A Man's World: Our Countries Stance on Women Takes a Dark, Regressive Turn
*Article from Lexington Lines Autumn/Winter 2022 Issue, pages 7-11
Check out the full issue here
Source: The Boston Globe
The date is June 24th, 2022. I am sweating bullets at my retail job, a clothing boutique in Westhampton Beach—a place where filthy rich city livers come to soak up the summer’s rays while working out their credit cards on Main Street.
But for me, Westhampton Beach is where I have to greet everyone with a smile on my face while they parade through the store, throw clothes all over the place, and on multiple occasions, call me fat.
On this particular day, the store was pretty empty. The room felt cool without any sweaty bodies running around. The smell of coconut-scented sunblock and bay water filled in the gaps, reminding me there was a beautiful beach right outside.
I sat there with my co-worker, Maggie, likely complaining about the woman who told me all our clothes are ugly. All of a sudden, today’s most reliable news source, the one your iPhone provides, displayed a banner on my screen.
“ Has Been Overturned by The Supreme Court,” it read.
Roe v. Wade? I was dumbfounded. I looked to my right to find Maggie with her mouth agape and tears in her eyes.
If I had to describe this moment in the nicest way possible, what we felt was pure terror. Terror for ourselves, our children, and women around the country that won’t have access to safe and legal abortions.
Enacted in 1973, Roe v. Wade allowed women access to abortions. At the close of this case, the United States Supreme Court found that “unduly restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional,” Britannica reports.
I decided to look up a picture of our current Supreme Court. I will admit, before the overturn, I kept up little with politics.
But is this really politics?
My Google search results did not surprise me. Seven men. Three women. Need I say more?
I did what every Generation Z member does when there’s political uproar—I posted about it on my Instagram story. I shared links to donate to states that banned abortions and posted in support of women everywhere—but it didn’t feel like enough. Or anything really.
Source: BBC
So I began to read. I read and read and read until these horror stories made my brain feel like a time bomb: one more story, and I would explode.
The New York Times reports that 13 states have fully banned abortions: Idaho, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky.
Georgia has banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, and Utah have banned abortions after 15-20 weeks.
20.9 million American uteruses have been restricted, reports the Washington Post. 20.9 million women will face the risk of an unwanted pregnancy or an illegal, possibly unsafe abortion.
“The World Health Organization estimates that 30 women die for every 100,000 unsafe abortions in developed regions, while 220 women die for every 100,000 unsafe abortions in developing regions, where abortion access is limited or impossible,” reports News Nation Today. “The term ‘unsafe’ refers to both self-induced methods and illegal procedures performed by non-physicians.”
The Supreme Court has attempted to silence 167.5 million American voices.
I read about a 16-year-old girl identified as Jane Doe. She is pregnant and orphaned, living in Flordia, a state that banned abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
A Florida court denied Jane, a minor, her bodily right. The court ruled that “she is not mature enough to make that decision,” per NPR.
But is she mature enough to carry a child without any support?
I also read about a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio. In July 2022, she was raped by Gerson Fuentes and ultimately impregnated.
The 10-year-old stood in front of an Ohio court and was told she could not have an abortion, though Ohio still allows the procedure.
Forbes reveals that the child was forced to travel to Indiana, where she was able to have an abortion via RU-486, which consists of two separate doses of mifepristone and misoprostol.
The bodies of rape and incest victims are not free. The bodies of women are not free.
Over the days, weeks, and months that followed the overturn, it felt like every other day a new company was making a statement in support of abortion rights—in support of women.
In response to the overturn, “several leading companies like Apple, Citigroup, Netflix, and Salesforce are expanding healthcare benefits.”
In today’s climate, it is hard to say if these brands are just trying to keep up appearances, but the more people speaking up about this injustice, I thought, the better.
Source: Forbes
As a New York resident, I still have access to safe abortions. But my heart still aches for my sisters. American hearts are aching. The world as a whole is aching.
The outcome of the Roe v. Wade decision affects women across the United States, but especially underserved groups.
