Reflections on the struggle..

VAWA passed this week. I would like to think that our collective voices standing up for women’s  rights helped. I felt better doing so, and I know others did as well. But that’s only one of the myriad issues that women face today. I thought that at some point, as a country, we would have moved past thinking stupid things such as single moms are the reason for gun violence. Because if a man was there, well, gun violence would surely stop. But if that were the case, we probably wouldn’t need VAWA. You know what that stands for..Violence Against Women Act. And it’s typically violence against women that’s perpetuated by men. And yes, we still need that law.

But violence isn’t the only means of oppression. Women are oppressed in the workplace, at home, among friends (yes, some women are no help at all), as consumers…you get the idea. And these days, we’re getting a ton of oppression from some members in our Congress. Frankly, I’m tired of all of it.

You see, I’m not just starting my life as an adult.  Last October, I turned 55. When I turned 50, I began re-evaluating everything – my relationships with my husband, sons, friends, doctors, dentists, people I do business with, and most importantly, the relationship I have with myself. I concluded that I allow too much to happen that I’m not okay with. Even though I might speak up, I don’t make it clear that I’m serious. I lack follow-through. 

In fairness, although it would really be so very awesome, I simply cannot control the behavior of others. It’s on them to do that and many won’t. The end result is I allow myself to fall prey to manipulative people who have no problem doing whatever they want to do and who could care less what I think about it. Fast forward 5 years later to today..things have to change.

There will be those who will blame my attitude change to menopause. I say I’m just out of the fugue state I was in and have come into the light. Listening to the debate about VAWA illustrated that we’re no closer to equality in this country than we were when the Equal Rights Amendment was passed. The me generation has pretty much just screwed everything up. I mean, it seemed like a good thing at the time, but focus on the self created too many people who can only do that. Empathy is lost when that happens because it’s hard to see the plight of others when you’re only focused on yourself. In the case of women, we’re supposed to only be focused on our husbands and children. Anything else is extra and only acceptable when we’ve tended to everyone else’s needs before ours. 

The notion of women having it all came up recently and some of the comments were appalling. Women who embraced that idea and manifested it in their lives were ridiculed for doing so. He Who Shall Remain Nameless on his radio show called Sandra Fluke a slut for standing up for reproductive rights. After all, she recently passed the bar and will become one of those feminist attorneys who want to have it all, which includes the government paying for her birth control. What an idiot. Or as Senator Franken said (before he was a senator) a big fat idiot.

It feels as if the world is conspiring against all of us who just want to embrace equality and justice. Imagine anyone in Congress saying that LGBT and Native American women should be left out of VAWA! Hard to believe that this could happen, yet there were a handful of women who did just that when they voted against passage of this bill. We won…they lost. And in 2014, maybe they will lose their seats as well. They deserve that.

Women are continually put between a rock and a hard place in life. For our government to participate in that is shameful. It’s bad enough it happens in our personal life. Even if you don’t experience physical violence from your spouse, odds are the relationship is still fraught with difficulties. Each person comes into the marriage with whatever childhood baggage they have which affects communication and in turn trust. It’s no wonder the divorce rate is so high anymore when you consider the me generation approach and the emotional baggage. If you add to that the income disparity women face, it’s hard to feel like we have any real choices out there that men have. It’s a given for them, really. Women have to create that and we do so at great risk because all too often it backfires. I co-own a business that’s primarily male dominated. Women are there only to serve men, not to succeed in the same way a man can. And Lord help me when I know more than they do. It’s a recipe for disaster. Some of them immediately become condescending and dismissive. Others just get insulting and ask to speak to my husband. Of course they hear the same stuff from him, but it doesn’t matter. It appears to make them dig their heels in and get even more condescending. If I call them out on it, they only get worse.

Trust me, if this is what I deal with on a daily basis with men I’m not related to, it should be no surprise when our husbands do it, or now when Congress does it. Of course, the woman who was gang raped and beaten to death on the bus in India a while back will never have the chance to stand up for her rights. My situation is nothing compared to what she faced, went through, and died from. But when we can’t even get it right in our personal relationships, how can we get it right for everyone?

I don’t know what my future holds. Weird to say that at 55. I’m not settling anymore for being useful, and letting others define for me what that’s supposed to be. Not if I have to fight for things that should be a given. If this fight for VAWA has taught me anything, it’s that women cannot sit still; they cannot stay quiet. We must rise as though our very lives depend on it…because they do.