will be to bring you down.
You may be ignorant of a lot of things, but I bet you still know basic math. Do the math. You are outnumbered.
Footnote
I have done some ranting and raving here against Republican men, but I am certainly well aware that there are also women engaged in the war on women. If there were more critical-thinking education in this country with more critical analysis of history in general, more people would be aware of one undeniable fact:
Among those who are subjugated, there have always been those who are complicit — either actively or passively — in their own subjugation.
I know this from my own personal experience. I was complicit in my own personal subjugation … and then a wonderful thing happened. I got divorced. That was when I “woke” up to how I had been complicit in my subjugation. I will never be complicit again.
Why do you suppose so many Republican men are so very interested in promoting “anti-woke” legislation?
All I know is that it is a very fine, joyous, and wonderful thing to “wake” up.
Wake up to the war we are in, ladies, and support your sisters, cisgender and transgender.