Ruth, what is not understandable to me is why this topic isn’t completely explored in the media! MSNBC does more, but it seems to me that most (print, tv & radio) coverage attempts to straddle the fence. I think that’s called “fair & balanced!” Now, that has a familiar ring to it, doesn’t it? Thanks for your enlightening post!
The political media in America has been downplaying the role of women in elections for years and now, their critical role in crushing MAGA. It's just how they do it.
Yes, Nina. And thank you for your recent piece on FOX as a mortal opponent to our democracy. The political media in America is catastrophically failing to meet the moment and the threat posed by a fascist Republican party. The Media and Democracy Project ("MAD Democracy") - of which I'm a co-founder - is committed to calling this out and demanding media that informs. Our Pro-Democracy 2024 Election Guidelines sign-on letter is here, join us! https://www.mediaanddemocracyproject.org/2024-election-coverage
Are you familiar with this name: John Malone. Read he’s behind CNN’s recent move to the middle, trying to show both sides! For me, there's only one real side! Sure not right wing zealots!
Divide by gender, divide by race, divide by religion – divide, divide, divide. It's the only way a tyranny of a minority – specifically, a tyranny of a *fascist* minority – can prevail. Will we let it happen here?
Check this infographic to see how a terrified DeSantis has banned the Handmaid's Tale from Florida libraries. Are they afraid people will catch on to their scheme?
In that vein, there's an excellent 90-minute Hulu documentary film from 2020 titled "Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power" in which the great Canadian writer (now in her 80s and as sharp and insightful as ever) discusses her life's work, which includes, of course, "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Testaments". Anyone with a conscience should enjoy it and be inspired by it. A visionary, to say the least, Ms. Atwood predicted what we now see in America.
Evangelical, Baptist and Charismatic religious organizations that support Trump are also waging a war against women on many fronts. That wholesale assault on truth, civil liberties and women's autonomy is difficult to publicize and organize against. That's because of the uncritical and unwarranted deference that the mainstream media and most politicians show towards religion and religious beliefs. When a journalist or politician speaks out, as Senator Dianne Feinstein did when she said to future Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett that "the dogma lives loudly in you," far-right religious groups and their allies will seek to discredit them.
Just as free-speech absolutism is permitting would-be autocrats to corrupt the marketplace of ideas with lies that defy correction, the abandonment of critical thinking that occurs whenever freedom of religion is invoked allows pastors and the men in their flocks to engage in behavior that is cult-like and abusive if not outright illegal.
At the very least, those jackleg pastors preside over patriarchal systems that shame women by teaching lies about human sexuality. Men, say the pastors (who are always male), have near-irrepressible sexual urges and, if a man should engage in sexual misconduct, it is always the loose woman who is to blame. Pastors control women also through Biblical teachings that make women subservient to the dominant male figure in their lives: father, husband or pastor. Church teachings and the high control culture they create severely limit women's civil rights and civil liberties, most notably freedom of speech and association. In turn, parents and youth pastors indoctrinate children and teens, sometimes controlling them through corporal punishment or, when that is no longer effective, by isolating them socially, for example, by home-schooling them. Evangelical culture also tends to dampen women's educational and career aspirations, because, in the pastors' mini theocracies, women's highest function is to serve as wives and mothers. In some groups, teen girls and young women do not leave their father's household until their marriage to a suitable "godly" man, not even to work. They may not even have funds of their own. During the marriage ceremony, the father turns the "headship" of his daughter over to her husband.
The system could not function, unfortunately, without the complicity and active involvement of women who are true believers or who choose to appear as such to gain power and avoid suspicion.
Author Chris Hedges wrote about the dominance and submission seen between men and women in the Christo-fascist movement in 2006. This male chauvinism continues today in our MAGA Christians. tRump being a fascist, promotes male dominance at the expense of women.
Thank you, Ruth, for stating the truth. The issue of abortion is only the tip of the iceberg of two conflicting world views: one in which women have control over their bodies and their lives and one in which women have NO control and men do all the controlling--in the name of god (vomit). It's all a cover for control and hate: if we keep those nasty women from having any power at all, why WE the big white men can control ALL the sex, ALL the money, ALL the power! Keep those little bitches down--on their knees! And authoritarians are only the worst offenders of the general group of men; it's amazing to me that the first order of business for the Repubs is putting down all the women. But: TOO LATE, GENTS!!
