It's Time to Confront Violence Against Women

“Do you know how it feels to get smacked around?”

“He abused me psychologically to the point that I wasn’t able to talk or think by myself.”

“I was told I was worthless. Abuse made me feel I’m nothing.”

“I asked my mom why indigenous women were being murdered. I wanted to be a boy. No one should be scared to be an Indigenous girl or woman. Please don’t let it happen to me.”

Those are some of the heart-wrenching testimonies on the walls of two collaborative museum exhibits that commemorate missing and murdered Native American women and victims of domestic violence. The exhibits, Portraits in Red by artist Nayana LaFond, and Voices by Cat Del Buono are powerful and important.

LaFond’s work is deeply personal. She is a citizen of the Metis Nation of Ontario and a descendant of the Anishinaabe and other indigenous groups and she is a survivor of domestic violence. “In indigenous cultures art is medicine,” she explains. “I see the work I do as sacred.”   

LaFond began painting the portraits when she painted an Indigenous woman from Saskatchewan who had survived violence. The woman appears strong and powerful, despite a red handprint over her mouth, which became iconic. “Red is believed to be the only color spirits can see in most indigenous cultures so I paint them the way a spirit would see them,” the artist explains.

 Subsequently she posted a call on the website of a Pow Wow held annually to commemorate the Day of Remembrance for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. It changed her life and launched the Portraits in Red project. Offering to create similar portraits for other indigenous women at no cost, she had thousands of hits in no time from native women all over North America. Her portrait work grew exponentially with the women she paints having one thing in common; each of the women shares a symbolic red hand over their mouths, symbolizing violence and silencing. The women range in age; many wearing traditional dress. All of them offer a stunning wakeup call.

“When you’ve experienced something like these women have you want to claim yourself again,” LaFond says. “You want to speak up and be heard in a safe way. That’s why I do this work. I am claiming my own experience and turning it into something positive. I hope I’m creating change.”

“Voices,” an ongoing project by social change filmmaker Cat Del Buono, is a video collection based on more than a hundred interviews she has conducted with survivors of domestic abuse since 2013.  In the videos one sees only the mouths of women speaking and thus becomes part of an intimate, deeply sad conversation as women share their stories. Their voices serve to humanize and expose the travesty of domestic violence while encouraging others in need of help.

“The immersive nature of the exhibit reveals the enormity and the pain of domestic violence,” Del Buono says. “It’s powerful. It helps viewers understand that domestic violence doesn’t discriminate, it affects all ages and social classes. It isn’t just ‘their’ problem. It’s a society problem that urgently needs to be addressed.”

These two collaborative exhibits break the silence that surrounds violence and abuse that women suffer in larger numbers than we think. To see them together is to witness the enormity of the domestic violence crisis that goes far beyond North America and is pervasive in all cultures, classes, and communities. The statistics are staggering.

 About 4 out of 5 Native women have experienced violence. They are twice as likely than most other women to experience violence and they face murder rates 11 times the national average. The murder rate for Native women is about three times more than that of most other women. 98% of Indigenous people experience violence in their lifetime.

 There is only a six percent prosecution rate. In 2016, there were 5,712 incidents of missing and murdered Native American and Alaskan Native women but only 116 cases were logged into the DOJ data base. Sixty percent of the number of cases between 2005 and 2009 involving sexual abuse in Native communities were never prosecute by U.S. attorneys. On some reservations 96 percent of sexual violence cases against Native women were committed by non-Natives. non-Natives.

 According to Cat Del Buono, the data on domestic violence is equally staggering. On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the U.S. One in four women will be a victim of severe domestic violence in her lifetime; every nine seconds a woman is assaulted or beaten. Chillingly, one in five women in the U.S. has been raped in her lifetime, almost half of them by an acquaintance.

 Myths about domestic violence are untrue and pervasive, according to a YWCA “End the Silence” campaign in Spokane, Washington.  For example, “Domestic violence only happens to women.”  “Drugs alcohol, stress and mental illness cause DV.”  “Abusers are just out to control and need anger management.” “DV is always physical abuse.”  “If a victim doesn’t leave, it must not be that bad or they are ok with how they are being treated.”

 The fact is that all kinds of violence, against women especially, surrounds us and not enough attention is being paid to stopping it. We urgently need policy changes at every level of governance, serious and effective gun legislation, long overdue changes in the judicial system, educational programs that raise awareness of the epidemic of violence and abuse in all their forms, and sufficient resources at the community (and reservation) level aimed at prevention, identifying perpetrators, and sufficient resources to stop the scourge.

 As Cat Del Buono and Nayana LaFond know, “this is a societal problem that urgently needs to be addressed.” Their deeply important artistic work is a monument to those women who are alive and still waiting for an end to violence, and to their missing and murdered sisters. Let International Women’s Day remind us of that.

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Why I Write, with Thanks to George Orwell

Most years when we’re on the threshold of a new year, I don’t think about resolutions I probably can’t keep. But I do contemplate my life as a writer as I put aside prior works and enter a new ever changing writing landscape. I ask myself what I will write about and worry that I will not honor my annual resolution to return to revising my novel. I consider the fact that occasionally people are offended when I am being political in my commentaries, and I will likely continuing doing so.

This year I was inspired by George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984, to ask myself the question the renowned writer asked himself: Why do I write? Where does the compulsion I have to put words on paper originate? Do my words, thoughts, and ideas matter? I found some answers in Orwell’s notable personal essay, “Why I Write,” written at the end of his life.

Like Orwell, I knew from an early age that I loved writing, reading, and rolling words around in my mouth but I didn’t know until I was ten that I wanted to be a writer. At that tender age I went to the “Five and Dime” store to buy the biggest pad of lined writing paper I could find. When the saleswoman asked why I wanted it I said, “Please don’t laugh at me. I want to write a book.” She smiled so I told her I already had the plot in my mind. At thirteen I submitted a Christmas poem to The Saturday Evening Post magazine. It was rejected but I still think it was a good poem.

As I grew older my fantasy life involved story ideas including pot-boiler romances, poems of people and place, and serious thoughts about life as I observed and lived it. In high school I loved writing essays, and I loved words, thanks to some fine, challenging teachers. Words were music to my ear, and I took profound pleasure in picking the right ones to express myself.

I was a bit of a truth teller by then and I had a growing propensity for standing up to authority when I thought those in power were wrong. I built a case in my head, choosing my words carefully, delivering them verbally or in writing with visible effect. Then I described the events with meticulous accuracy and a dose of drama to my friends. Just as Orwell wrote in his essay, “I wanted to write detailed descriptions and arresting similes …in which words were used partly for the sake of their sound.” I also wanted my words to make a difference in how I, and others, were treated by authority figures.

Orwell believed that there were four main motives for writing: Egotism, Aesthetic enthusiasm (“the desire to share an experience one feels is valuable in words and their right arrangement”), Historical impulse (“the desire to see things as they are”), and political purpose (“the desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s ideas of the kind of society that they should strive for.”)

These four motives resonate mightily for me. I saw myself in all of them, including ego. Most writers want to be noticed, praised, and remembered posthumously. But it is Orwell’s other three motives that helped me know why I write. It’s because I believe I have something worthy to say, in my own voice, not only in commentaries and personal essays, but also via fiction, poetry, and memoir, all of which expose and grapple with human experience. The feedback readers share with me when they aren’t offended by my political perspective is a form of validation, and a gift that keeps me doing it, Also, I can’t not do it. It’s a way of being part of the human family, and it’s in my DNA. Like Orwell, my starting point is almost always “a sense of justice.” And like him, I “suffer the struggles of being a writer, driven by some demon which one can never resist.”

The writer Joan Didion also wrote about why she writes after reading Orwell’s essay. She famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” In short, she is saying “How do I know what I think until I see what I’ve written.” Like her, writing gives me clarity as well as enormous relief when I am struggling with daily reality or existential challenges.

Didion asked, “What do we do with knowledge that we cannot bear to live with? What do we do with the things we don’t want to know?” Photographers like Diane Arbus and Dorthea Lange answered that question visually. Like other writers who view the world through lenses of human frailty, foibles and promise, I write my way through the challenges they present, not only for myself, but for others too. I’m sure I will be compelled to do it to my dying day.

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Are We Facing the End of Free Speech?

CEOs from major businesses in the U.S. demand that Harvard University release the names of students from 30 student organizations who signed a letter casting blame on Israel for the attacks by Hamas. The business leaders further urged the university to provide names of the signatories with photographs so that students who signed the letter would not be hired once they leave Harvard. Students began immediately to take back their signatures, as Axios and The Guardian reported.

 A law firm withdraws its job offer to a New York York University law student, president of the Student Bar Association, who wrote in the Association’s bulletin, “This [Israeli] regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary,” claiming that she made “inflammatory comments” that “profoundly conflict with [our] values.

 edish climate activist Greta Thunberg and 26 others are charged by British police in London for joining a protest outside an oil and gas conference. The charge? “Failing to comply with a condition imposed under section 14 of the Public Order Act,” according to the London Metropolitan police.

 In England police have made dozens of arrests after protests across the UK arose in the aftermath of Hamas terrorist attacks and Israel’s response. Many protesters are unsure whether they can now carry placards or wear symbols, or join in chants after

Suella Braverman, a member of the Conservative Party who became the UK Home Secretary in 2022, wrote to chief constables in England and Wales saying that waving a Palestinian flag or singing to advocate for Arab freedom might be a criminal offence. “I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world, and whether its use … may amount to a racially aggravated … public order offence,” she said

An increasing number of countries are resorting to force and legislation to crush protests, treating them as a threat rather than a right, as Amnesty International points out. “Peaceful protest is a right, not a privilege, and one that states have a duty to respect, protect and  facilitate.”

