I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar

Clearly, I am not a woman, and I am not contemplating becoming one.  Not that I have anything against women, or against any transgender person, but in the world we live in, wanting to become a woman would be very masochistic of me.  Like everyone else, I have my perversions (yes, you have them too, you just may not recognize them, because they are normal to you), but being kicked, humiliated and walked upon just doesn't appeal to me.

My topic today is not one where I need to spend a few hours gathering enough material to fill up the space. Instead, I need to filter out 75% of what I would like to say to keep the size down to something people will be willing to spend the time reading.  For many of you, I'm already past that point, for the rest, let's get down to business.

Unless you've spent your entire life under a rock, you should be aware that women are paid less to do the same job as men.  Women are also not well represented in the top ranks of corporations or in government. Over the years, the imbalance has improved slightly, but there is a great deal of room for improvement.  If you have a daughter get her interested in math and science, in technology and engineering.  Don't limit her choices to the traditional roles.

The pay and employment discrepancy between men and women is only one small problem when compared to the many other problems in the way women are treated in our society.  Women are subjected to violence, abuse, harassment and discrimination at a much higher rate than men, healthcare for women is subjected to much more regulation than healthcare for men.

One area where we have been going backwards is in reproductive healthcare.  Several states have recently enacted very strict abortion laws that make getting an abortion, even to save the life of the mother, extremely difficult.  There has also been a push to limit access to contraception for women.  What this adds up to, is forcing women into a condition of sexual slavery.  All that is required is for a man to get a woman pregnant and he is granted some control over her life.  Even if his method was rape (more on that soon), he has (depending on state laws) forced the woman into motherhood, which often locks the woman into a life of poverty.

Many people use the Bible as justification for limiting or removing any access to abortion procedures.  The only problem with this is the Bible is completely mute on the subject of abortion.  The loosest interpretation might recognize a fetus as a person once it is able to live outside of the womb.  Although the exact point is open for discussion it certainly does not occur until after the 20th week (survival is a possibility beginning sometime during the 21st week).  For an excellent discussion on this, read this article:

What the Bible says about abortion

The obvious method to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. There are two readily available tools to accomplish this goal, and they have already been proven to be extremely successful.  The first is contraception, it is inexpensive and extremely effective.  The Catholic Church claims contraception is wrong.  Over the centuries, the same church has claimed many things were wrong or right, things that would horrify most modern Catholics.  Should we bring all of those things back as well?

One argument against contraception is that it encourages teens to have sex.  Recently released data shows that teenage sex has remained constant,  while access to contraception and improved education has resulted in a drastic decrease in teen pregnancy.  In states where contraception is not as available and where adequate sexual education is not available, the teen pregnancy rate is much higher.

Here is a revelation for you:  Teens are going to have sex.  When I was a teen, teens were having sex.  When my parents were teens, teens were having sex.  When my great, great, great, great grandparents were teens, teens were having sex.  There is nothing you can do to keep teens from having sex short of chaining them all up and binding them so they can't touch themselves.  That is not going to change.  No matter what you do, teens are going to have sex.  Instead of focusing on what you can not change, why not deal with what you can change:  contraception and education.  By education, I mean true education, not the garbage that is called "abstinence only education".  Because, teens are going to have sex.  Telling a teen "just don't have sex" is the same thing as telling them "you're going to become a parent and maybe you'll pick up a disease or two along the way".

If you are opposed to abortion, don't have one.  If you are opposed to teens having sex, talk to your teens, educate them, prepare them and then encourage them to wait.  Don't just tell them no, it doesn't work.

Recently, a judge in Montana achieved notoriety by sentencing a rapist to 31 days in jail (with one day off for time served).  The victim was a 14 year old student at the time of the rapes and the rapist was a 50 year old teacher.  When the story about the rapes came out, the girl, age 16 at the time, committed suicide.  Initially, the rapist was charged with 3 counts of "sexual intercourse without consent", but 2 counts were dropped and the third one would have been dropped if he had completed a sex offender treatment program.  After he was kicked out of the program for violating the rules, he was then convicted of the crime, with a 15 year sentence.  However, the judge felt the 14 year old girl had been in control of the situation so suspended all but 31 days of the sentence.

As you might imagine, this created a bit of a stir.  The judge has tried to backpedal on his remarks and his sentence, but for now the damage has been done.  This entire case is a travesty from the start and just goes to show how sick our society's attitude towards women is.  A bit of research seems to indicate that sexual crimes against young girls tend to carry a shorter prison sentence than the same crimes committed against young boys.  Using 2 examples that both recently occurred in Indiana, a man convicted of molesting a 9 year old boy was sentenced to 45 years in prison.  Another man, charged with molesting 11 girls (ages unknown) had all but one charge dropped and was sentenced to 2 years in prison.  The conclusion is simple, sexually abusing girls or women is acceptable.

All of this is a bit too much for me.  I can't understand the violence, the discrimination and the abuse of women (I can't understand the same things when applied to any group but I am trying to stay focused).  It is time we stopped blaming women for the crimes committed against them.  It is time we stopped discriminating against women.  It is time we realized that women need to be given the same rights and treatment as me.