Women, We're in Danger Again. A Thousand "I Told You So's"
Listen to the women. We've been there.
So it’s the women and children who may suffer the most under Trump’s vicious regime. No surprise there, we’re always the targets, the scapegoats, the reasons for various crackdowns.
I’m a woman. I’m an old woman, having come of age in the 1950s, when women were still to be seen and not heard, when we were basically breeders, before we had any real rights, until we got smart and fought for them in the decades afterward.
Because I’m that old I’ve had a lot to say over the years, whenever something happens to demoralize us and/or set us back. I wondered last night, as the Epstein scandal comes to a head, just how much I really had written on our plight and our needs. Much of what I’ve written over the years was written long before the internet and is no longer accessible. So I went back and read some of my more recent pieces, which still tell the same story.
Because that story has never been resolved.
What was the main thing I discovered? Besides seeing that almost of all of what I believed then I still believe now, only more so? That barely anyone else has read anything I’ve ever written about women.
I look at the number of hearts and comments on those pieces and they’re, I’m sorry, pitiful. Nevertheless, I had something to say and I worked on them until they spoke to an audience who might need to hear it. But I was new at Substack and my blog, Ramona’s Voices, was just another blog among many. Hardly anybody saw them.
We women are in grave trouble. Again. Still. So rather than repeat the things I’ve written in yet another blog, I’ll share the links to some of the pieces I’ve already written. It won’t get past you that they’re all still relevant today, but I don’t share these pieces so we can commiserate. No, I share them as ammunition.
So please comment if you have something to say—and I hope you do. Please share if any of them resonate. And please, please subscribe if you haven’t already. We all need all the friends we can get.
Let's be Honest: Anti-Abortion Doesn't make You Pro-life
I barely slept last night after seeing the news out of Texas that, as of today, the only law West of the Pecos is the law against women seeking abortions.
Women and Children and the Choices We Make
I wrote a version of this piece on abortion in March, 2011 at my blog, Ramona’s Voices. More than 10 years ago. Has anything changed? Yes, but not for the better. At long last the Republicans are nearly to their goal: to end Roe v Wade and make every aspect of abortions illegal.
It's Settled Then: Women, We're at War
Yes, I wrote this piece more than 10 years ago, and when I pulled it out this morning, I was astonished all over again at the sheer menace of the Republicans, who have not and will not give up on making women kneel and whimper under their rule.
Women Are the Lesser Gender
Being a woman in America means I’m shit as far as half the population is concerned. If I’d been paying attention and just accepted that status I might have gotten used to being the lesser. Instead, I’m still fighting against it.
In 21st Century America It's Still Okay To Beat Up On Women
Hey, all you totally misunderstood guys in Topeka who feel the need to smack around your women, good news! As long as you don't get too heavy-handed -- blackening eyes, loosening teeth, leaving really ugly bruises -- your city officials are on your side.
Listen to the Sisters
When I was growing up in the forties and fifties there weren’t many female role models in our textbooks. I’ve been pondering on this for a while, and the only one I can remember is Madame Curie, the physicist/chemist who, our textbooks said, “worked alongside her husband”,…
Where Are the Women? If Statues are Tributes, Why are There So Few Women?
NOTE: As I’m scanning my past published pieces for the book of essays I’m in the process of putting together, I’ve come across several I’d forgotten about but still find interesting. As I do this, I’ll pass them along to you, hoping you’ll find them interesting, too. Some of…
And this one:
From the Archives: In the Year of the Woman We’re Going to Need Each Other
(First published at Ramona’s Voices, March 28, 2018)
And here we are again. Or still. Angrier than ever, far more frustrated, seething over past injustices…and nowhere to go with any of it. But the good news is our young women are with us. They’ve only heard the stories of our efforts, but they’ve felt the backlash. They know what they’re in for if they don’t fight back. And they’re willing. So are we.
We’re going to win this time.
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No, we never, never, never give up!
How right you are! Women are always derided and denigrated. Even when we manage to complete some work four men could not in three days, yet I cracked the prize set us in 15 minutes!
Women have brains used to ignoring those men who don't want us to succeed. Eventually, after every battle we do win. Even at very great cost.
We use a new clear view, and if we can support each other, what worlds can we not win?