 In Washington, DC 49 Jewish demonstrators in front of the White House, including rabbis, were arrested urging President Biden to call for a ceasefire on his recent trip to Israel. Their charge? Crossing safety barriers and blocking entrances. And a recent post on social media revealed that the U.S. State Department has instructed ambassadors and other government officials not to use words like “de-escalation, ceasefire, end to violence, restoring calm and bloodshed.” The post has since been taken down.

 These are troubling signs that in this country the Constitution’s First Amendment is being ignored or violated. As a reminder, here is what the Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (emphasis mine).

Arresting protestors making their voices heard in peaceful ways is a dangerous travesty wherever it happens, but it is particularly egregious in a country that prides itself on “the rule of law.” In this time of terror and rapidly escalating international conflict America’s leadership and example could not be more urgent. Calls for a cease fire and an end to killing fields where both sides have become tragic victims is not an act of violence. Nor is it a display of national allegiance. It’s much bigger and more urgent than that. It is a call for restraint, human rights, and shared humanity in the face of unleashed rage and hopelessness.

That collective rage, fear and hopelessness threatens the future we wish for our progeny, whether we are American, Israeli or Palestinian.  We cannot move forward in a world in which a slaughter of innocents, no matter where they live, continues. We can’t make progress in the name of peace without allowing all of us to inhabit land we love because our roots are there. We can’t make peace if we are continually oppressed, and myopic in our views. And we cannot move forward if we cling to limited views of right and wrong, framed by the concept of winners and losers, power and weakness.

The struggles we face are not a matter of politics, persuasion, or power.  They are about people; ordinary people who all matter. In this time of conflict of biblical proportion, a time when history could lead us to the table of resolution, let us not seek to silence those calling out for – indeed begging for - compassion, intelligent discourse and wise decisions free of partisanship.

Let us remember that our voices are not weapons. They are instead our monuments and our roadmap to a sane future for all of us.  No one should be punished for raising them.

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Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, VT. www.elayne-clift.com

From Designer Babies to Devalued Children

A recent press release I received got me thinking about how much we really care about kids?  The press alert came from the Coalition to Stop Designer Babies, which is organizing internationally to oppose efforts by some scientists and would-be parents who want to overturn legal bans and prohibitions on Human Genetic Modification (HGM).

A so-called designer baby is defined as “an infant whose genes or other cellular components have been altered by practitioners at the embryo or pre-embryo stage, ostensibly for the purpose of avoiding passing on genetic diseases, or making babies that are smarter, taller, or stronger,” according to the Humane Biotech organization.

Coalition spokesperson Dr. Daniel Papillon, a French scientist, notes that” There is no unmet medical need for this technology, but the risks are immense. … It would increase ableism and entrench social inequality.” Like other opponents of this technology, he notes that “HGM is the latest high-tech version of Eugenics,” the belief that the human race could be improved if reproduction was controlled and only those who were deemed worthy of being born or of reproducing should live or bear children. The movement advocated selective breeding and the elimination of those considered to be imperfect. Advocates ranged from Margaret Sanger to Adolf Hitler. Even Vermont practiced Eugenics.  Between 1931 and 1941, about 200 people, mostly women, were sterilized in the state.

The idea of designer babies and perfect progeny smacks not just of social control but of affluence and exclusion. It illuminates the deep chasm between privilege and poverty, both of which speak to the deprivation of lives that might have been lived. Let’s not forget that eugenics was at the core of slavery and is still a threat in a world of growing fascism.

The idea of designer babies versus impoverished, marginalized children made me think of all the ways children throughout history, and children now in this country, have been damaged, degraded, and devalued, despite the rightwing devotion to fetuses. There are deeply disturbing examples of the abuse children of all ages experience, physically, emotionally, sexually and via neglect and exploitation.

Take, for example, the revelation revealed by the Houston Chronicle that Texas state troopers were told to push immigrant kids, even babies, back into the Rio Grande as they tried to survive crossing the river alone or with others. Or the fact that thousands of children are at risk of separation, abuse and neglect at the Mexico-US border, and that documented major abuse takes place in retention centers on the US side. Kids trapped in Mexico are sleeping in the streets where they are exposed to violence and abuse, as Save the Children and other organizations have pointed out. And those who make it to U.S. Customs and Border Protection report physical and psychological abuse, unsanitary and inhuman living conditions, isolation from family, extended periods of detention, and denial of access to legal and medical services, reported in a University of Chicago Law School report five years ago.

Sadly, the National Children’s Alliance reports that more than 600,000 children are abused in the United States each year, with children in the first year of their lives being 15 percent of all victims; more than a quarter of child maltreatment victims are under two years old. Nationally, neglect is the most common form of abuse. What does that say about who we are as a country?

What does this say?  According to the Equal Justice Initiative eleven states have no minimum age for trying children as adults; some states allow children between ten and thirteen to be tried as adults, while children as young as eight have also been prosecuted as adults. Shockingly, the U.S. is the only country in the world where kids as young as thirteen have been sentenced to life in prison without parole, and until 2005 children were executed in the U.S.

Law enforcement and police brutality contribute to the abuse and criminalization of children ranging from kindergarteners to teenagers. Stories abound. In one state, an off-duty policeman placed his knee on a middle school child’s neck, while in another state, four

Black girls were arrested for not stopping young boys from fighting.

The stories are immensely disturbing. A child in kindergarten was arrested for picking a tulip at a bus stop. A12-year old was arrested for doodling at his desk.  A nine-year-old was arrested, pepper sprayed and handcuffed for “acting like a child” when police were called to her school. These and other stories like them have been exposed by the Legal Defense Fund.

Now comes the exploitation of kids in the workplace, courtesy of Republican legislators who are happy to ignore labor laws. Lawmakers in several states want to let children work in hazardous workplaces, and to work longer hours on school nights, including serving alcohol in bars and restaurants as young as fourteen. The Economic Policy Institute revealed that ten states in the last two years have tried loosening child labor laws, while the Department of Labor reported this year that child labor violations have increased by nearly 70 percent. It’s Dickensian!

These tragic tales are the tip of the iceberg. They speak volumes to the level of child neglect that is rapidly being normalized in America. The big question is what are we going to do about it? That’s a good question to ask anyone running for office next year. As for designer babies, that’s a question for the wealthy who are wedded to privilege and perfection.

The Time for Bread and Roses is Now

When I think about labor movements and unions, two favorite stories come to mind, and both are true. The first one is about a group of girls and young women known as the Lowell Factory Girls. They worked in the mills and factories of Lowell, Massachusetts in the 19th century. Little more than children who labored for long days doing dangerous and exhausting work, they revolted in 1836 when their dismal wages were cut while their factory-owner mandated living expenses went up.

One day an 11-year-old worker named Harriet Hanson, decided enough was enough. She walked out “with childish bravado,” as she wrote in her 1898 memoir, declaring that she would go alone if she had to. That wasn’t necessary. A long line of girls followed her and thus began a strike that led to an organized labor movement launched by women, and the establishment of an early U.S. union.

The second story is less well known. It involves a labor leader and activist, Esther Peterson, who was born into a conservative family in Utah. Esther, who was much older than me, eventually came to New York where she taught wealthy girls by day and the daughters of their household maids at night.  Working at home, the young girls sewed pockets onto Hoover aprons if they were old enough, alongside their mothers. The pockets were squares until management decided heart-shaped pockets were nicer. The work was piecemeal, and hearts took longer than squares. Esther was outraged that they weren’t paid more.

“Why don’t you do something about it,” her husband asked. “Organize a strike!” Esther, who grew up thinking unions led to danger and violence, resisted. But she decided to advocate for the children, so she organized the “Heartbreaker Strike,” inviting her wealthy day students’ mothers to go on picket lines since the police would never brutalize them as they would the poor mothers. It worked, and Esther was on her way to becoming a beloved labor leader.   

I think of the Factory Girls and Esther now, when so many large-scale strikes loom large, and for good reason.  It’s no coincidence that workers at UPS and in Teamsters unions, Amazon warehouses across the country, Starbucks, and Hollywood writers and actors are striking or contemplating striking for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. American Airlines cabin crews may soon be joining them as I write this commentary.

That’s a wide, diverse swath of American workers and a huge number of jobs, goods, and services at stake. The implications are alarming. A short time ago the threat of a railroad strike was enough to make economists shudder and that’s only one sector that could have wrought havoc throughout the country.

Leaders of unions that represent large numbers of people working in companies trying to deny them their right to unionize act as though union organizing was something new and egregiously difficult. The fact is that huge, organized strikes are nothing new in this country. We’ve had labor unions forever, inspired originally by the 18th century Industrial Revolution in Europe. Shorter work days, livable minimum wages, and rational benefits have always been a bit part of union organizing. For example, poor pay and working conditions led to strikes by the Pullman Railroad Workers and the United Mine Workers in the late 19th century.

Over the years unions grew across many sectors and by 1979 there were 21 million union members in America. Today union membership is growing again after a slump, thanks in part to the pandemic and a rapidly changing labor market.  Young workers are unionizing across various sectors now because of tech-driven jobs. They are joining farmers, factory workers, food handlers, and others as they seek safe and equitable employment, just as factory girls and children sewing apron pockets did before them.  

For UPS drivers, Amazon workers, Starbucks baristas and others, companies that refuse to bargain are enraging. Labor leaders and workers have had enough. They are tired of corporate leaders who make phenomenal amounts of money a year, own mansions and yachts, and still continue reneging on workers’ rights.  Amazon, for example, has engaged in dozens of unfair labor practices, Including terminating the entire unit of newly organized workers.  Starbucks “has become the most aggressive union-busting company in America,” according to a staffer for Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and more than 200 workers have been fired for taking part in organizing activities.

I’m not trying to put a Pollyanna spin on unions. I know there is a troubling history of corruption and criminal intent in some organized labor movements and unions, and that is not something to be overlooked.  But I agree with John F. Kennedy that, “Labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups. They have raised wages, shortened hours, and provided supplemental benefits. … They have brought justice and democracy to the shop floor.”

