Dear Feminists -- Oh, You Are A Feminist Now

Dear Fellow Feminists:

Dear Fellow Feminists: We Need a Revolution. We are going backwards at an alarming rate.

What is it going to take to end violence, including sexual violence, against women and children. And, I include political violence - the creepy crawly kind that lasts for decades.

My sister country wo/men & true believing feminists, what is it going to take to end violence against women. What is it going to take to get us the salaries and opportunities that we deserve? And, what is it going to take to get the political & reproductive health care freedom we deserve?

What is it going to take to get money, support, and time from deadbeat dads and support children the way they deserve.

What is it going to take to get conservative Republican men to devote themselves to the care and well being of their wives, daughters, and mothers – to their health care, educational opportunity, financial security, and reproductive healthcare? What?

All women need health care, food, clothing, shelter, security and a good education.  And, reproductive health care is vital health care for all females from puberty until we die.

All women, over 51% of the population, very much need on-going Ob/Gyn care their entire lives: from the first PAP test to the last, contraception for over 30 fertile years, spacing children, and for diagnosis and treatment of hundreds of conditions affecting the quality of their lives - including diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

There are dozens of decisions that women need to be educated about and be treated for (growth and development, menstrual issues, breast development, cysts & tumors, STD’s, birth control options, amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, when to have children, spacing children, etc. These issues are very emotional and profound. Deciding what is best effects  emotional development & relationships.

On top of all of this, we have churches who have gone into business but now want to run their businesses according to the rules of their churches – and require their employees and customers to follow their religion!

These obstetrical and gynecological decisions are medical and personal and so very private. These are not issues between a girl or woman and her legislator, or senator or governor!  And, I submit these shouldn’t be decisions between a woman and her churchmen.

And, yet! Our legislators, churches, and church owned health care facilities want to make these decisions for fully grown independent women.

A huge conglomerate of overwhelmingly male political and religious rule makers, who have never been pregnant, may never have had sex, may never have been financially independent, may never have had a family, are unlikely to have been responsible for raising a family alone, who have never given birth, may have never been poor, never lived in a car, never been destitute, never had sole responsibility for a handicapped child…

These people, mostly men and strangers all, want to make access to ob/gyn care more difficult for poor women to access, make access to contraception more difficult, and tell women whether she can have an abortion! Shame!

These men get to decide whether the church hospital you work for has to pay for contraception in your benefits package, whether they let you die if you come in to the ER in a crisis during your early pregnancy. And, your legislators, who aren’t doctors, get to decide if you have to have to have a medically unnecessary trans-vaginal ultrasound probe stuck up your vaginae against your will to try to discourage you from having an abortion that is against their religion – not yours.

You get the check. It isn't free.

There are health care costs and must be picked up by someone. If not, there must be free clinics and Planned Parenthood Clinics readily available. 

Oh, oops! Our friendly conservatives are trying to run the free clinics and Planned Parenthood Clinics out of town by over-regulating them. We thought they didn’t like regulation and government interference?

What is it going to take to stop men (especially conservative Republican men and religious men) from associating women's reproductive health with promiscuity? Why aren't conservative religious Republicans up in arms about male sexual performance enhancing drugs such as Viagra? Why isn't Rush Limbaugh going on a rampage about M(ale sl)uts? (Muts.)

Religious and political men think we are stupid sluts - to dumb and too sexual to make our own decisions and control our own bodies.

I don't think so. I think they are poopy heads.

Why do conservative men want to limit access to birth control and make abortion inaccessible and illegal. Really. What is the real reason. I have to say, and I usually have an answer to everything, that I have no idea.

Why aren't men outraged that their beloved daughters, wives, nieces, mothers, sisters are being sexually assaulted in epidemic numbers? Why, why, why?

I have no idea! None!

The only possible explanation I have is that men are assaulting women in such epidemic numbers that they are terrified of being called to account. And, men have a voracious need to control women.

And, what will it take to end it?

It will take a revolution of bigger proportions that the Civil Rights Movement of the 50's and 60's.

It will take a leader of the magnitude of Martin Luther King, Jr. Not a bureaucrat. Not a politician. A leader.

It will take women who are ready to die for equality. It will take a movement of the magnitude of the Suffragette movement. Thousands of women marching in the streets. WITH OUR HUSBANDS, FATHERS AND BROTHERS.

Because those louts are coming with us this time. So, read this letter to  your husband, father, sons, uncles, grandfathers and take them to the next march and buy them a pink T-shirt. They are coming with us.

It will take women who are ready to march in the streets; face the police; face the military; face police dogs; face water hoses; face arrest after arrest after arrest; face social rejection...

Because we are still facing and still fighting the same battles that we were fighting in 1900, 1969 and 1869.

IF we valued women and children, our statistics would prove it. IF we wanted women and children to be safe, they would be.

Our stats show what we value. And, we don't currently value women and children. So, let's change that!

I love women. I love children. And, I love men. I don't want them to be brutes.

But, it is going to take a revolution to end the brutality against women. No one is going to give us anything.

Much love,

Vivian

PS I am looking for some PINK TENNIS SHOES! I am wondering, if I threw them in the general direction of the next antiabortionist neanderthal I heard speaking, would I get in bad trouble?

Feminists, I include all of you who are feminists and don't know it. So, if you believe that women are equal to men under the law, that your female children are equally important to your male children and that you are of equal import to your husband - Congratulations! You are a feminist.

If you believe that women have the same legal rights as men, you are a feminist. If you believe women have the same right to vote, you are a feminist. If you believe that women have the right to work for a living, go to college, be doctors and lawyers and telephone line "workers,” dig ditches, join the military or die for our country, you are a feminist.

If you believe that men & women who do comparable work should receive the same money and benefits packages, you are a feminist. If you are a surgeon with the same training and experience who works the same hours as a male surgeon and does the same job as a male surgeon, and believe you should have the same compensation package, you are a feminist.

And, husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, if you want women making the money they work for and are ready to fight for their rights, then you are our allies and we need you! Welcome in, men!

Women, here is a warning: You will make me want to throw up if you say, "Oh, I'm not one of them feminists..."  I would like to puncture your tires and slap you, but you are  still feminists if you have a career on Fox News, have written 5 books about hating feminists, go on speaking tours bashing feminists, and are richer and more successful than your husband... You are still most definitely a feminist!