Republicans, People of Color & Immigrants, all Faith Groups, LGBT, Disabled, Youth & Elderly, Everyone who isn’t Rich, Non-Voters and well everyone who cares about protecting our Democracy & Freedoms needs to “Make War on Republicans!”
Our current discrimination of women by MAGA reminds me of the extreme pecking order in fascism, known as Social Darwinism. This sorting of groups by worth and the punishing of those deemed to be less worthy is a cornerstone of fascism. This is the kind of thinking that led to the Holocaust. It's reprehensible that we have politcians dredging up this retrograde mindset.
Alot of elder abuse goes under the radar, same concept, with the added benefit of financial gain. Watch over elders in your community from ambulance, to hospital, to rehab - they are vulnerable and discounted (other than their assets) by certain segments.
I certainly hope this helps the Dems in the Nov elections, though they’re still quite a ways off. HG Wells would be proud, - there really is a “Time Machine”, and it belongs to the GOP. Those a#$$holes are doing a great job taking us BACK in time.
Good evening and I so appreciate the resources you utilized to emphasize your comments. Ms. Lithwick and Mr. Stern. The Comstock Law, if enforced would/could actually prohibit obtaining contraceptives and mifepristone through the mail. The Arizona Republican controlled legislature abruptly ended the session when the 1864 abortion law was put up for redress.
I feel this "war" on women is a direct effect of the power, resources and truly viable policies elected women and women running for elected office created. Their ideas are a threat to the puritanical and archaic policies of the misogynistic that are embedded in the Red Party.
It isn't being addressed because the mainstream media is primarily owned/controlled by dinosaurs.
The AZ legislature and Maricopa county are fascist hotbeds. One must be careful what you say in public in the Phoenix area. The anger against the "left" is at the boiling point.
So many of these authoritarian men always seem like they have to demonstrate and prove their manhood to themselves and others by controlling the bodies of others. A fundamental insecurity is apparent. I will always remember what my father told me when I asked him when I would become a man: "When you no longer have any need to prove it."
"And we can talk about the adverse physical, financial and psychological outcomes of the removal of reproductive rights with family and acquaintances who follow Trump and watch Fox News. Do they really want to see the women they love criminalized, even in cases of rape?"
I was indoctrinated in this world and am lucky to have escaped. There is no point in wasting energy talking to anyone who chooses to remain there. I could write a lengthy role-play asking someone in that camp the question you pose above, but even that doesn't deserve the effort. I am spending my energy, time, and experience trying to reach persuadable voters, because we have the numbers. There are more of us.
If you click on my name, I write the Substack "How Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life." You can follow me here on Substack or follow my Substack. You can also find me @andrawatkins on Instagram, though that's more a hodgepodge. Or at my website andrawatkins.com.
Auto-correct spells my name "Andrea" half the time when I type it, but it's "Andra."
More should be written about women, and history. For so very long, men have hated, feared, belittled, and subjugated women in many, if not most, cultures. In America, for so long, women were appendages of fathers, husbands, or some other male. They had no worth or status of their own. Even as late as the 1950s, women couldn't have their own bank account, credit card, or name on a mortgage. A MAN had to sign for them or OK what they wanted to do. Many women bought into their own oppressions. It makes me angry and sad to know these things. We get some breathing room and the evil DESTROYERS of our day want to smack us all down again. It will get worse. Please keep telling us all and reminding us of these truths of our time. Ruthie B.
Ruth, what is not understandable to me is why this topic isn’t completely explored in the media! MSNBC does more, but it seems to me that most (print, tv & radio) coverage attempts to straddle the fence. I think that’s called “fair & balanced!” Now, that has a familiar ring to it, doesn’t it? Thanks for your enlightening post!
The political media in America has been downplaying the role of women in elections for years and now, their critical role in crushing MAGA. It's just how they do it.
exactly
Yes, Nina. And thank you for your recent piece on FOX as a mortal opponent to our democracy. The political media in America is catastrophically failing to meet the moment and the threat posed by a fascist Republican party. The Media and Democracy Project ("MAD Democracy") - of which I'm a co-founder - is committed to calling this out and demanding media that informs. Our Pro-Democracy 2024 Election Guidelines sign-on letter is here, join us! https://www.mediaanddemocracyproject.org/2024-election-coverage
Not fair, not balanced!