More to the point perhaps in these troubling political times, labor leader Delores Huerta was right when she put the point this way: “If we don’t have workers organizing into labor unions, we’re in great danger of losing our democracy.”

My friend Esther would agree with her old boss, JFK , and with Delores Huerta, with whom  she worked on labor rights for women and children.

Suffer the Little Children

They come from countries of unrelenting poverty, oppression, war, and violence. They come to escape all of that with parents, relatives, friends, or alone. They walk miles and miles, day after day, hungry, thirsty, afraid, exhausted. As a recent report in The New York Times revealed the number of migrant children crossing the U.S. border from the south has “soared” for several reasons, including declining situations in Latin American countries along with pandemic induced migration, and the election of President Biden. Last year the influx of migrant children rose to 130,000. That’s three times higher than five years ago.

 With this influx of unaccompanied children, child employment has reached Dickensian levels and conditions in most parts of the U.S. Another New York Times article illuminated the reality of this exploitation. One teenage worker “stuffed a sealed plastic bag of cereal into a passing carton. It could be dangerous work, with fast-moving pulleys and gears that had torn off fingers and ripped open a woman’s scalp.” That factory “was full of underage workers … spending late hours bent over hazardous machinery.”  In other places kids work in slaughterhouses, wood sawing businesses, or tend giant ovens making granola bars and other snack foods.

 According to the Times report, this kind of child labor is part of a “new economy of exploitation,” in which migrant youth constitute a “shadow work force that extends across industries in every state.” This new labor force has been growing, particularly in the last two years, and it’s all in violation of child labor laws. In addition to the work in plants and factories, children wash dishes and deliver meals in various venues. They help build vacation homes, harvest crops, and work as hotel maids, usually at night, after trying to stay awake in school during the day, if the families they stay with actually send them to school as mandated.

 Often these children are housed with adults they don’t know. These “sponsors” often exploit the kids, pressuring them to earn money to help with expenses, or payoff smugglers who have helped place the children with them. Oversight and monitoring of these housing situations are often ignored, even though they are mandated.  As one caseworker told the Times, “It’s getting to be a business for some of the sponsors.” Schools, businesses, workers in federal agencies, and law enforcement are guilty of “willful ignorance,” as the Times reporter put it.

 Child trafficking is another related issue. Anti-trafficking legislation exists in the U.S. but is inadequately adhered to, and made more difficult because of the growing number of children coming across the border, often with worrying debt to pay off. According to the Times report, concerns about unaccompanied minors at the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement began to grow two years ago when labor trafficking began growing, exacerbated by the inappropriately quick release of children from detention centers rather than maintaining a focus on preventing unsafe releases.

 Child marriage is also something we should be concerned about in this country. According to Equality Now, shocking as it may seem, here in the U.S. child marriage, which occurs when one or both parties to a marriage are under 18 years of age, is legal in 43 states, but 20 U.S. states do not require any minimum age for marriage, if there is parental consent or a judicial waiver.

 A human rights violation, “child marriage legitimizes abuse and denies girls’ autonomy. When young girls are forced to marry, they are essentially subject to state-sanctioned rape and are at risk of increased domestic violence, forced pregnancy, and negative health consequences, while being denied education and economic opportunity.” Equality Now explains. Yet, nearly 300,000 female children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018, most of them to much older men. And in some states, child marriage is considered a valid defense to statutory rape.

 Child abuse doesn’t stop there in this country. It starts with our inability to end the continuing brutality of gun violence that is the biggest killer of children and teenagers in America. It begs the question, how much do we really care about children when rightwing politicians and the people who vote for them support so-called leaders’ refusal to fund daycare, food programs, and healthcare for children in need, or parental leave so that infants are safe and bonding with their parents? How can we claim to care about children of all ages and ethnicities when Republican legislators try to slash Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, deny healthcare to trans kids and mess with the child tax credit program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program known as SNAP? 

 It's abundantly clear that all children in this country are in serious trouble, physically and emotionally, and that a sizeable swath of Americans in high and not so high places don’t seem to care and are willing to put future generations in jeopardy – all of which raises the real question:

How is it we go on allowing children to suffer (and die), and still delude ourselves that our country is exceptional?

 Perhaps it is, but sadly in is so many wrong ways. Just ask the children.

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Where is Abigail Adams in Today''s Political Discourse?

In all the talk about encroaching autocracy in America and elsewhere, politicians, pundits, media personalities and others need to remember the words and wisdom of the revolutionary first First Lady, Abigail Adams, who admonished her husband to “remember the ladies.”

Another First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, echoed her predecessor in a recent CNN interview with Christiane Amanpour when she called out the absence of misogyny in various analyses of forces at work when countries descend into autocracies and dictatorships.

She was right to do that. In the growing discourse about various factors that prevail when democracies slide into autocracy, white supremacy, race, class and caste quickly rise to the surface as identifiable and frightening factors.  But not a word is uttered about the systemic oppression of women, which has been part of dictatorial regimes and cultures throughout history. 

Examples abound from ancient times to now, with women being treated like second class citizens in almost every country and culture. In ancient Greece women were thought to hinder democracy as the weaker sex. Considered property, they lived in seclusion without rights, valued only as the bearers of male progeny. In medieval times religious institutions kept women quiet and voiceless while the idea of women as property prevailed into more modern times as women were “owned” by their fathers and husbands by virtue of economic indenture and lack of agency in male dominated societies.

Fast forward to the 20th and 21st centuries and consider the fact that women were denied the vote in America until 1920, and dictators like Hitler and Ceausescu mandated childbearing, rendering women nothing more than semen vessels and property of the state, something we are seeing emerge in our own country. Women continue to have limited access to leadership positions, economic parity, and agency over their own lives – largely legislatively ignored and increasingly court ordered.

The question is why.  The answer? It is intentional, overtly or unconsciously, because in a world dominated largely by (white) men terrified of losing patriarchal power, woman are immensely threatening.  The fact is powerful men know that women have different priorities than they do, and that those priorities are grounded in a profound commitment to human rights and social justice, not in greed, moral and financial corruption, massive profits, or overwhelming power. They also know that women are deeply intelligent, strategic, capable people and that they are organizing as never before.

One has only to look at the brave women of Iran who are willing to face torture, rape and murder for “Women, Life, Freedom”, or to consider the courage of Kurdish women who fought on the battleground and Rohingya women standing up to their oppressors.  Or to remember the abuelas of Latin America who never gave up the fight to find their missing children, the women of Liberia and India whose work saved lives and changed policy, the French and Ghetto resistance movement women who helped win a war. Then there were the women who shared their personal stories about rape and sexual abuse at global conferences and with local newspapers, the million women who marched in Washington, DC the day after Donald Trump became president, the women artists, writers, musicians, photographers, organizers, the mothers demanding gun legislation, the lawyers who raised an army of volunteer lawyers overnight to litigate on behalf of immigrants at airports or helped a ten year old raped child escape forced childbearing.  The examples go on and on and on.

That is why male retaliation against women in Iran is so violent, why rape is increasingly a war crime, why the Supreme Court of the United States has rendered women property of the state, why domestic abuse and gun violence against women are on the rise, why books by and about women are banned in such high numbers, , why women are going to jail for having a miscarriage and more broadly why teachers can no long teach history or talk about gay marriage or use certain words, or encourage girls to play sports or to dream of becoming president and so much more.

It all paints a portrait of misogyny at its most extreme because powerful men simply cannot abide a world in which women too are powerful whether in their homes, communities, states, or countries. The very thought of sharing the podium or the parliament or a pay scale with females is completely abhorrent because deep down powerful men know that women bring skills and experience to bear on pressing issues of our time, so they resort o to further and deeper methods of domination, exclusion, and abuse.

And that is why we must include misogyny in the public and private discourse surrounding our deep concerns and increasing acknowledgement that our democracy, and democracy elsewhere, are indeed in a precarious and perishable place. It is why women are choosing, and working hard, to revolt against the evils of autocracy that could well render them “a leaf blowing in the whirlwind,” a destiny that political philosopher Hannah Arendt warned us all against.

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The Wandering Souls of Migration, Immigration, and Asylum Seeking

In her moving debut novel, Wandering Souls, Cecile Pin tells the story of a Vietnamese family desperate to leave their 1970s war torn country. The story opens with the family’s three older children becoming “boat people” in route to Hong Kong where they await the arrival of their parents and four younger siblings who don’t make it. The story follows the three survivors as their physical and emotional ordeal unfolds over decades. It’s a poignant portrait of what refugees and asylum seekers face, putting a much-needed human face on the experience of others.

But it is only one story. There are multitudes more. They are heartrending tales of traveling through deserts, facing thirst and hunger, suffering physical and sexual abuse, surviving family separation. And a growing number of people, young and old, strong and weak, all seeking safety, keep coming in waves in search of human rights, work, and dignity.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), “record numbers of migrants [from just Central America] risked their lives in 2022 to cross the treacherous, remote jungle region bridging Central and South America.” More than 151,000 migrants came to the U.S. in less than a year from countries around the world. Others died trying to get here.

It will only get worse given civil war, political instability, increasing violence, economic crises, and global warming. Currently CFR reports that about two million cases are backlogged in U.S. immigration courts. That number will grow while those already in the system wait years to have their cases heard.

Sadly, the legal and judicial systems make things harder for refugees and asylum seekers by establishing obstructive, unnecessary, bureaucratic barriers that would be challenging for anyone, especially for those who don’t speak English. 

“The U.S. imposes innumerable walls on people seeking safety,” says Kate Paarlberg Kvam, executive director of the Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP) in Brattleboro, Vermont. “Non-citizens in immigration court have no established right to counsel. The government can eject asylum seekers from the country, and they have no right to a lawyer. When people seek asylum here, they are blocked from obtaining work authorization for an arbitrary period of months, or longer. When they do get work, they are frequently exploited.”

