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Monday, July 11, 2005

Fundamentalism and the suppression of women
Posted by Jill | 12:28 PM

Echidne had an interesting blog entry last week on the misogyny and militarism of ALL conservative manifestations of western religious thought (i.e. the three-headed hydra of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), and how...

...whenever the political and economic circumstances exhibit volatility and deterioration certain men turn to checking that the kitchen door was locked behind their wives. This happened in the Eastern Europe and Russia after the Berlin Wall fell and it's happening in a milder form in the United States where good blue-collar jobs are disappearing and dual-earner couples confuse simple gender schemas of the past. That the so-called dittoheads find Limbaugh's arguments against feminazis and affirmative action attractive is part and parcel of the same phenomenon.


David Podvin has more thoughts on the matter as it pertains to the US in the aftermath of the appalling Castle Rock, Colorado v. Gonzales Supreme Court decision, which exempted law enforcement agencies from having to actually ENFORCE restraining orders.

According to government statistics, an American woman is violently attacked by an American man every nine seconds, so females might be excused for believing that al Qaida does not pose the most imminent threat to their safety. Each year more than a thousand women are murdered by their current or former male partners. Nearly one third of women have been physically abused by a husband or boyfriend. While the most widespread medical affliction among men is heart disease, domestic violence is the foremost health problem for females. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the police have no obligation to enforce restraining orders against men who maim women, so the carnage is about to intensify.

Domestic violence is not a "woman's" issue. It is a matter concerning everyone who cares about women, which does not include America's political class. During the last election, neither major party addressed the epidemic in a meaningful way, and neither presidential candidate bothered to emphasize it during the debates. It has been said that the opposite of love is not hatred but neglect, and in the United States the physical safety of women rarely appears on the political radar screen.

Republican politicians represent a fundamentalist theology that posits women are the PROPERTY of men, so they do not address the violence because they perceive no relevant problem. Democratic politicians represent nothing but their own ambition, so they do not address the violence because they perceive no personal gain. The result is that across America innocent females are routinely beaten and raped and tortured and murdered, not because the efforts to save them have failed, but because serious efforts have not been made. To the contrary, Republicans have diverted authorized funds from the federal battered women's shelter program, and if you have heard Democratic politicians screaming bloody murder about it your hearing is extraordinarily keen.

There are a myriad of theories that seek to explain why women are America's piñatas, but ultimately the problem exists because of society's willingness to tolerate the abuse. The United States has declared wars to end everything from illiteracy to obesity to drug addiction, none of which negatively affects as many citizens as domestic violence. Yet there has never been a War Against Pummeling Mother, nor is there one looming on the horizon.

[snip]

The recent change in accountability for law enforcement insures that shelters will be doing a land-office business. When the Supreme Court ruled in Castle Rock, Colorado v. Gonzales that police departments are not legally obligated to enforce restraining orders, the seven justices who formed the majority sentenced many innocent females to lead lives of torment cut short by violent death.

And not just adult females. The following is excerpted from the ACLU amicus brief submitted to the high court:

"In 1999, a court granted Jessica Gonzales a protective order barring her estranged and unstable husband from contact with her and her three daughters. A month later, the husband violated the order and abducted the three children, ages seven, nine and ten. Under Colorado law, police were required to enforce the court order by arresting the husband. Nevertheless, the Castle Rock police refused numerous separate requests to take any action to find the children or arrest the husband. Even after Ms. Gonzales had made contact with her husband by phone and learned that he had the children at a local amusement park, the police failed to take action. The episode finally ended when the husband arrived at the Castle Rock police station and started shooting. After police shot and killed him, they searched his van (where they) found the bodies of three children, whom he had murdered."

The police chose not to enforce a court order protecting Gonzalez and her daughters, murder ensued, and the court ruled that no one in a position of authority can be held liable. It is now open season on women and their children, courtesy of Justices Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, Kennedy, O'Connor, Breyer, and Souter. The last two really should know better, but misogyny is pandemic in the United States.

Decency never has been. In a society where the ruling elite considers advocates of torture to be disturbingly moderate, it is hardly surprising that barbarity against women is encouraged. Left to their own designs, both major political parties will allow the bloody status quo to continue as they collaborate on the infinitely more important matter of redistributing wealth upwards.


From the violent hatred of Hillary Clinton, to the very WORD "feminazi", to the Independent Women's Forum buying the bullshit that flight attendants should be required to be young and beautiful, to the push by the Christian right to not just ban abortion, but elminiate ANY control women have over their own sexuality (i.e. contraception), to the WMD that was Janet Jackson's breast, to John Ashcroft's vapors over the Boobs of Justice, the hallmark of ascendant wingnuttery is fear and loathing of women. Tolerance of domestic abuse is an integral part of that fear and loathing. And our own supposed party's silence on the matter is appalling.
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