This is the final segment of the four part series by guest blogger Amanda M. Davis explaining why her passion for women’s rights is so riled and why it should be important to all of us.
The previous segments can be found here for Part I, here for Part II and here for Part III.
If you think your rights as a woman (or your daughter’s/mother’s/wife’s rights, gentlemen) are guaranteed simply because you live in a country that allows you to work, wear a bikini, and join its military, you are a naïve soul. Your rights came to you via hunger strikes, revenge rapes, ‘subversive’ literature, imprisonment and “angry” loud-mouths like me. They can be taken away via legislation, court cases, and idiots like Fundamentalists and Santorum if you aren’t careful.
Without equal rights for women, we will lead our country into the same limited, backwards, ignorant quagmire for which we were destined when we thought that racism was the A-ok, all American Way. You can look at Middle Eastern, South African, South Asian and South American countries for proof, if you don’t believe me. It is commonly accepted in political science, sociology and psychology that countries that practice prejudice and gender repression are not anywhere near as developed and advanced as countries where such things are not tolerated or encouraged.
There’s the old story of a comment made by Benjamin Franklin when our country was being formed and they were picking what type of government we would have. When the Continental Congress came out, a woman asked Franklin, “Well, what is it then?” He said, “A Republic, madam, if you can keep it.” We often forget, as Americans, that our country was birthed from revolution and resistance. In the Constitution, we are reminded that it is our RESPONSIBILITY to defend our rights as a people, even when government is the oppressor. Ladies, if you want to keep your rights, you better be willing to do what it takes to hold onto them. If you want to help others get the rights you now enjoy, you better be ready for the fight to get ugly. You need passion to win fights like these.
Now that I’ve given you something to think about, let me get back to the question: “Why is she so angry?” My “angry” passion comes from the following…try not to run away screaming:
- Based on the number of reported rapes in the US, every one woman in four will be raped in her lifetime. Most rapes are committed by someone the woman is close to, so we can’t blame them all on deranged serial killers. 26% of these rapes were done by husbands/boyfriends.
- In the US military, every one female soldier in three is raped by another service member (higher than any other developed country). Many women are punished for reporting the rape or asked to keep it quiet. When a group of female soldiers sued the government for compensation, rather than accepting responsibility, the government pressed for dismissal under a court ruling that the government can’t be held liable for injury sustained by active duty personnel.
- One in four women in the US will experience domestic violence in their lifetime. 85% of all domestic violence victims are female. Most cases of domestic violence are never reported to the police.
- In Fundamentalist Muslim societies, girls between the ages of 3 and 12 are held down and forcibly circumcised by having their clitoris cut out and the labia scraped away. The area is then sewn up so that only a small hole remains for urination. This procedure is done without anesthesia, usually on the ground or a kitchen table. Unlike male circumcision, this severely limits or totally eliminates the possibility of sexual pleasure for the female. Some girls die hours or days later due to uncontrolled bleeding or infection.
- Bride-burnings, where the bride is burned because her dowry was not large enough, is on the rise in India and Pakistan. The burning is done to free the husband to remarry a woman with a greater dowry and to punish the woman’s family for not giving enough money.
- Acid-attacks are common in Cambodia, Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as other nearby countries. Acid is thrown on the woman’s face in revenge for refusal of sexual advances, refusal of marriage proposals, “immodest” dress, dowry disputes and enforcement of the caste system.
- In the following countries, honor-killings are either fully legal or partially defensible in a court of law: Haiti, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, and Afghanistan. It was formerly legal in Columbia and Brazil. It is not legal but still practiced in: Italy, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, France, Sweden, England, and the United States. In some of the countries where it is not legal, perpetrators will often be freed or not prosecuted at all if it occurred after infidelity or rape.
- Insurance companies in some US states place more value on an unmarried male than they do an unmarried female when compensating a family under liability laws after death.
- A number of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan still consider women to be property.
- Human Trafficing:
- The UN estimates that between 700,000 and 4 million women and children are trafficked world-wide for prostitution and labor every year.
- No less than 55,000 women and children are sex slaves in Cambodia.
- 5000 women and children are trafficked into South Korea into bars servicing the US military every year.
- Trafficking of women and children happens in approximately 184 countries spanning from Europe, to Asia, to the Middle East, to Africa, to South America to the United States and Canada.
- It is estimated that over 100,000 women and children are trafficked out of the US for sexual slavery each year.
- Rick Santorum and other conservative individuals/groups believe that contraceptives should be denied because it encourages non-procreative sex. This would expose women who use birth control to help with symptoms of acne, PCOS, and other illnesses, to more severe effects of their illness. It also denies women procreative rights over their own bodies. It would also deny condoms to males and females despite the rise in HIV/AIDS and other STDs in some states.
- Despite “studies” that indicate otherwise, and the Equal Pay for Equal Work bill that was signed into law by Obama, women STILL only earn between $0.75 and $0.80 for every $1 earned by a man. If you worked from age 15-65, with a man earning $30,000/yr, the lifetime pay for a man would be $1,500,000. A woman’s lifetime pay would be between $1,125,000 and $1,200,000. That’s a difference of $300,000 to $375,000 over a lifetime.
Burned, raped, killed, enslaved, abused, suppressed, valued less, paid less…just the tip of the iceberg, people.
So, now that you know why I’m “angry,” I have to ask…
WHY AREN’T YOU?