CASP, a pioneering organization recognized for its work in supporting immigrants, offers a wide range of services to asylum seekers through a network of volunteers and community partners.  It provides lawyers, assists in securing work permits, and helps people survive until they can work, all while advocating for better policy at state and federal levels. Paarlberg Kvam feels lucky to work alongside people seeking asylum. “Their resilience, their refusal to be beaten, and the hospitality and solidarity they show to one another is a window into a better way to live. Asylum seekers don’t need people like me to teach them how to build a new life – they just need us to remove the pointless barriers that are in their way.”

In her book A is for Asylum Seeker, Rachel Ida Bluff recounts some of what one volunteer witnessed at the southern U.S border. “I have mental images of that wet, chilly day: the teen couple who consider whether to get married as we shelter under the highway bridge, in the hope it would allow them to better keep track of each other; the two-year old in the big, donated white puffy coat who eventually takes a nap in her mother’s arms; the young woman who dials a friend on my cell phone as she walks toward the bus with barred windows that will take her across the border, frantically leaving message in Creole.”

Anyone of these innocent people could have experienced months, even years, in mostly for-profit detention camps or holding facilities without access to lawyers, advocates, or sponsors. They will have been held in cold, crowded cells, given poor food, dangerously inadequate health care, limited hand-me-down clothes and hygiene products, and little emotional support. Who among us could survive that intact?

Sadly, much of immigration policy in the U.S. is driven by economic motives, fear, false assumptions, and stereotyping, all of which add to the trauma of those who have braved escape from inhumane conditions and economic strife. Rightwing politicians have been quick to ascribe the stigma of criminality to people who have suffered in unimaginable ways, resulting in unspeakable acts of violence. That’s why we need to put a human face on immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, who contribute much to our country and communities, practically and culturally. 

I am the progeny of asylum seekers. My grandparents and parents came to North America in the early 20th century to escape pogroms against Jews in Ukraine.  Some came through Ellis Island, where they suffered indignities, but most were immigrants with family sponsors, so they didn’t experience what current asylum seekers do. Still, growing up, I witnessed the emotional and practical impact that experience had on them. It’s part of a legacy that shaped my life. But, outside of anti-Semitic experiences, I cannot imagine the toll taken on others who of necessity continue to seek shelter and welcome in another country, whatever the motivating forces.

We would be wise to remember that except for Native Americans, we are all immigrants in this country.  Our ancestors are among the “wandering souls” that inhabited the place we call home. Can we offer kindness and compassion to those who follow us, at least by looking into their eyes and seeing the pain they reflect?  

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Maternal Mortality, Abortion, and Race: A Dangerous Trifecta

Much has been written in the literature of public health about America’s shocking maternal mortality rate. Occasionally media reports the alarming rate when there is a hook. Advocates concerned with women and health illuminate the problem in reports and at conferences. But in light of the SCOTUS Dobbs decision on abortion, new urgency arose in addressing U.S. maternal mortality and its causes because of the link between reproductive rights and the persistence of inherent racial issues in women’s healthcare.

It is disturbing and illuminating to note the World Health Organization's maternal mortality rate rankings.  The U.S. is 55th in the list of industrialized nations at nearly 24 deaths per 100,000 live births. A 2022 study found that women in this country face the highest rates of preventable problems and mortality when compared with women in 10 other wealthy nations, and that rate continues to go up. The race disparity in maternal mortality is additionally alarming. Black women die at a rate of 55.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, more than 50 percent higher than white women.

That’s one reason Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) and several colleagues in the House introduced a bill earlier this year to specifically address the high rate of stillbirths, which Black women and other women of color are twice as likely to experience as white women. Targeted legislative like that is critical to changing the public health landscape when it comes to pregnancy outcomes and the health of women and children.

So are campaigns like the “Hear Her” initiative at the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), designed to address the fact that women are often not heard, believed, or viewed as reliable when they present relevant histories or symptoms. That problem is worse for Black women too. Research shows that women of color are more likely to be described negatively in notes and reports and recent studies reveal that doctors are most likely to use “stigmatizing language” in their notes about patients of color, referring to them as “noncompliant, challenging or resisting,” as research at the University of  Chicago revealed.

That’s why the all-out attempt to end abortion nationally, ignoring 50 years of precedent regarding a woman’s right to privacy, reproductive healthcare and choice was such a travesty, exacerbating the already shameful maternal morbidity and mortality data which serves as an indicator of continuing racism in this country.   

Black women and their sisters of color are likely to suffer enormously from the consequences of state-ordered pregnancy in the states that cling to misogynistic, racist policies, and not only in terms of their health or possible survival. They will also be affected economically in dramatic ways. A Forbes report suggests they will be deprived of education that can lift them out of poverty, and they will be targets of aggressive invasions of privacy through data searches that enable the over-policing of their reproductive habits and practices. Depending on where they live, they may be subject to fertility and period-tracking apps used by police according to their zip code because they are deemed to reside in high .abortion areas.

In her monumental work resulting in the 1619 Project documenting the history of broad-reaching racism in this country, Nicole Hannah-Jones provides a historical perspective essential to understanding the confluence of maternal mortality, the abortion crisis we now face, and unrelenting racism. Her book provides vital context regarding the connection between those three issues.

The title of both the project and book derives from the origins of slavery in America, dating back to 1619 with much of the book’s relevance focusing on the period of Reconstruction following the Civil War, when a key question arose. What would white America do with black people post slavery? Where would formerly enslaved people fit in a paid workforce? How would former slaves be treated if they were free Americans? What would be done about their education or healthcare?

Southern Democrats resisted these considerations mightily, especially when reformers like Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first black woman doctor in America, laid bare the burdens of being black in a country unwilling to facilitate freedom for former slaves.

Because of that resistance, the National Medical Association formed by black doctors in 1895 called for a national health care system - which went nowhere until the idea became a states’ rights issue during WWII when President Truman called for an expanded hospital system that predictably led to segregation and the denial of healthcare for black people. Later, insurance-based healthcare presented a further hurdle, while medical schools excluded black physicians and medicine became a for-profit, unregulated system. All of this has led to present-day lack of equitable, affordable, accessible healthcare if you are black or poor.

In the midterm election, five states had abortion on the ballot and in all five, voters supported the right to choose. Three of them guaranteed the right to abortion in their constitutions.   That is a huge relief to women in the five states, but it remains to be seen how women of color will fare. 

In Nicole Hannah-Jones’ words, “…arguments about socialized medicine, equity and human rights…echo down to the present day.”  Her book reveals the connections that make women of color exceptionally vulnerable even in this moment, and reminds us that there is still work to be done.

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Elayne Clift writes about women, health, and social issues from Brattelboro, Vt.

The Life Force of Livid Women is at Work

In 1995 when activist, advocate and former Congresswoman Bella Abzug uttered these words at the 4th World Conference of Women in Beijing, thousands of women there and everywhere felt the force of her words: “Women will change the nature of power, power will not change the nature of women. Never underestimate the importance of what we are doing. Never give in and never give up!”

Recently, when I quoted those words to a group of adult learners in recounting United Nations conferences focusing on women that had occurred over 20 years between 1975 and the Beijing conference, some participants struggled to understand what Abzug meant about the nature of power as it relates to gender.  For several days I pondered their questions searching for clarity in how to respond. Then on October 3rd something happened that helped me articulate an answer.

That was the day Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman to be seated on the Supreme Court of the United States, and I realized that the three critical voices of dissent on the badly damaged highest court in our county would now be women’s voices. Their intelligent, impassioned collective legal analysis would still be in the Court’s minority, but having them there, “speak[ing] truth to nonsense” as legal journalist Dahlia Lithwick, author of the new book Lady Justice puts it, highlights a watershed moment in which the nature of power for both women and men is shifting, not symbolically but in real terms, representing a new understanding of how women are reshaping how we live.

Described as “a beacon to generations” in one account of her first day on the bench, it was not lost on legal scholars, and many women, that Justice Jackson has arrived at the Supreme Court at a critical and necessary time. Her effectiveness as a voice of dissent, reminiscent of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s, was apparent when with quiet authority she offered to “bring some enlightenment” to a provision in the Clean Water Act in her response to an attorney hoping to kill the Act.

The voices of women like Justice Jackson and Dahlia Lithwick, inside and out of courtrooms, speak volumes to multitudes of women and their advocates in a time when females are being dragged back to a full throttled misogyny so devoid of understanding, compassion, and justice and so deeply punitive and threatening it boggles the mind.

That’s why acts of resistance like the one Iran’s women are bravely mounting with global support have always existed, whether over female sexuality, the quest for freedom, need for voting rights and economic security, or egregious political acts of injustice. Women in vast numbers through the ages have had enough. They are tired of being silenced, rendered invisible, and metaphorically burned at the stake. They’ve had enough of being told to calm down when revealing their consciousness and attempts at social justice based on lived experience, whether in capitals, courtrooms or communities. They’re exhausted from abuses in the marketplace, the academy, the home, and the mine fields of micro-aggression. They are more ready than ever to self-advocate in the face of misogyny driven violence, abuse and poverty while rejecting discrimination, deprivation, and  unrealistic expectations.

In a recently published LitHub article about her new book Dahlia Lithwick captures this frustration while interviewing numerous women who worked within the legal system. One of them was Anita Hill, who shared this personal story about giving a presentation on Supreme Court decisions. “A young white man said, ‘Aren’t you being a little paranoid? You act as though the sky is falling.’” Hill replied, “Here’s a list [of examples]. You tell me when the sky is falling.” Later she realized “it wasn’t just that the sky was falling. It was because we don’t live under the same sky.” Lithwick adds, “I realized that much like the 6-3 conservative supermajority that now controls the court, they simply don’t live under the same sky.”

Therein, Hill and Lithwick capture a key problem. As Lithwick puts it, addressing charges of paranoia and hysteria, “The mirror image of telling a woman you believe her is telling her she is being hysterical. … That is the real problem when women’s pain is substituted for actual justice.” And as she points out, “our very presence is outrageous. The fact that we even say anything is a sign of resistance.”

