In last week’s blog post, I tried, albeit superficially, to show that the century-long movement for women's suffrage, which finally won the vote for (some) women in 1920, took place in a context and country where originally only white, Christian, property-owning, land-holding males possessed the franchise—and they weren't particularly eager to share it with anybody who didn't meet those identifying qualifications. The ignorance all of us—female and male, people of color and white people—have been infected with is painful and poisonous, but lancing and draining it will also hurt, as that requires an honesty to which we apparently as yet only aspire. Honesty means I have to start this week with two corrections. First: last week I ended with a quote from Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who said she wore white to the State of The Union speech in honor of Alice Paul and the suffrage movement but also carried a kente...
As you probably know, we’re approaching the 100 birthday of the 19thAmendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1920, which proclaims, The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Well, that seems simple enough, and a damned good thing, too, hard-won through more than a previous century of organizing, picketing, divorces and child custody losses and job firings, arrests and beatings and jails and rapes and hunger strikes! What’s not to celebrate? Historical illiteracy, that’s what. It’s not your fault if you don’t know something, but it’s somebody’s fault if you’ve been kept from knowing something. This subject sure as hell is going to come up a lot in the next months, and it would be nice if we were equipped with some real facts. Historians, alert! Please don't have conniptions! Please keep in mind...
"Fetal assault. Chemical endangerment of a fetus. Manslaughter. Second-degree murder. Feticide. Child abuse. Reckless injury to a child. Concealing a birth. Concealing a death. Neglect of a minor. Reckless homicide. Attempted procurement of a miscarriage." These are charges being brought against some women for seeking or having had an abortion in some states in America today. The above list is a direct quote from the New York Times Special Section: Report on a Woman’s Right, dated January 20 of this year. The Times added, "More and more laws are treating the fetus as a person and the woman as less of one as states charge pregnant women with crimes." I’m glad and grateful that their editorial board actually gets it. In fact, if we are not both vigilant and active, we will be back at square one with women dying by the thousands every year in back-alley butchered abortions. Furthermore,...