Are you familiar with this name: John Malone. Read he’s behind CNN’s recent move to the middle, trying to show both sides! For me, there's only one real side! Sure not right wing zealots!
Giving a fair and balanced platform for fascists is like asking a psychopath for their opinion, because we need to be fair and balanced.
Divide by gender, divide by race, divide by religion – divide, divide, divide. It's the only way a tyranny of a minority – specifically, a tyranny of a *fascist* minority – can prevail. Will we let it happen here?
Check this interactive map of how the Republican war on women resembles the Handmaid's Tale.
https://thedemlabs.org/2022/05/09/gops-war-on-women-abortion-straight-from-handmaids-tale/
Check this infographic to see how a terrified DeSantis has banned the Handmaid's Tale from Florida libraries. Are they afraid people will catch on to their scheme?
https://thedemlabs.org/2023/04/24/republicans-ban-the-handmaids-tale-right-wing-christian-patriarchies-persecute-women/
In that vein, there's an excellent 90-minute Hulu documentary film from 2020 titled "Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power" in which the great Canadian writer (now in her 80s and as sharp and insightful as ever) discusses her life's work, which includes, of course, "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Testaments". Anyone with a conscience should enjoy it and be inspired by it. A visionary, to say the least, Ms. Atwood predicted what we now see in America.
Evangelical, Baptist and Charismatic religious organizations that support Trump are also waging a war against women on many fronts. That wholesale assault on truth, civil liberties and women's autonomy is difficult to publicize and organize against. That's because of the uncritical and unwarranted deference that the mainstream media and most politicians show towards religion and religious beliefs. When a journalist or politician speaks out, as Senator Dianne Feinstein did when she said to future Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett that "the dogma lives loudly in you," far-right religious groups and their allies will seek to discredit them.
Just as free-speech absolutism is permitting would-be autocrats to corrupt the marketplace of ideas with lies that defy correction, the abandonment of critical thinking that occurs whenever freedom of religion is invoked allows pastors and the men in their flocks to engage in behavior that is cult-like and abusive if not outright illegal.
At the very least, those jackleg pastors preside over patriarchal systems that shame women by teaching lies about human sexuality. Men, say the pastors (who are always male), have near-irrepressible sexual urges and, if a man should engage in sexual misconduct, it is always the loose woman who is to blame. Pastors control women also through Biblical teachings that make women subservient to the dominant male figure in their lives: father, husband or pastor. Church teachings and the high control culture they create severely limit women's civil rights and civil liberties, most notably freedom of speech and association. In turn, parents and youth pastors indoctrinate children and teens, sometimes controlling them through corporal punishment or, when that is no longer effective, by isolating them socially, for example, by home-schooling them. Evangelical culture also tends to dampen women's educational and career aspirations, because, in the pastors' mini theocracies, women's highest function is to serve as wives and mothers. In some groups, teen girls and young women do not leave their father's household until their marriage to a suitable "godly" man, not even to work. They may not even have funds of their own. During the marriage ceremony, the father turns the "headship" of his daughter over to her husband.
The system could not function, unfortunately, without the complicity and active involvement of women who are true believers or who choose to appear as such to gain power and avoid suspicion.
To learn more about this front on the war on women, listen to the podcast "Straight White American Jesus." https://www.straightwhiteamericanjesus.com/
Author Chris Hedges wrote about the dominance and submission seen between men and women in the Christo-fascist movement in 2006. This male chauvinism continues today in our MAGA Christians. tRump being a fascist, promotes male dominance at the expense of women.
Truly unbelievable these people exist.....cults. What horrible lives they all have.
Andra Watkins who has Project 2025 on substack outlines this and more. She was lucky to get out of this Taliban cult....
I was going to say I grew up in Christian Nationalism, and everything here is 100% true, but Julie below beat me to it.
Speaker Mike Johnson is one of those "headship" guys.
Thank you, Ruth, for stating the truth. The issue of abortion is only the tip of the iceberg of two conflicting world views: one in which women have control over their bodies and their lives and one in which women have NO control and men do all the controlling--in the name of god (vomit). It's all a cover for control and hate: if we keep those nasty women from having any power at all, why WE the big white men can control ALL the sex, ALL the money, ALL the power! Keep those little bitches down--on their knees! And authoritarians are only the worst offenders of the general group of men; it's amazing to me that the first order of business for the Repubs is putting down all the women. But: TOO LATE, GENTS!!
