[news] Fw: [R-G] A picture's worth 1,000 hateful words

[Paul Browning]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <shniad at sfu.ca>
To: <shniad at sfu.ca>
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2003 10:48 AM
Subject: [R-G] A picture's worth 1,000 hateful words


> Globe and Mail    November 15, 2003
>
> A picture's worth 1,000 hateful words
>
> By Heather Mallick
>
> There can be few things that more eloquently express the male hatred and
> fear of women than the recent Associated Press photo of Junior Bush
signing
> into law a ban on late-term abortions while surrounded by six grinning
> middle-aged Talibanic white men in suits. There isn't a woman in sight.
>
> Any all-male or all-female gathering of humans spells trouble. This would
be
> your classic case.
>
> These men are clapping because they have just signed a law bullying the
> saddest, most frightened women in the United States -- the tiny group of
> pregnant women who have just seen their past-20-week ultrasound and been
> told things like, "Ma'am, it doesn't have a head."
>
> Until these men had it their way, most women in these straits would have
> tried to obtain a late-term abortion, the accurate description of what
these
> men prefer to call a "partial-birth" abortion. The fetus may have any of a
> number of conditions: spina bifida, lacking a skull, etc. Late-term
> abortions are performed in Canada, but are, and have always been, very
rare.
>
>
> Now, in the United States, these men say the deformed fetus must be
carried
> to term without considering the mother's health. She may have wanted to do
> this anyway. The men dwell lovingly on upsetting phrases such as
> "skull-crushing." But the main point is not the medical technique used for
> the abortion, it is that she no longer has any say in the matter. Even
> 12-year-old rape victims who didn't realize they were pregnant would have
to
> go through with it. It rivals female circumcision for cruelty and
pointless
> misery.
>
> It still isn't easy for a Canadian woman to get an abortion, but at least
> she has a chance, and her health comes first. I feel chewed up with sorrow
> for American women.
>
> All these men in the photo are applauding, none more enthusiastically than
> Republican Senator Rick Santorum, a father of six, whose claim to fame is
> saying that if Americans allowed homosexuality, they would have to allow
> bigamy, incest, adultery and "anything." By "anything," he means sex with
> furniture or raccoons. What he wants mandated is missionary-position sex
> with the lifelong spouse lifting her nightshirt for yearly planting. I
don't
> think men or women want sex like that tonight. Given the choice, I'd
rather
> have my wisdom teeth reinserted. I kept them just in case.
>
> Let's meet the guys in the photo. From left, we see House Speaker Dennis
> Hastert (Likes: semi-automatic weapons, death penalty. Dislikes: patients'
> bill of rights); Senator Orrin Hatch (Likes: death penalty, writing 300
> songs about love. Dislikes: flag-burning, gays who complain of being fired
> for gaiety); Representative James Sensenbrenner (Likes: faster death
> penalties, faster gun purchasing. Dislikes: alternative fuels); Rick
> Santorum (we've already met); Representative James Oberstar (Likes: death
> penalty, old people paying for own medication. Dislikes: World Trade
> Organization, smut); Senator Mike DeWine (Likes: death penalty, big school
> classes. Dislikes: trigger locks on guns).
>
> Weird how these men are pro-life right up to the point of birth, when they
> suddenly become rigidly pro-death.
>
> The war between men and women used to be distant from me, fought in
faraway
> bars, foreign beds. But it's heating up and it's getting closer. I see
> Afghan leaders present themselves and there isn't a woman among them.
> There's nothing worse than men in groups: armies, all-male editorial
boards,
> all-male tables of content in magazines, all-male management, all-male
> "greatest" lists. Where are the women? Worse, no one seems to notice, or
> wonder if the world would be a less violent, more interesting place (for
we
> are without doubt the more interesting sex) if women had a say in running
> it.
>
> The worst a female soccer team will do is get grass stains on their
uniforms
> and drive their dry cleaner to drink. The worst a male soccer team will do
> is gang-rape. It happens in Britain -- part of the current wave of
violence
> by football players -- with many theories being floated to explain it, one
> being that this is a way for men to have semi-sex with each other.
>
> The exclusion of women from the circles of power that rule our lives is a
> damnable, dangerous thing. For me, the most painful case has always been
> that of Rosalind Franklin. James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the
> structure of DNA, right, and got their Nobel, place in history etc. Except
> they couldn't have done it without the crucial work of Ms. Franklin, a
> researcher who was driven from her job.
>
> Mr. Watson and Mr. Crick basically dismissed the brilliant Ms. Franklin as
a
> badly dressed, aggressive cow. Oh, and she was Jewish, and I shiver to
think
> how that went over. She died young, of ovarian cancer.
>
> The structure of DNA was discovered by Ms. Franklin, Mr. Watson and Mr.
> Crick. Please use the three names. Even Cambridge is twisted with guilt
over
> this now.
>
> Ah, the freezing-out of women. Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One's Own,
> about small-scale personal female independence. But like it or not, power
is
> wielded by groups, even though the male reputation for working well in
> groups is absurdly inflated. If only women could get into those groups
> without fear or favour. Vote for them, hire them, promote them, treat them
> like equals. Then maybe the most powerful men in the world's most powerful
> nation wouldn't stand around a-clappin' and a-grinnin' at having kicked a
> bunch of helpless women in the belly.
>
> Let us in.
>
> hmallick at globeandmail.ca
>
>
>
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