States in which abortion becomes completely illegal might come to resemble countries where men rape largely with impunity
Photo of prayers for an Indian gang rape victim by Ramesh Lalwani on Flickr
Controlling women's fertility has been the number one tool in the patriarchal misogynist's box for thousands of years. When a woman has no say in whose babies she'll have, or how many, even when she doesn't want any, she's trapped in an iron fist. She's forced to stay home and raise children, even if they were conceived by incest and other rape.
This keeps her conveniently out of the workforce, where she competes with men for good-paying jobs, and forces her to be dependent on just one, so she must service him sexually and cater to all his other needs. He no longer has to be 'sensitive' or concerned with her feelings. They're back to gender roles as misogynist prophets pretending to channel god(s) intended women to fulfill: Servicing men's needs, no different from slaves.
It's what the Republican Party has been about all along. Re-subjugating women, turning them back to utter control by men, by making sexual consent extremely dangerous again. For women.
Babies are the best male harness for women, ever.
Here's an ugly, uncomfortable truth for American women: It wasn't some bizarre Patriarchy coup. They can thank a lot of American women, particularly in the South, for consistently voting against body autonomy and sexual consent.
Some voted as they did, often litmus-test on abortion, out of a sincere belief that it's murder. Can anyone fault them? One has to vote one's conscience and anyone who truly believes abortion is murder must vote against it.
But even as we point fingers at how conservatives only value human life once it's safely past a vagina, American women have never been collectively enough in favor of choice to ensure genuine personal freedom. Republican women, particularly those schooled in misogynist fundamentalist religion, have historically been more closely divided. In 2019, Republican women were nearly equal at 49% willingness to overturn Roe vs 48%. Democratic and left-leaning women supported keeping Roe by 83%.
I'm not sure they really thought through, though, what it would mean for themselves. What will life will be like in those states that immediately rescind any legal route to abortion?
Source: Guttmacher Institute
Women will be forced to bear rape babies in states with no exceptions. Perhaps female Republican voters (mostly white, some Hispanic, very few black) haven't considered what no-exceptions-abortions means for themselves personally in dictatorial states - how rape may well become weaponized further against women with now zero body autonomy. And how their daughters and other loved ones may be put on trial for murder if they miscarry. Or leave the state to procure a legal abortion.
Or whether they'll die at home rather than risk seeking medical help.
Or what it will be like raising rape grandbabies, at least those not tossed in dumpsters.
Where women's bodies are under total male rule, rape becomes unofficially acceptable, if technically still against the law, except for marital rape, which no longer is a crime when a wife, his 'property', 'has' to let her husband have sex with her, whenever he wants.
It becomes more difficult to leave unhealthy, abusive marriages when all he has to do is keep her knocked up so she can't run away. Or he can forcibly impregnate his girlfriend so she can't leave him, or the state, with his fetus in her belly to expel it on her own terms.
This may not be as much of a concern for fundamentalist religious women, who who've internalized misogyny and have been trained all their lives in submission to male authority. Less religious Republican women may experience buyer's remorse.
How much longer will it take for misogynist men to dehumanize the fetus and turn it back to what it was in Exodus, male property, the same as a wagon or a mule?
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. - Exodus 21:22
It won't be much more of a stretch for no-exception states to become more like Pakistan, where a woman who reports a rape to police is arrested for committing adultery, and 72% are further abused in prison, including by the police. Or in most parts of the Middle East where male relatives can murder their daughters for shaming the family with extramarital sex, whether consensual or not.
Our so-called feminist left won't help. Their weak refrain for decades has been, "Rape will stop when men stop raping." Yeah, that's the ticket. Wait for men to decide it's wrong, rather than forcing accountability not only of rapists themselves, but the legal and justice systems. Or more importantly, making better choices of who to allow into your life. Let me know when it's safe to visit the United States again.
Feminist predictions will soon become near-total reality: "Don't report it, you won't be believed."
Or worse, get arrested for being a filthy ho.
The Guttmacher Institute has estimated more than half the country - 26 states - will ban abortion once the Court issues its final decision, which could come as early as this summer. They range from outright bans to partial or near-bans, with some 'trigger laws' that 'fire' as soon as Roe is overturned.
We've considered how women are treated in countries where women's rights are to shut the hell up, support your husband unquestionably and keep your vagina at home where it belongs, and cluck our tongues at how 'backward' they are and how privileged we are to live in a country where women have actual rights.
We have met the enemy and s/he is us.
