UniteWomen.org

Karen Teegarden and Erin Nanasi have several things in common. They are both American females. They are angry about the recent War on Women being staged in the political arena. And they both decided to plan a protest march on Washington, DC on April 28, 2012...independently of each other. This has grown into a grassroots movement with groups in all 50 states planning concurrent marches on the state capitols. I am involved with planning the Utah march. Below is the official press release, website and email. You can find links to the state Facebook pages at the website.

I hope you will join us as we stand together and tell our political leaders that we have a voice that will not be silenced, that we have rights that will not be stripped from us and that we have the strength and perserverance to ensure our equality, safety and health.

Official UniteWomen.org press release.

All across the country, through legislative proposals, government regulations, and political rhetoric, war is being waged upon women, their bodies, their private interests, and their right to self-determination. This is occurring without, and in spite of, the participation of the same women being affected by these actions, and whose futures, and those of their families, are being unilaterally determined.

In this modern era of limits, people in power are in a race to divide the spoils of power, and the means being used are becoming more and more shortsighted. Saturn has devoured his son, and now looks to his daughters.

Our organization is determined to see that this race to the bottom does not claim the rights and liberties of over one half of the populace. We will not suffer the burdens of those whose ambitions would be fulfilled by the destruction of the human worth of the mothers, sisters and daughters of this great nation.

Enough is enough.

While the logic of the disaffection of the majority of the electorate is impossible to understand, we cannot afford to wait and see how this all works out. This war on women must be resisted, and won, before the toxic effects of the current national conversation become irrevocable reality. We have been denied a seat at the table, but will not be denied our humanity.

Please join us in changing the dialogue and refocusing attention toward the very serious issues this nation faces, and away from the disingenuous and perversely pornographic focus upon the sexual organs of our mothers, sisters and daughters, and their relationship with their physicians and their own bodies.

The issues include:

Reproductive rights
Woman’s health issues
Education
Safety and wholesomeness of food supply
Crimes against women and children
Workplace equality

There is a very real and growing non-partisan concern that women are being sacrificed upon the altar of ambition, and we are determined to deny Saturn his second course.

Thank for your help and support. Your mother, and your mother's mother, and all women everywhere would be proud.

Info@UniteWomen.org

*Please join us all across the nation as we unite and make our voices heard. April 28th is a day of action and every state is planning an event*

2/22/2012 Inaugural Post!

It started when I posted this status update on my Facebook page in response to a man telling me that women do not have a "right" to healthcare and that I should look into the definition of a "right":

I don't know if anyone's noticed but I am very upset by the recent attack on women by the Republicans. I believe we need to get out and vote and make sure none of these extremists get into power or if they are in power, they must be removed. They are trying to couch this attack in terms of "religious freedom" which means they impose their fundamentalist ideas that women should be subjugated on the whole country. Removing our reproductive freedom is the first step. Reproductive freedom has a direct link to educational levels (of both males and females), infant mortality, poverty, and religious extremism. Our mothers and grandmothers fought too hard for our rights for us to sit back and let them slip away. I am pissed off, but if anyone thinks that I'm being insulting, then you may need to look at your own actions. I am not going to sit back and allow men to tell me that I don't have a right to healthcare...in America...in 2012.

 

A friend copied and pasted it into her status and it began to be passed on. I decided I would try my hand at blogging. It is my intention to keep abreast of both anti- and pro-woman actions and activities and use this blog to publicize this information. I will also use this to occasionally write about the history of the Woman's Rights movement. I believe this is information that will be invaluable in the coming months as the Republicans wage a modern war on women.

Who I Am:

I am a female born in the mid-sixties. My father had traditional values (a euphemism for having sexist ideas). My mother was non-traditional (i.e., she was a feminist, although not an activist). My father and his friends believed that the only skill a girl needed was her looks so she could land a husband. It was a more than a bit confounding to my father that I was hyper-intelligent. He would tell me that I needed to act a little stupid because men didn't like women who were smarter than they. Intelligence in a girl was a waste at best and a character flaw at worst.

My mother, on the other hand, would whisper, "Don't listen to them." She was born in 1924 and had worked to put herself through college. She also put her younger brother through college and her sister through preparatory high school and college. She did not marry until she was 40 after both a military and a civilian career. She birthed my brother and I in her early 40's.

I grew up during the 1970's and I watched as women burned their bras, as Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes, as reproductive rights were fought for and won. I watched as women struggled to find an identity that allowed them to be taken seriously and express their feminity at the same time. I still remember the words to the perfume commercial jingle:

I can bring home the bacon,

Fry it up in a pan,

And never, never, never

Let you forget you're a man,

'Cuz I'm a woman...

Enjolie!

She was an exhausted woman, but a  modern 1970's woman who had it all. That was the model: if you want a career, that's fine, but you must also attend to your "female duties". However, I watched as women became more educated, as men became domestic and financial partners with their spouses rather than "kings of the castle", as Geraldine Ferrraro ran as vice presidential candidate and as glass ceilings began to shatter.

Fast Foward to 2012:

While there has always been low-level, anti-woman noise, recently there has been an alarming, concerted effort led by the Republicans to disenfranchise women and destroy their rights. These attacks range from an all-male senate panel to discuss birth control insurance coverage, to a government mandate to submit to an unneccesary and invasive medical procedure before obtaining an abortion, to attacks on Planned Parenthood,  and even attacks on the Girl Scouts. This is not an exhaustive list, just a selection of lowlights. One of the more shocking incidents (that is saying a lot considering how shocking all of these attacks are) was when Fox News commentator, Liz Trotta, said:

"I think they have actually discovered there is a difference between men and women. And the sexual abuse report says that there has been, since 2006, a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults. Now, what did they expect? These people are in close contact, the whole airing of this issue has never been done by Congress, it's strictly been a question of pressure from the feminists."

Trotta also alleged that "feminists" have demanded too much money to fund programs for sexual abuse victims. "You have this whole bureaucracy upon bureaucracy being built up with all kinds of levels of people to support women in the military who are now being raped too much," she said.

[...]she alleged that feminists wanted "to be warriors and victims at the same time."

When I was a teenager, I was stalked by a Viet Nam veteran. He followed me, learned who I was and what I liked and lured me into his confidence. He violently raped me - a child - and nearly killed me. It was not my fault, I should not have "expected" it,  and any rape is "too much" rape. Rape is a crime and rapists are criminals, not simply horny guys who can't help it. This rapist went to jail for his crime. It changed me forever.

Here's what I know about fundamental human rights. Men and women have a right to healthcare (both physical and mental). We have a right to be safe. We have a right to perform our jobs without fear of violence. We have a right to control our own bodies and reproductive processes.

I have a message for you, Liz (and the others who are now attacking women), I am not a victim; I am a survivor. I am a warrior. I am a woman. And I am not alone.