I took part in the preliminaries, sort of, at the Women’s March on Washington-Portland. I came home early for various reasons, but have been watching the pictures and messaging flow across the Portland March’s Facebook Page. I have been dismayed by the number of people trolling the page and accusing the marchers of whining or only marching in support of abortion. There are also honest questions posted by those who don’t quite understand what is going on or what the point is, which is totally acceptable and to be expected.
What I find most troubling is the number of women who are telling other women to shut up and stop whining since women have it worse in other countries. Most of them also claim that they have never been discriminated against. I really don’t have a problem with them having their own opinion or bringing up women’s problems in other countries. My issue is that they are trying to silence other women (unwittingly acting as agents of the patriarchy, imnsho). Apparently they have quite an investment in their status (as in “what is the payoff”?), even if it is only to avoid their own discomfort in facing the truth of misogyny and their own privilege.
One concept brought up by Mary Daly in Gyn/Ecology (tinyurl.com/jjqcnse) keeps coming back to haunt me these days, that those who are in control (usually elite males) get the women to buy into the system of control (usually by defining the terms of what constitutes morality, which is heavily invested in women’s sexuality). Women then become enforcers vs. enforcees. This keeps women divided and prevents them from unifying and rising up. In today’s world, the Republicans are quite adept at using abortion and birth control as dog whistles regarding women’s sexuality.
Make no mistake, restriction of abortion began as a racist reaction to a fear that whites would become a minority (tinyurl.com/...). So we can’t have white women having sex wantonly, or aborting white babies… can we? We must keep white women producing only white babies. So women, especially white privileged ones, denigrate other women’s choices, thus enforcing the racist & misogynist control, and keeping women, minorities, and other marginalized groups from uniting.
It’s also troubling that free speech is being stifled. It seems that the women telling other women to “shut up” or “stop whining” are more than happy to exercise their free speech rights while preventing others from doing the same. We need to be asking them what they are gaining by maintaining the status quo.