It is that resistance to insults and dismissal that I think Bella Abzug was reaching for when she spoke of gendered power in 1995. She knew, of course, that not all the world’s women would be with her along with the thousands of women who came to Beijing, nor would they all welcome the change women so badly need. But she also understood that for millennia, power has been the purview and prerogative of men, a notion that has been considered a social norm, despite women having always been a profound presence seeking justice and human rights, rendering themselves a thorn in the side of patriarchal power.

Women’s voices and calls for justice are always fundamental to resisting imposed silence, so Bella’s clarion call to a fatigued sisterhood who needed to be infused with new energy and hope was deeply important in that moment. It’s also why Judge Jackson’s presence on the Supreme Court now, along with Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, is so very important. 

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Elayne Clift writes about women, politics and social justice from Brattleboro, Vt.

Actions Have Consequences: The Supreme Court Should Know That

It was like standing alone on a nuclear landscape. Like being in the center of a dystopian nightmare. Like being on a sinking ship without a life vest. At least that’s how it felt to me as the Supreme Court’s decisions were handed down, one after the other in their recent session.

Stunned and frightened like so many others were, I wondered whether the faux Christian, conservative justices on the Court had any idea what the consequences of their hideous decisions would be as they ended a term in which civil rights in America were systematically ended. Did they willfully ignore what would happen because of their Draconian decisions, did they not have a clue, or did they simply not care?

Was this the legacy they wanted to leave their children and grandchildren, let alone the rest of us? Did they have any sense of the consequences, intended or otherwise, for American citizens, and the planet? Do they grasp the context of our Constitution, or the concept of democracy? Do they really hate women and others unlike them this much?

As these questions roiled in my head, I thought about some of the consequences the justices’ rightwing agenda presented, beginning with what would befall women and girls who no longer have agency over their bodies and lives, or access to reproductive health care.

Among them is a ten-year old child pregnant by paternal rape being denied an abortion in Ohio,  women with pre-eclampsia – high blood pressure that can be fatal to mother and baby when not treated urgently, women with gestational diabetes, a condition that can be harmful to mother and baby, women with ectopic pregnancies in which a fertilized egg attaches to the Fallopian tube instead of the uterus, an emergency situation requiring immediate care to prevent a fatal rupture, women whose lives are at risk because of  drastic fetal anomalies.

 Now women with these urgent or other reproductive healthcare needs are too frightened to seek timely reproductive care while providers are increasingly unwilling to offer it, both for fear of being prosecuted. These examples offer a small glimpse into what will happen to women and girls because of the Court’s decision to end Roe v. Wade, but this much we know: Many of them will die. So will women who elect to have an illegal or self-induced abortion for any reason.

I also thought about the death knell being sounded for the fragile, struggling planet on which we live due to environmental degradation and the global warming crisis. Just these staggering statistics are enough to send chills down my spine: “Every hour, 1,692 acres of productive dry land become desert. We are using up 50 more natural resources than the Earth can provide.” What’s more, “We have a garbage island floating in our ocean, mostly comprised of plastics - the size of India, Europe and Mexico combined!” 

Further, “The effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today, and will worsen in the decades to come,” according to NASA. “Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted, and trees are flowering sooner,” while “effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.”

Against these chilling facts, six Supreme Court justices saw to it that the Environmental Protection Agency would now have limited ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants “making it nearly impossible to cut greenhouse as emissions any time soon.” In their dissenting opinion three justices said the majority had stripped the E.P.A. of “the power to respond to the most pressing environmental challenge of our time.”

When it comes to separation of church and state the conservative majority outdid themselves. Recent decisions included a ruling in favor of a Christian group’s plea to allow a flag with a cross on it to fly over Boston’s city hall. Another decision allowed for taxpayer money to cover tuition for students attending religious high schools, while the six Supremes decided in favor of a high school football coach who led Christian prayers on the playing field  after games.

Then there’s states’ rights. Again, the Scotus-6 opined against New York State's concealed carry law requiring state residents to have a permit to carry a gun in public.  That law’s requirements for a permit were specific and in the public interest but when two guys who wanted to carry guns publicly were denied permits, they appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled the state law violated the 14th and Second Amendments. The decision proffered that the Second Amendment protects the public carry of firearms and set up a new test for courts to determine whether a law violates the Second Amendment.  New York's law was struck down, and other laws like New York's are likely to be struck down now.

Is it any wonder these frightening, tip-of-the-iceberg rulings made me feel like we’re approaching nuclear winter?  Bundle up. The Supreme Court is just getting started.

Feminism Isn't Dead, It's Exhausted

Just days before the horrific Supreme Court decision that killed Roe v. Wade, a grievous act that rendered women and girls property of the state and subjected them to forced childbearing, a spate of opinion pieces appeared bemoaning the fact that feminism was all but gone in the face of massive backlash. Feminists I admire wrote disheartening columns that included expert opinion, research findings and personal analysis.

New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote that “As the backlash gains steam, a lot of feminism feels enervated. There had been a desperate hope, among reproductive rights activists and Democratic strategists alike, that the end of Roe v. Wade would lead to an explosive feminist mobilization, that people committed to women’s equality would take to the streets and recommit themselves to politics. But after the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it’s far from clear whether a political groundswell will materialize.”

Susan Faludi’s New York Times piece argued that pop culture, celebrity, rampant consumerism along with fierce individualism has fueled not just a backlash but a subtle generational divide in which younger feminists can be said to fight against “practical impediments to equality,” while second wave feminists (like myself) were “old-fashioned shoe-leather organizers” who were “oblivious to race and class.” In making her argument against generational conflict she asks for “a reckoning with feminism” that “goes beyond generational indictments. It’s an admirable goal that has merit but her language seems to fuel the divide.”

What these two essays have in common is a focus on millennial feminism and their collective analysis should be taken seriously, But what troubles me is the notion that feminism, in all its variations and iterations, has spawned a powerful backlash and become divisive to the point of annihilation. As a second wave feminist I reject that idea having worked, marched, protested with and mentored millennial women. The feminism of my generation, flawed though it has been, is not dead; it is exhausted. In the words of the beloved civil rights leader Fanny Lou Hamer, we are simply “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Our fight has been long and arduous and unless you’ve been through it it’s impossible to grasp what it took to keep on keeping on, and how punishing it could be – which leads me to some thoughts on younger feminists.

First, with due respect to millennial women who never experienced a pregnancy scare in pre-Roe v. Wade times, times when women couldn’t get credit without a male guarantor, could be fired for being pregnant, couldn’t earn anything like what men doing the same work did, had no recourse to domestic violence, and more, there are lessons to be learned from those feminists – their mothers and grandmothers - who preceded and fought for them. Sadly, they are about to find out what it’s like and what it takes to begin again from the ground up. When they do find out their elders will be marching, protesting, voting, lobbying and more by their side. There will be no false dichotomy because we are all women who have been there or find ourselves there now. In that sense, context, as older feminists know, is everything; and “the personal [really] is political” because what happens to one of us can happen to all of us when male power presides over our lives.

In that context I urge young women to educate themselves fully about women’s history and courageous fights for equality, full personhood, social justice and human rights in this country. Our battles cross every sector of society and we have fought them well so that our daughters and granddaughters could lead better lives than many of my generation did.

As I tell my young friends, there is a qualitative difference between pussy hats and T-shirt slogans, and social media is not the same as showing up in big numbers, which takes organizing on a scale that can feel overwhelming. (Just ask Stacy Abrams.) Also, it’s deeply important to understand the politics of power, and the power of politics in order to think and act sufficiently strategically so that change becomes a new reality.

I’m not arguing against a new, different feminism; as the wise Greek philosopher Heraclitus knew, “The Only Constant in Life Is Change.” I’m making a case for a hybrid feminism that doesn’t fall prey to conflict among its constituents for lack of context, depth, and experience.

As for the disastrous decisions of a Supreme Court run amok, Rebecca Traister offered this call for hope: Noting that the situation is “wretched and plain” and will get worse,” she wrote in The Cut, “the task for those who are stunned by the baldness of the horror, paralyzed by the bleakness of the view, is to figure out how to move forward anyway. … because while it is incumbent on us to digest the scope and breadth of the badness, it is equally our responsibility not to despair.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Tina Smith agree. Writing in a New York Times op ed., they noted that this is a “dark moment” that “will require a long, hard fight.” As second wave feminists, they know what they’re talking about. “The two of us lived in an America without Roe v. Wade, and we are not going back. Not now. Not ever.” I’m with them.

The Death of Stare Decisis and the Demise of the 4th Amendment

I was out of the country in May when news of the SCOTUS leak in which Justice Samuel Alito’s policy statement went viral.  I hadn’t watched TV for a week and barely signed onto social media but when I did, I read astute and deeply troubling reactions to the document designed to overturn Roe v. Wade, which has been considered established law for 50 years.

The document Justice Alito wrote was supported by four of his Court colleagues, revealing unsurprisingly that a majority of the Court concurred with ending women’s right to abortion. The timing of the leak was significant; it occurred when the Court was scheduled to rule on the constitutionality of a Mississippi abortion law which prohibits abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

If the Court finds that the Mississippi law stands, it will have sanctioned ending Roe v. Wade, allowing states to make their own laws regarding abortion. Some states have already established Draconian laws that include charging women with murder if they miscarry or have an abortion. Some have ruled that physicians who perform abortions can be charged with a felony crime and some have set up vigilante laws that could affect anyone who helps a woman get an abortion.

Essentially the demise of the constitutional right to abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy will end women’s right to abortion in over half the states in this country. The implications are huge, not only for American women but for the future of the country, and they are abundantly clear.

Many analysts and pundits have written cogently and urgently about the legal, physical, economic and emotional consequences for women and others in this country, and for all of us with respect to our civil and human rights. As a women’s health educator and advocate I am all too familiar with those consequences. I have heard women’s testimonials, read their memoirs, listened to their stories.  I have helped them access abortion care and as a doula I have helped them give birth to much wanted babies.