Less civilized American husbands will soon be empowered to rape their wives and keep them pregnant and terrorized at home 'where they belong'. Girls whose families, religious, or social cultures prize female virginity now have a new excuse to sequester them at home the way women in traditionalist, patriarchal countries overseas are, to ensure they're not 'ruined' by unauthorized entry, consensual or not.
Best for her to cover up and not tempt men with her womanly body.
It's women's responsibility to keep men chaste and pure, because it's never the men's fault. CC0 2.0 photo by Ben Schumin on Wikimedia Commons
Perhaps we couldn't conceive of a world without Roe again. Or thought we could become India, a country with a notorious systemic rape and sexual violence problem. We're not there yet, but even now, not enough American women have considered how easy it might become to rape a woman into one's control. After all, in the Bible she was forced to marry her rapist.
It's getting harder and harder to blame 'The Patriarchy', when the Republican 'Matriarchy' supports male power and the Regressive Left fears its own.
Men weaponized their penis thousands of years ago and have agitated against the loss of their power for the last hundred years as American feminists consistently won more rights and pushed their equality. It's why speaking out too much, possessing too-powerful a voice against misogyny and patriarchy results in de rigueur rape and gang rape threats.
Raise your hand if you're still on the fence about women as property, ladies
Many American women, at heart, are consciously or unconsciously uncomfortable with female power.
We can blame conservatives for the current state of affairs, but we ignore how willfully blind and blissfully un-self-aware many feminists on the left have been for decades.
Victim feminists pay much lip service to 'empowerment' and 'taking rape seriously', railing against the 'Patriarchy', unaware of their own internalized fear of empowerment. They tell men how they must stop raping and abusing and take its victims more seriously, yet reject suggestions that women take back their power by protecting themselves better from predatory, toxic masculine men. Don't blame the victim, BE the victim!
Stay weak and powerless and cringe with fear in your safe space. Slap the Patriarchy!
I've been wondering what American feminists will do now. Are there enough strong enough to stand up against a horrific potential miscarriage of law or will they fold up like good little victims and research herbal emmenagogues on Google, at least until Republicans ban those too?
Or will it finally galvanize them to fight back in ways men didn't consider before they voted against women's body autonomy?
I honestly don't know.
What this could mean for men
It's not all roses and rape for American men. Unpaid sex will become much less available in states for women with no options. Some might attempt a Lysistrata protest, although I don't see it happening as a widespread phenomenon.
Returning abortion rights to America may take many years and likely decades.
Women with financial resources may migrate to states where their rights and autonomy are respected, leaving men in bass-ackwards states with a dearth of women (rather like China and India today). That won't work out well for the ones unable to leave. But upside! Fewer women to take 'their' jobs.
I'd hoped the near-certain loss of Roe might turn the midterm elections bright blue, but this year's Congressional election polls so far are turning red. It might take a decade or two of rape and dumpster babies, or religious nuts deciding next that girls don't need to go to school, because reading only agitates them and the only thing she should think about is how to please her man.
Women in Arkansas, 2023. CC0 2.0 photo by Arnesen on Wikimedia Commons
Maybe Republican women are more at peace with rape and abuse than Democratic women. I don't know. Women voting against their own interests and freedoms has always mystified me.
"Will you believe us NOW you need to vote Democrat to protect women's right to choose?"
"Not yet."
It's widely speculated Republicans will go after birth control, and marriage laws next. Maybe not condoms, because men still want to be selective about who they've decided will have their babies, and no one wants certain skanky hos to get pregnant. Or it might not matter if Republicans remove any laws mandating male responsibility for illicit conceptions.
Several different possibilities this year could play out for women. The Supreme Court might rethink its position, considering how overturning Roe could permanently affect their and their families' safety in a violent, divided America. American voters might think harder about who or what they're voting for. The Roe draft might be amended for less harshness than the leaked draft. Maybe God will soften five Supreme Court Justice hearts so His girl-children don't suffer as they did for thousands of years before those uppity bitches of First Wave feminism began angling for the vote. Men knew it wasn't going to stop there, no matter what Suzy B and Liz said.
Or maybe Roe really is almost over, and it will be open season on women's bodies with re-weaponized penises.
I sure wouldn't want to be a woman living in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, or 23 other states right now. But most of all I'm glad I don't live in Alaska, which already has the highest rape rate in the country, which far exceeds the national rate.
We are about to understand the real meaning of living in a Patriarchy.
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