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love_katz

(2,584 posts)
4. She is right.
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 04:34 AM
Mar 18

I think that the evilgelical talibornagains who are trying to overthrow our democracy and replace it with a theocracy want exactly this kind of complete powerlessness and subservience for all women. This is proven by the hateful and punishing laws that the fundy fanatics are proposing and passing: forced birth by banning abortion; forced marriage marriage marriage by outlawing no fault fault divorce; taking away birth control; outlawing affirmative action in education and employment; refusing to pass the prevention of violence against women act. I could go on and on. I'm at the end of my sixties. I remember with crystal clarity what it was like when women had no rights. The woman who gave everything to her marriage and kept nothing back for herself ended up in poverty and misery because the kind of marriage that fundies want to impose means that the woman only receives whatever her husband chooses to grant her. Ultimately, it is a kind of slavery. She and other women like her has little chance of escaping poverty and the oppression that goes with it. I wish that this clip could be shown in every high school and college in the land. Religious fanatics are not pro life. They hate women and are perfectly happy if we die from pregnancy complications, if our children live in poverty after a divorce or because we were forced to give birth to a child engendered from rape. They want to return us to the time when it was legal to discriminate in employment. I really hope that women wake up and learn to stand together. We need the ERA. We've not made it to having equal status where we can stand on our own. Some of you are more concerned about our black sister eating during the video. I think it is her message that is important.

ecstatic

(32,731 posts)
8. It's disturbing how quickly Americans forget these things
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 07:21 AM
Mar 18

The woman in the tiktok video did all of that for her husband and was tossed aside like trash. It's a powerful and chilling message. We've already lost reproductive freedom but apparently, that might be just the tip of the iceberg with regard to what's coming for women.

My question is what are women going to do this fall? Especially older white women who were around back then?

love_katz

(2,584 posts)
11. I'm intensely angry and heartbroken.
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 07:49 AM
Mar 18

Back in the 1960's and early 1970's so many women worked incredibly hard to end the injustice and discrimination. I just can't accept that so many people have forgotten what it took to make the gains that we did. I'm aware that it was mostly due to legislative push back from groups like the Heritage Foundation that began undermining the gains that women and minority groups had made that began the downhill slide. They managed to conceal what they were doing from most of the public. The information that helped me see that my intuition was correct didn't become available until the late 1980's I think? And anyone who tried to share this information was scorned and shouted down. Those were the years of Reagan and both Bushes. As Rachel Maddow has shown us with her book and podcast, Ultra, our country seems to have a very short memory.

BlueWaveNeverEnd

(8,052 posts)
21. young women got a wakeup call with Dodds. Online, they were "WTF" to the politicians discussing when/if/how
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 09:14 PM
Mar 18

a woman could terminate a pregnancy "if she was raped and reported it, and had the abortion within 2 days", etc...

Young women were SHOCKED by the rhetoric by the cold discussions of their bodies as if they had no say.

love_katz

(2,584 posts)
5. I have one more comment.
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 05:05 AM
Mar 18

Most of my sisters of color that I've known have always had this awareness. Most of them have had to work full time outside the home because of economic discrimination. And they are very aware of the dangers and misery from poverty, which happens to most women following a divorce. You can only count on child support if you can afford a really good lawyer and if the court can succeed in garnishing the wages of your former spouse. My ex moved out of state and was able to get paid under the table by being self employed. The two things that saved me from having to live in my car was that I had avoided having kids and my parents helped me get back on my feet. My ex went on to earn a half a million dollars per year, and he only graduated from high school with my help. I had my high school diploma and some scattered college, but it was never enough to get me a decent job. Please tell the young women, they need good job skills and money of their own. Unfortunately, we live in a world where too many people hate women and want to control and punish us. Like Fauni Willis said, men are not a plan. Partnership should be for enjoyment. Women need a back up plan if it doesn't work out.

ecstatic

(32,731 posts)
9. Agreed. I was raised to be independent.
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 07:28 AM
Mar 18

Both of my parents worked and my dad would always tell me to get my education. Fast forward to now, they probably think they went too far because now I'm a single mom who is not in a rush to get married.