After the Alito document was revealed (and during the last confirmation hearings) I thought about the great legal minds of the past who had served on the Supreme Court, Justices like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg among them. Now I mourn what has become of that institution, where several judges lied under oath to Congress regarding precedent, and where many are willing to ignore the Constitution’s 4th amendment right of Americans to be “secure in their persons” and to “not be violated or subjected to “unreasonable searches and seizures.”  

It pains and frightens me that faulty - some might say puerile logic - superficial, antiquated, cliched justifications, overt sexism, and religious ideology are blatantly on display. (It is worth noting that seven of the current justices are Catholic and no Protestants are on the bench).

Couple that with the less than stellar records and legal experience of several justices, the alleged sexual harassment conduct of two justices, the conflict of interest on the part of a justice whose wife actively supported the insurrection, along with the majority’s willing abrogation of civil and human rights and one can question where “liberty and justice for all” has gone.

How, I ask myself in these traumatic judgment days, has this largely trusted American institution so quickly deteriorated into depravity? How did its majority come to rely on bumper sticker taglines, social media tropes, and arguments so weak and sloppy that they wouldn’t pass muster in a law school? Where has compassionate consideration in difficult matters gone? Why have context, untoward consequences, and the reality of people’s lives disappeared?

The fact is the Supreme Court has become a political organization with its own dark agenda and its reputation will forever be tarnished, all because four men and one woman who should know better, appointed by a far right, self-serving autocrat, are now seated for life on the highest court in the land, along with several hundred inappropriate federal judges.

The price we’ll all pay for judicial travesties, individually and together, grows ever clearer and more threatening. If Roe v. Wade is overturned women’s lives will be destroyed. Precedent in other matters (gay and interracial marriage, LGBTG rights and more) will no longer be valid, and revision of laws that wreak havoc because of ignorance and a taste for punishment will return. 

It is no stretch to say that we will become an even more divided and dangerous nation, two-tiered and binary in ways that we can’t yet imagine. Violence is likely to flourish along with racism, anti-Semitism, sexism and increased marginalization. The elderly, young, disabled, and ill will suffer even more profoundly.  Murder charges, incarcerations and suicides will become commonplace. Poverty will prevail for those in the 99 percent, while corporations and billionaires flourish. Family structures will be deeply and sadly impacted. The earth will be at risk sooner than predicted. 

This is not solely about women’s rights, and it is not hyperbole. It’s a harbinger of what is to come because of laws we must live with, who makes and enforces those laws, who adjudicates disputes, what national priorities are established and by whom. It is about the future, which now is in the hands of the Supreme Court – a court plunged into decline that endangers us all. 

It’s a court that is beyond disappointing, a court with extraordinary power to shape our lives, and it grows ever more dangerous.

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Elayne Clift writes about women, health, politics and social issues. www.elayne-clift.com

Another Day, Another Newtown: The Obscenity of Gun Violence

When news of another school slaughter broke, this time again in Texas, the bile that rose in my throat was as bitter as the memory of Columbine, Newtown, Parkland – and the other grievous incidents of gun violence in schools – all 554 of them since Columbine, as NPR has reported.

From the Carolinas to California, 27 school shootings are among the 200 mass shootings this year alone in America, and it’s only May.   But this is not a time for numbers. It is a time for unprecedented action borne of rage about what is happening in our country. It is also time to answer burning questions: why is it happening, and what are we going to do about it? It is a time to shout our disgust and dismay, to demand gun legislation now, and to take action to end the slaughter of innocent children.

Here is what I believe must happen NOW. All living presidents (with the exception of Donald Trump) should stand together before Congress and declare that we are done with thoughts and prayers. We are done with the platitudes that surround grief and loss. We are done with inaction, and with turning the other way because political power is more important than loving our babies, especially among those who champion fetuses but ignore the needs of living children.

Go on strike because that is what it will take – teachers, clergy, workers, moms, women and men alike. Call for and participate in a national strike against violence and the insanity of mass murder. Bring down the economy as well as the evil that prevails on Capital Hill if that’s what it takes to stop the killing.

Call it what it is: a public health epidemic, not a gun violence or mental health issue.  We can and must learn the lessons of pioneering health communication campaigns, including, against all odds, the successful fight against the tobacco industry, which saved the lives of hundreds of thousands and demonstrated that people are capable of change.

It is vital for Americans to vote, this year and in 2024, with all the energy a soul can muster.  Stand in line for days if that’s what it takes to be counted among the family of humankind, and the families who must now endure unimaginable and unending sadness.

Most importantly, Americans who want the massacres of innocents to stop must demand an end to the filibuster and lobby for killing the Second Amendment -- the only way to halt the madness we’ve grown used to. Forget appeasing the irresponsible, vicious right wing with calls for limited legislation; go for the one thing that can stop gun violence faster and more conclusively than anything else -- an end to an irrelevant and antiquated amendment written before bullets and rifles that tear bodies apart in seconds were invented.

I believe that what lies at the heart of the tragic problem that is ours alone among developed countries is this: We are a nation wedded to violence and we always have been.

From the time white men first set foot on American soil guns have been used in genocides to eliminate non-white Native American peoples. During slavery guns were a way (along with physical punishment) to ensure forced labor and to instill terror among human beings who were bought and sold. Throughout our entire history guns have been part of our increasingly lethal war arsenals and today the sale of weapons in the U.S. is higher than it has ever been, while the people least likely to be killed by a bullet are made exceedingly rich.

Killing, it appears, is in our DNA. Mass murder has come to define us, whether through war, incarceration, racist law enforcement, the consequences of ignoring poverty while clamoring for personal and financial power, and random gun violence. All of it results in deep-seated human pain in a nation that is “exceptional” in all the wrong ways. We must end our killing fields if we are ever to have pride in a country that asks us to pledge our allegiance.

We have become a country in which the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, appears at NRA’s convention, held in Texas, three days after 19 children were brutally shot to death there, a country where a former president who tried to overthrow an election, and a Senator from Texas who thinks we need more guns, join the governor. It is a country that exposes the personification of evil and reminds us how often scum rises to the top.

So I say this to Governor Abbott: Have you, at long last, no decency? And to Ted Cruz I say: You are not sorry. You are guilty. You have colluded with mass murderers. May the words spoken to me by a 4-year old child ring in your adult ears for all eternity: “Sometimes sorry is not good enough.”  As for Donald Trump, there are no words.

To all the others akin to these monsters, I say only this: We condemn your evil. We will inscribe your names and your deeds and your selfishness in the world’s history books, and we will celebrate the end of your cruelty for all our days.

The Act of Resistance Through Art

Goya did it in 1814 with his powerful painting “Third of May” which depicted the horror of war in the face of a screaming soldier being shot to death. So did Picasso in his iconic 1937 painting “Guernica,” a stunning indictment against the suffering of innocent people during the Spanish Civil War. Diego Rivera did it in his famous 1920s mural renderings in Mexico that attacked the ruling class, the church and capitalism.

Resistance art is a longstanding tradition that has grown larger over time as a form of political protest grounded in the mobilization and activism of people who wish to resist nonviolently. It has come to represent popular power and strength by offering activists something to rally behind, as art historian and critic Ruth Millington has pointed out. “Protest artwork can question, disturb, and even change the status quo,” she says, citing AIDS awareness campaigns in the 1980s and the more recent Guerilla Girls, a group of anonymous feminist advocates who got their start pushing for gallery representation of female artists. Now they protest, speak and perform, their identities concealed since they are working artists. Their humorous in-your-face posters, flyers, billboards and books are widely recognized and revered.

For all of history brave and creative people have fought oppression, injustice and inequality through various forms of art. They have stood for and led those who are without voice, marginalized because of their class, gender, age, disability, race, or social status. They have been the embodiment of the slogan “Power to the People” as they lead the way in acts of defiance that inspire connection and conviction.

Today protest art is even more important and possible thanks to the prolific possibilities of social media. It also takes numerous forms beyond paintings and poetry. But all of it, whether literature, drama, dance, puppetry, posters, or strobe lights on public buildings, it speaks volumes, encouraging public gatherings and passive resistance.

Music can also move people to action. Think Arlo Guthrie, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan.  Or YoYo Ma playing the Ukrainian national anthem on his cello in front of the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C. Or just think of the beauty of the little girl with the golden voice who sang from a bunker in Ukraine and went viral.  Watch the Ukrainians singing their national anthem in front of Russian tanks.

Photography can also be social reform art.  The work of 1960s photographer Diane Arbus revealed the pain of poverty and otherness, while the work of Margaret Lange, whose “Migrant Mother” moved millions during the Depression and Dust Bowl days.  Social reformers like Jacob Riis used their social reform photography to bring evidence of their claims of injustice to viewers, conveying potent messages that engaged others. They communicate ideas that resonate across time, place, and context.

Such ideas are shared in the simple act of witnessing. Who would not be moved by the overwhelming crowds of protesters all over the world moving silently along the boulevards of their cities, placards in hand, as Ukrainians suffer? Who could not be mesmerized by the courageous woman fleeting across a live Russian state TV program with a placard that said simply, “Stop the War!” Who is not motivated to act in whatever why they can when we witness bombed babies and birthing mothers on Facebook and Twitter?

Whether it’s a universal image of a closed fist on a poster, a bit of graffiti on a building or bridge, an outrageous visual by the Guerilla Girls, or a simple rendition of the Ukrainian flag, powerful images like those of Iranian artist Shirin Neeshat, who advocates for women in Iran, call us to action because, as she says, “Art is our weapon.”

It is also a common thread among those of us who wish to be counted in the struggle against cruelty, injustice, and violence, and to those of us who want to bring about positive societal change. In light of all that this fragile world is confronting in these times, I am grateful for all forms of art that humanize and galvanize us, as they move us to resist when resistance is needed.

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Elayne Clift writes from Saxtons River, Vt. 