Women need to make war on Republicans.
Charles, wouldn’t you agree that men also need to make war on Republicans? We women could use your help. In peace & solidarity, Ginny
Totally agree!
Charles - so happy to hear that you agree!
Republicans, People of Color & Immigrants, all Faith Groups, LGBT, Disabled, Youth & Elderly, Everyone who isn’t Rich, Non-Voters and well everyone who cares about protecting our Democracy & Freedoms needs to “Make War on Republicans!”
Our current discrimination of women by MAGA reminds me of the extreme pecking order in fascism, known as Social Darwinism. This sorting of groups by worth and the punishing of those deemed to be less worthy is a cornerstone of fascism. This is the kind of thinking that led to the Holocaust. It's reprehensible that we have politcians dredging up this retrograde mindset.
Alot of elder abuse goes under the radar, same concept, with the added benefit of financial gain. Watch over elders in your community from ambulance, to hospital, to rehab - they are vulnerable and discounted (other than their assets) by certain segments.
"Pecking Order" mechanics is also cited as a primary cause of the extreme abuses carried out by the Japanese Military in WW2
I certainly hope this helps the Dems in the Nov elections, though they’re still quite a ways off. HG Wells would be proud, - there really is a “Time Machine”, and it belongs to the GOP. Those a#$$holes are doing a great job taking us BACK in time.
Fascists have long been fascinated by ancient times and feudalism.
Good evening and I so appreciate the resources you utilized to emphasize your comments. Ms. Lithwick and Mr. Stern. The Comstock Law, if enforced would/could actually prohibit obtaining contraceptives and mifepristone through the mail. The Arizona Republican controlled legislature abruptly ended the session when the 1864 abortion law was put up for redress.
I feel this "war" on women is a direct effect of the power, resources and truly viable policies elected women and women running for elected office created. Their ideas are a threat to the puritanical and archaic policies of the misogynistic that are embedded in the Red Party.
It isn't being addressed because the mainstream media is primarily owned/controlled by dinosaurs.
The AZ legislature and Maricopa county are fascist hotbeds. One must be careful what you say in public in the Phoenix area. The anger against the "left" is at the boiling point.
Texas says- hold our beer...
So many of these authoritarian men always seem like they have to demonstrate and prove their manhood to themselves and others by controlling the bodies of others. A fundamental insecurity is apparent. I will always remember what my father told me when I asked him when I would become a man: "When you no longer have any need to prove it."
Indeed.
State run family courts favor men also, trying to keep women in their place. A template umbrella of misogyny.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/08/vatican-transgender-surgery-pope-francis/
"And we can talk about the adverse physical, financial and psychological outcomes of the removal of reproductive rights with family and acquaintances who follow Trump and watch Fox News. Do they really want to see the women they love criminalized, even in cases of rape?"
I was indoctrinated in this world and am lucky to have escaped. There is no point in wasting energy talking to anyone who chooses to remain there. I could write a lengthy role-play asking someone in that camp the question you pose above, but even that doesn't deserve the effort. I am spending my energy, time, and experience trying to reach persuadable voters, because we have the numbers. There are more of us.
Is there an interview of you and your story on Youtube? Im having trouble finding the correct Andrea Watkins =] or a podcast? =]
If you click on my name, I write the Substack "How Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life." You can follow me here on Substack or follow my Substack. You can also find me @andrawatkins on Instagram, though that's more a hodgepodge. Or at my website andrawatkins.com.
Auto-correct spells my name "Andrea" half the time when I type it, but it's "Andra."
=]
Politics will not ignore you. Pass it on to everyone.....
More should be written about women, and history. For so very long, men have hated, feared, belittled, and subjugated women in many, if not most, cultures. In America, for so long, women were appendages of fathers, husbands, or some other male. They had no worth or status of their own. Even as late as the 1950s, women couldn't have their own bank account, credit card, or name on a mortgage. A MAN had to sign for them or OK what they wanted to do. Many women bought into their own oppressions. It makes me angry and sad to know these things. We get some breathing room and the evil DESTROYERS of our day want to smack us all down again. It will get worse. Please keep telling us all and reminding us of these truths of our time. Ruthie B.