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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWill Trump cause progressives to forget about women's rights?
Will Trump cause progressives to forget about women's rights?
Americans cannot afford to treat feminism as something that can be pushed aside for a time and picked up later. Especially not now
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Its vital that we not forget or lose the momentum feminism has had over the last decade. Photograph: Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
If you were concerned that forced funerals for fetuses and zygotes wasnt quite horrific enough, rejoice! In the last week, Ohio has passed a law banning abortions after 20 weeks and Oklahoma wants to mandate that businesses post anti-abortion signs in womens public restrooms. In the wake of Trumps win, reproductive rights opponents have not wasted a moment in their plan to roll back access to abortion and birth control. And, as has been the case for some time, these harmful policies are being presented as wins for women.
When Governor John Kasich of Ohio passed the 20-week ban, for example, he also vetoed a six-week ban the hope being that the move would be seen as moderate in comparison. But 20 weeks is around the time that women find out about fetal abnormalities a leading reason for later abortions. And while the Oklahoma plan is being touted by pro-life groups as a way to offer women alternatives, what its really doing is shaming women and requiring that businesses spend money on ideological propaganda. (Also, so much for the Republicans caring about womens privacy in bathrooms!)
The research is clear: women suffer when you deny them access to birth control and abortion. In fact, despite anti-choice rhetoric to the contrary, the only kind of negative mental health impact that abortion has on women occurs when someone seeks out the procedure and is denied. The challenge we have in front of us, though, is not just the danger of Trumps administration or the emboldening of Republicans. In a time when bad news for progress is around every corner as Slate writer Jamelle Bouie put it, what disaster to write about today? we have to make that sure that womens rights dont get lost in the shuffle.
It wasnt so long ago that gender and race were considered ancillary or distracting topics in progressive politics a notion still being bandied about as people blame identity politics and political correctness for Trumps win.************** If history is any indication, it wont be long before we start hearing murmurings from so-called progressives that women should sacrifice working on issues that affect them in service of the greater good.******** (because, of course, even to some "progressives", women are simply not important) Its vital that we not forget or lose the momentum feminism has had over the last decade, especially on reproductive rights. The stakes are just too high. Hundreds of thousands of American women have already sought out illegal abortions, in part because of state-level restrictions. And as the Affordable Care Act comes under fire, it could leave millions without coverage for contraception.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/15/womens-rights-list-of-progressive-priorities-feminism
Wounded Bear
(58,647 posts)the women in my life didn't magically disappear. In fact, they will need my help even more now, I think.
niyad
(113,273 posts)Proud Liberal Dem
(24,407 posts)If anything, at least for me, it will be at the forefront of my thoughts. Women, POC, LGBTs, the poor, the sick, and and the elderly (and anybody who isn't a WASP, Neo-Nazi, KKK Member) are ALL at risk under Trump/GOP.
niyad
(113,273 posts)their own "for the greater good" (emancipation vs women's suffrage, for one).
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,407 posts)Anybody calling for this? We all need to dig in our high heels and fight Trump/GOP with everything we got. I'm for certain that Republicans are going to make a run at Planned Parenthood funding, which will have to be fought. I doubt that Democrats are going to let that go through. Repealing ACA is at the top of the GOP's wishlist but they haven't gotten themselves together on it and Democrats aren't surrendering. Nobody's needs should be sacrificed to fight Trump. There won't be much Democrats or anybody can do to move the needle forward but I don't think that anybody wants to see women's rights/needs take a step backwards either.
niyad
(113,273 posts)the pukes, the fundies, the misogynistic assholes at every level.
Hekate
(90,645 posts)....in the shuffle. Women are 53% of the population. POC are going to end up as not-a-minority.
But it is all too easy for the (ahem) men who are accustomed to being the leaders to tell the rest of us that our particular concerns, which are literally a matter of life and death to US, need to take a back seat for just a little longer in service to the common good.
Once again, Democrats, we need to figure out how to express that our common good includes all of us. I thought Hillary actually did an excellent job with that message, and apparently the majority of Americans agreed. Too bad about the disproportionate power of the rural and former slave states.
niyad
(113,273 posts)won some level of freedom. the political parties all going after each other--she asks what is being done for the women, and all the different parties gang up on her, castigating the women. ssdd.