What the Supreme Court Has Done to Women

“My friend and I drew up to a drab brown brick building.  An older man, shrunken and slouched, opened the door furtively. We climbed a flight of stairs in a putrid green escape well and emerged into a hallway, then entered a dark apartment.  I imagined fleeing down the stairs but then considered the consequences.

“’Wait here,’ the man commanded.  After a few minutes he reemerged from another room and asked me some questions. I tried to stay calm.  I felt as if I were sinking into a huge hole from which I might never emerge. ‘Come with me,’ he said, leading me into what must have been a kitchen.  It had a table in the center of the room, at the foot of which, between stirrups, was a lamp on a stand, and a stool. The table was covered with a sheet of white paper with a thin pillow on it.  Next to it was a tray bearing silver instruments and a large jar. The man told me to take off everything from the waist down. There was no privacy screen. I asked him for something to cover myself. ‘You won’t need that,’ he said.  ‘Just get on the table.’

“He put my feet into the cold stirrups. I’d never been exposed like that. I felt dirty, naked into my soul. I shivered uncontrollably. He handed me a towel, but no blanket.  I wondered if he would wash his hands or put on gloves.  I stared at the ceiling, tears dripping from my eyes.  Why wasn’t there a nurse, I wondered?  He came toward me with a wad of gauze in his hand. ’Breathe,’ he said, forcing the gauze down on my mouth. I thought I would suffocate. 

“Then I woke up still on the table, legs straight, a sheet over me. Pain burned between my legs. I felt as if my stomach had been pulled out of me.  The man fiddled with instruments.  I heard a whimper and realized it came from me.  I passed out. When I woke the man said, ‘You need to get up and leave. Get dressed.’ He handed me a sanitary pad.  I rose slowly waiting for the dizziness to stop. The pad I had shoved between my legs felt saturated already. I hoped I wouldn’t die.”

That did not, in fact, happen to me. I imagined it for a novel I was writing.  My character was one of the lucky ones who did not die from a back-alley abortion, and I was lucky too because despite a few scares I never needed an abortion. But I knew lots of women who did. I covered for a friend who had to flee the U.S. to get one, and because I worked in women’s health I knew where to refer my friends, single and married, for safe abortions.

Now here we are again, having just passed the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which gave women agency over their bodies and their lives. It is inconceivable for those of us who remember life before legal abortion and who fought hard for reproductive control to find ourselves back in the trenches fighting for the sovereignty of self as the Supreme Court drags us backwards, starting with the Court’s support of Draconian laws launched in Texas, soon to be followed by as many as two dozen other states, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The Court’s shocking position and lack of knowledge about, or regard for, women’s lives and the role that reproductive autonomy plays in those lives is staggering. It is a Court that views abortion as easy birth control instead of a deeply difficult choice, and adoption as an good way out of parental responsibility. It’s a court that has no concept of pregnancy confirmation, fetal viability or the lifelong trauma of rape and incest.

Neither does the Court have a clue or a care that without safe abortion there will still be unsafe abortion resulting in death, irreparable psychological harm, and possible suicides among women of childbearing age. Many other women will be deprived of economic security, quality of life aspirations, or the fulfillment of life goals.

“The erosion of reproductive rights is a result of raw, bare-knuckled politics, of a minority exercising their power over a majority,” Cecile Richards, past president of Planned Parenthood, wrote in a New York Times essay after the Court’s latest decision regarding SB8, the Texas law that limits abortion. “The millions of Americans who are watching, horrified, as the Supreme Court prepares to roll back a right they have had for nearly half a century need to be just as dogged and determined. But it’s going to take unprecedented levels of political activism to fight back.”

Perhaps it is Justice Sonia Sotomayor whose words ring out. "This case is a disaster for the rule of law," Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion.  " It allows the State yet again to extend the deprivation of the federal constitutional rights of its citizens through procedural manipulation. The Court may look the other way,  but I cannot.”

Nor can women who will pay the price of a cruel procedural manipulation.

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Fanning the Flames of Poverty

A child plays with a lighter in a three-story apartment building in Philadelphia resulting in a fire that kills twelve people, mostly children. A malfunctioning hallway door in a Bronx high-rise apartment building leads to the death of seventeen people, including eight children – all within one week. Both tragedies housed low-income people. Both speak to the need for compliance with coded housing safety measures.

In the case of the Bronx high-rise building a self-closing door malfunctioned, filling a staircase with rapidly spreading suffocating smoke. The building had no fire escapes and residents reported that the building had door problems for years. They also reported persistent heat and fire safety issues, including fire alarms that no one actually paid attention to because “they rang at all hours of the day.”

In 2018 a fire in a residential building in the Bronx killed another dozen people. At the time, Rep. Richie Torres (D-NY) was a Bronx City Council member. He co-sponsored a bill that mandated all residential buildings in the Bronx have self-closing doors by the middle of last year. Now he has announced a federal, state, and local task force to examine residential building fire safety hazards. “We have to ensure that the housing stock is brought to the 21st century when it comes to fire safety, and the Bronx is no stranger to deadly fire,” he told the local press.

According to the press report, the Bronx building, built in 1972 under New York’s affordable housing program, only had sprinklers in the basement because, as a spokesperson for the owners of the building said, “its ceilings and floors are poured concrete and its fire doors are sufficient to make the building qualify as “non-combustible.” It’s worth noting that the current building owners include the son of a for-profit affordable housing developer.

Safe, affordable housing is a critical issue that gets little attention until there is a tragedy. Profit over people is usually the name of the game among developers and building owners, and politicians often look the other way or just don’t find time to address the urgent problems inherent in housing for low-income residents. Those problems often create health as well as safety issues, yet they remain ignored or skirted around because they are part of a complex, failing infrastructure too long denied, not only because of the expense of ensuring safety, but because building tenants at risk are not a high priority group for many building owners or politicians.

Sometimes it’s a matter of benign neglect on the part of landlords, but more often than not in large cities like New York, corruption fuels code breaking. And no landlords are more corrupt than so-called “slum landlords” whose neglect is criminal.

Take, for example, Jared Kushner, whose abuse of tenants was documented in a film by Alex Gibney called “Dirty Money,” in which one person interviewed called Kushner a “tier one predator.” According to the documentary, Kushner’s properties “have received hundreds of health code violations, including the presence of lead paint, lung carcinogens, and fire safety hazards.” In many documented cases, “the New York City Housing authority had issued violations but never followed up on collecting fine payments” nor had they checked to see if Kushner’s company actually fixed any dangerous living conditions.

Not all landlords rise to the level of Kushner’s abuse, but there are enough bad players that one guy’s mission in life is to keep landlords out of trouble. He calls himself “the real estate solutions guy” on his website which warns building owners about twelve common code enforcement violations. They include missing or inoperable smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, plumbing, heating, and electrical deficiencies, insufficient ventilation and rodents and infestations. Some cities, he adds, separate priority and non-priority violations. On his list of non-priorities? Missing or non-functioning smoke detectors.

Jessie Singer, in her forthcoming book There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise in Injury and Disaster – Who Profits and Who Pays the Price, points out that “the term ‘accident’ itself protects those in power and leaves the most vulnerable in harm’s way, preventing investigations, pushing off debts, blaming the victims, diluting anger, and even sparking empathy for the perpetrators,” her publisher, Simon and Schuster, says, adding “As the rate of [all] accidental death skyrockets in America, the poor and people of color end up bearing the brunt of the violence and blame, while the powerful use the excuse of the ‘accident’ to avoid consequences for their actions.”

That insight gets to the heart of the matter when it comes not only to building codes and fire safety but to the fundamental human right to safe, adequate shelter, as expressed in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, which begins with these words: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing …”

As Jessie Singer said on an Instagram post following the Bronx tragedy, “Seventeen people in the Bronx died in a fire for the same reason that many Americans die in a house fire in 2022, because the only housing accessible to them is housing that is unsafe.”

In 2022, that is not only a human tragedy. It is a national disgrace.

The Supreme Court Takes Aim at Women

 In her memoir Recollections of My Nonexistence Rebecca Solnit writes, “To be a young woman is to face your own annihilation in innumerable ways.” Nothing proves her point more powerfully than the debacle of the Supreme Court as it debated the likely demise of legal abortion in this country.

With stunning ignorance of and disregard for women’s lives, five men and one woman in black robes pontificated and danced around the real issue before them -- women’s bodily integrity, agency, and personhood.  Instead, they reprised the overwhelming oppression of females that has existed for millennia in fear of women’s autonomy, thereby joining the generations of (mostly) men who view women as nothing more than state-owned semen vessels.

The argument before the Court aimed at gutting 50 years of precedent in the matter of abortion reminded many women of the medieval practice of disappearing women into convents and monasteries and later into asylums where they were diminished, demoralized, and drugged into passivity.  

Imagine this: You are a woman with three children living in poverty when you have a contraceptive failure and are forced to carry the pregnancy to term.  You are a woman 19 weeks pregnant with a much-wanted child when you learn that anomalies render the fetus unviable and continuing the pregnancy could endanger your own life, but you are denied an abortion. You are a college student who has been awarded a scholarship for advanced study when you realize you are pregnant.  Denied a safe abortion, you schedule a clandestine, illegal one. You are a 13-year-old child who has been raped by her stepfather and is now told she must bear her rapist’s child.

Try to imagine living with the crippling fear these scenarios engender.

And yet the Supreme Court is trying mightily to hold women hostage because macho-male powerbrokers are so threatened by the idea of female agency that they must control women at all costs and condemn them for believing they are entitled to fully lived lives grounded in equality and human rights.

There is, of course, one woman among the six justices chomping at the bit to effect the demise of legally sanctioned abortion. She should have been able to relate to issues relevant to pregnancy, for she too has borne children, felt them wiggle in her belly, done the hard labor of delivering them into the world and loving them when they arrived. Yet she argued that women don’t need abortions because they can easily dump their newborn babies into adoption or foster care like so much detritus, while her male colleagues grappled with numbers, the vagaries of viability, and the rights of fetuses over living women.