“Many of these states are in the South, which has large shares of Black and Hispanic women, the Plains, which has a large Indigenous population, and the Midwest,” states the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit focused on health policy analysis. “To obtain an abortion, women in states that prohibit abortions would likely have to travel out of state, which will result in disproportionate barriers to accessing abortions for people of color.”
I decided to go to Washinton Square Park on a warm, late September day. The sun was beaming, but I felt cold. I wanted to talk to people about how they’ve been feeling since the overturn.
Pacing around the park in circles, I found myself filled to the brim with anxiety. I dodged people left and right, avoiding asking them any questions.
Just go up to somebody, I thought. Why can’t I do this?
I noticed a vigil for Mahsa Amini decorated the park’s famous arch.
I had read about Amini in the New York Times a few days prior to this. She was a Muslim woman that was beaten to death by the Iranian mortality police for breaking the nation’s hijab laws.
Reading about her and seeing the graphic images of her in the hospital had made my stomach turn.
Source: New York Post
There were three young Muslim girls standing around the vigil. They were holding signs that requested donations in support of Mahsa Amini and Muslim women as a whole. I decided to talk to them about Amini, and I donated to the cause.
The teenage girls told me about the lack of rights women have in countries such as Iran. They aren’t able to drive, can’t attend college, and must always be covered in public.
The overturn of Roe v. Wade is their issue too, I thought.
“I am honestly so scared for my future,” one of the fifteen-year-old girls told me.
She had a blank expression on her face. The was no trace of exaggeration.
Another told me she is scared to be in sexual situations because of this. Though the overturn hasn’t restricted contraceptives—yet—it is still just as easy to get pregnant.
“We are forcing women that can’t afford homes for their children to start their lives when they are far too young,” the teen expressed. “We are also forcing them to run away and have unsafe abortions.”
“We need to keep talking about it,” the girls kept saying. “We need to keep talking about it.”
Roe v. Wade is not only an American problem, it is a global one. Banning abortions in a country that is famously “free” sets a precedent for other modernized countries.
Overturning Roe v. Wade tells countries that don’t allow women access to education, that brutally beat them for breaking clothing laws, that it’s okay because America is doing it too.
Source: Time
I started to think about women around the world. I thought about FGM in some African, Asian, and Middle Eastern countries.
FGM is female genital mutilation. The World Health Organization explains that FGM “involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”
Bishara Sheikh Hamo, a Kenyan woman, told the BBC that she underwent this process at 11 years old. She was told that FGM would make her “pure.”
Though this is a cultural practice in many countries, it can be extremely harmful to the physical and mental health of women because the procedure is done in their adolescent years.
“Women with FGM/C often show signs of psychological trauma: anxiety, somatization, depression, post-traumatic stress and other mood disorders,” FGM/C Toolkit reports.
The overturn affects these women as well. It helps normalize the attitude that a woman's body is subject to the design of her government.
I read a short story titled “America” by Chinelo Okparanta. The story is about an LGBTQ+ Nigerian woman named Nnenna. Her family was critical of her sexuality because they believed as a lesbian, she could not start a family.
Okparanta seamlessly compares the environmental devastation of Nigeria to fertility. Since Nnenna is apart of the LGBTQ+ community, her family feels there is a loss of fertility.
At one point in the story, her father says, “The seed cannot be planted.”
The fetishization of family is a major contributor to the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Queer theorist Lee Edelman coined the phrase “Reproductive Futurism” in 2004. This concept “places all future hope on children,” reveals the Manifold Organization.
Notoriously, women around the world are expected to provide children. The idealistic pro-life family will be plentiful with them, but this is not feasible for all women.
The CDC reveals that one in five American women are not able to have children due to infertility issues such as PCOS, Endometriosis, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, and many other conditions.
Source: Crosscut
Fetishizing families puts pressure on women to reproduce despite any financial, medical, or emotional complications.
The expectations dehumanize the female experience, turning them into an incubator rather than a person.
If the Supreme Court stripping away the rights of American women has not affirmed that history is doomed to repeat itself, I am not sure what will.
Overturning the infamous Roe v. Wade case has raised questions about LGBTQ+ and human rights in general. And it seems like they’re just getting started.
The center will not hold.