The reckless and dangerous disregard for women’s lives and lived reality during the justices’ discourse was nothing short of staggering as it showcased America’s Taliban.

It was also shocking to hear Scott Stewart, lawyer for the state of Mississippi which seeks to limit abortion to 15 weeks as a gateway to overturing of Roe v. Wade. His responses to questions from the justices were befuddled, obfuscating, superficial, and just plain ridiculous. This is the man Donald Trump put in charge of immigrant detention centers without any qualifications for the job.  Still, he was kept busy keeping monthly updated logs of females’ menstrual cycles during their incarceration to prevent legal abortions from happening.

How draconian can you get?

The foundation of entrenched, continuing misogyny women face yet again is what women like Emmeline Pankhurst and Alice Paul fought for when they risked their lives for women’s’ suffrage, what Margaret Sanger sacrificed in her fight for contraception and sex education, what Second Wave feminists fought for when they marched in every country in the world before, during and after the UN Decade for Women.  It is what women like Virginia Woolf, Tillie Olson, Betty Friedan, Carol Gilligan, Carolyn Heilbrunn, Audrey Lorde, and the multitudes who preceded or followed them wrote about: The trivialization, objectification, marginalization and silencing of over half the population in this country and elsewhere.

None of us who have been in the trenches for years fighting for equality, autonomy, economic justice, reproductive health care (which includes abortion), privacy, choices, and other basic human rights – all of which are at risk with this Supreme Court -- thought we’d find ourselves back to Square One in this moment, living in fear, facing limited opportunities and the denial of our chosen paths. Never did we imagine that in the 21st century we would again live with the oppression of patriarchal power, such that sexism, racism, and violence prevail.

When Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked this question during the SCOTUS debate, “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” she was asking a question so vital that it could have an impact on the outcome of the case being considered.

That question also invoked the patriarchy and misogyny that once again prevails as a dominating force in women’s lives. Sadly, especially for our daughters and granddaughters, the stench of annihilation is likely to be with us far into the future.

The Arming of America

The verdict is in. The vigilantes are celebrating. Kyle Rittenhouse is free.  The postmortem predictions of what it will mean for us as a society begin, as does the fear for our future as we face a freefall into more violence while our country descends into the depths of depravity acted out on the streets.

It is now possible to kill someone in the name of self-defense and literally get away with murder. It’s a field day for open carry laws that make going to a public event or riding the subway or simply walking down the wrong street at the wrong time a determining factor in whether you live or die. It is a dark day in America.

Gun violence was bad enough before Kyle Rittenhouse killed two people and walked away a free man. But as a recent New York Times piece about the proliferation of “ghost guns” – untraceable guns that can be assembled from online purchases of components – has made clear, America’s gun problem has reached epidemic proportions. These lethal weapons are within easy reach of people legally barred from buying or owning guns which, as the Times article revealed, “helps explain why since 2016 about  25,000 privately made firearms have been confiscated by local federal law enforcement agencies nationwide.”

Earlier this year the Children’s Defense Fund issued a report about the epidemic of gun violence affecting children. It revealed, among other statistics, that gun violence has killed more than 200,000 children and teens since the 1960s. “That’s more than the number of soldiers killed in Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq combined,” with black children suffering the highest gun death rates. In 2019, according to the report, they accounted for 43 percent of child and teen deaths even though they constituted just 14 percent of all children and teens that year.

Women are also among those most vulnerable to gun violence. According to the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, “nearly 92 percent of all women killed by guns in high-income countries were American women, [who are] 21 times more likely to be shot and killed than women in other high-income countries.”  https://efsgv.org/ Further, “around one in four women in the United States have been threatened with a gun and nearly 1 million women have been shot or shot at by an intimate partner. Over half of all intimate partner homicides are committed with guns and a woman is five times more likely to be murdered when her abuser has access to a gun.”

According to www.everytownresearch.org, every month an average of 57 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner. Black, American Indian, and Hispanic women are disproportionately affected by gun violence, along with members of the LGBTQ community and people with disabilities. That’s why Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Ca.) has introduced a number of relevant bills including H.R. 1441, the No Guns for Abusers Act, designed to help states enforce existing laws against people who try to purchase firearms without the legal right to do so.

The epidemic gun violence affecting women and children are part of the entire fabric of gun violence in this country, a phenomenon that other “developed” countries simply cannot fathom. They, ghost guns, and now the exoneration of Kyle Rittenhouse are connected like the parts of a quilt, similar to those that have woven into them pieces of history.

One of the pieces of our history is the outdated Second Amendment, meant to arm militias in the 18th century. It’s an amendment no longer relevant, and a shield behind which gun enthusiasts hide. It’s an amendment that fuels the likes of open carry advocates, eager vigilantes, and people comfortable with and prone to violence all too eager to claim self-defense, often a defense rooted in racism. It’s an amendment that allowed Kyle Rittenhouse to be exonerated.

So far, according to a September CNN report, “2021 is likely to be the worst year for gun violence in decades.” What’s more, in October The New York Times revealed that a significant number of travelers have been stopped at U.S. airports trying to board planes with loaded guns.  Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers report stopping nearly 5,000 passengers from carrying firearms onto flights by October this year.https://www.tsa.gov/

Now comes the conservative Supreme Court which recently heard a gun rights case in which the majority could make it easier for people to carry firearms in public. According to Time Magazine, “justices could loosen or strike down a century-old provision in New York that requires people to prove they have a special need for self-protection if they want to carry a concealed handgun outside of their home. The challengers in the suit—backed by the NRA-affiliated New York State Rifle & Pistol Association—argue that the restriction violates the Second Amendment.”

As we await the SCOTUS decision, the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict has already added immeasurably to America’s growing gun violence epidemic. It has effectively declared open season on the gunning down of America. It fuels an unchecked impetus toward violence and vigilantes and increased an escape valve when gun violence occurs.

God help us all. 

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Whatever Happened to Pay Equity?

Poor Lilly Ledbetter must be tearing her hair out.  She is the woman, you may recall, who “sought justice because equal pay for equal work is an American value” some years ago when she learned that she was earning significantly less money than men doing the same managerial work in the Alabama tire plant where she worked for nearly 20 years.

Her legal fight ultimately led her to the Supreme Court in 2007, where in a 5-4 decision, the Court “stood on the side of those who shortchanged my pay, my overtime and my retirement just because I [was] a woman,” she lamented, after the Court ruled that she didn’t report the inequity within the required six months, even though she didn’t discover the discrepancy for nearly two decades. “In the end,” she said, “I didn’t get a dime of the money I was shortchanged.”

What she did get, ultimately, was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, signed into law by President Barack Obama. The law allowed individuals who faced pay discrimination to seek rectification under federal anti-discrimination laws. It also clarified that wage discrimination based on age, religion, national origin, race, sex, and disability would “accrue” every time an employee received a paycheck deemed to be discriminatory. It was the first bill President Obama signed and it became one of several federal laws designed to protect worker's rights.

Prior to that, in 1963, the Equal Paycheck Act, signed by President John F. Kennedy, made it illegal for employers to pay women less for performing the same jobs as their male counterparts. However, it had several loopholes that needed to be addressed. Then Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of sex.

The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 added to those prior acts by reversing the Supreme Court decision that upheld the short statute of limitations for wage discrimination claims that had killed Lilly Ledbetter’s case.

In 2014 the Paycheck Fairness Act was first introduced in the Senate by former Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), essentially as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, but it failed to be adopted.

In January this year Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act of 2021. It passed in the House in April. This bill addresses wage discrimination on the basis of sex, which includes pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics

.

A requirement of the Paycheck Fairness Act is that employers must provide detailed information to the federal government that ensures the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Labor have the necessary tools to enforce laws against pay discrimination, including employment-related data from employers analyzed by race, gender, and employees’ national origins.

The Paycheck Fairness Act also prevents retaliation for discussing salary with colleagues and prohibits employers from asking about a person’s salary history. In addition, it allows workers to participate in class action lawsuits that challenge systemic pay discrimination.

That’s all well and good, but why are women still earning 82 cents on the dollar (if they’re white) compared to men and what are the ramifications?

The first thing to understand is that the gender pay gap exists in every occupational category even when accounting for educational levels, skills, and worker’s choices. Assumptions like the ones men and managers often make are a big part of the problem.

For example, one assumption is that women choose lower level or lower paying work because they are mothers who bear the brunt of responsibility in meeting children’s needs. But as the Covid crisis revealed, the lack of childcare in this country leaves women little choice.

Such assumptions ignore the underlying causes of workplace discrimination and often lead to women being pushed out of their chosen career fields. Some of those underlying causes, in addition to not having affordable childcare, are the lack of adequate parental leave policies, flexible working conditions, paid family and medical leave, which most industrialized nations offer.

Importantly, advocates for equal pay underscore the fact that pay discrimination occurs in almost every field of work. Women, who are over-represented in the lowest paid industries, take the hardest hit. Collectively, women lose hundreds of thousands of dollars annually because of the pay gap driven by gender and race.

That loss has real-time, long-term consequences. Underpaid workers, primarily women, suffer lowered social security benefits, retirement pensions, and personal savings, which is why so many female elders find it difficult to survive with dignity in their later years.

The Biden administration understands this dilemma and has a committed focus on pay equity, a particular interest of Vice President Kamala Harris. Major corporations will soon be dealing with multi-million-dollar settlements in class action equal pay claims, and employers are likely to face big changes and a lot of scrutiny with regard to pay equity, not just around gender, but also around race. In addition to federal efforts, states are beginning to step up their equal pay laws too.

All that bodes well, but as we know, things move at a snail’s pace when it comes to enacting and enforcing legislation. Until there is true equality in wages and salaries, women are among many people who continue to wait for fairness in the workplace. For them, 82 cents on the dollar remains inadequate, and clearly insulting.