Sorry you went through that with your ex!

love_katz

(2,584 posts)
13. You are in a better position to have a successful relationship because you have a backup plan.
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 08:13 AM
Mar 18

I really believe that women are more likely to be successful in having a good relationship with a life partner when we have options. Having a good income, your own money, including a good savings and retirement account, and even your own home provides a much more stable platform for creating a mutually satisfying partnership. Financial problems can be a huge stressor on relationships. Thanks to social programming, women are more likely to enter a relationship with stars in our eyes and often don't think about the drawbacks of putting all of our eggs in one basket. I hope you will be able to resist pressure to couple up. A man is not a plan, nor a guarantee of happiness. This is true for all types of relationships, including our relations in LGBTQ+ relationships. We could all use more teaching about how to have relationships that really benefit both parties and more options and support if we need to go separate ways.

no_hypocrisy

(46,191 posts)
7. Waiting for the other shoe to drop:
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 05:45 AM
Mar 18

Banning sterilization for men and women.

So, no abortion, no contraception, no sterilization.

And add to no alimony and no child support: limited federal support, e.g., term-limited food stamps and subsidies.

And add to that, b/c as a single mother, you have limited income to raise your children including adequate housing, food, medical care, education, etc., the state's Child Protection will take away your children, terminate your parental rights, and make you pay for the foster care until your child is adopted.

ecstatic

(32,731 posts)
10. That would be insane! But
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 07:35 AM
Mar 18

I have a hard time believing they will ban that option for men. Wherever we're headed, I'm confident that men will have all of their rights intact at the end of this.

TSExile

(2,476 posts)
12. Exactly.
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 07:57 AM
Mar 18

I was telling my pastor just a few weeks ago that the fundagelical Republicans - especially those with power and money - are after women because they hate women. This is an unmarried man in his late 20s. He was trying to calm me down, and I said that it was easy for him to say because straight white men can write their own ticket.

love_katz

(2,584 posts)
14. This issue has really hit some hot buttons for me.
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 08:31 AM
Mar 18

The young woman who talked in the TikTok video about her experience after her divorce really pinpointed how marriage is not a panacea for women, especially since religious fanatics want to rip away every bit of progress that we've made. She was in a position of illusory privilege as long as she remained married to a well off provider. But after her husband threw her away, like trash, the painful cruelty of what the GQP actually intends for women came crashing down on her. I really want to thank the woman who put this video together. I think she understands very well what kind of lies are promoted to white women in order to get us to believe that the discrimination and injustice of a misogynist society won't affect us. We need to GOTV, and VOTE BLUE. Our lives and children depend on it!

Sympthsical

(9,115 posts)
16. Effective? No.
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 09:17 AM
Mar 18

The video of the woman itself is compelling. Should've just shared that by itself.

But why did we slap a snacking lady on it and racialize this story for no reason? Women of color don't experience shitty relationships like this? It's a white woman thing where a man treats her like trash and doesn't support her?

Also, I kind of love this stuff on TikTok. It hits my "Why?" buttons. She's just snacking through the video for some reason? Why? She's lecturing specifically white women. Because, god knows, being abandoned with kids and no child support is a *checks* white women thing. Ok?

But seriously, the snacking through it slays me. Like, why would you film that? It's an issue so important, you gotta chew through it.

The original video is an important story though. Drop the framing. The framing is a massive turn off. This is catnip for the bubble and a few flagellants, but just about no one else. Incoming, "Ackshully, it's important, because white women . . ."

Yeah, yeah.

I think I'm stuck on this. Why is she filming herself snacking disinterestedly when she wants people to take the video seriously?

ecstatic

(32,731 posts)
18. Understood and
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 07:04 PM
Mar 18

thanks for answering. To be honest, I thought it was funny but now I'm wondering if, despite the headline, maybe her target audience was really black women voters?

I plan on getting more active online in the run up to the election so it's important for me to know what will help vs what will hurt or be offensive.

Sympthsical

(9,115 posts)
20. Despite my flip tone, the core video is an important one
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 09:14 PM
Mar 18

And one can easily point to it and say, "Republicans want to shred the social safety net. Here's why that's dangerous for women."

The framing just got to me. Like when the bagel bites (I think?) came out, I wasn't even listening to the core video anymore. I was absolutely fascinated by this person who is somehow managing to center herself in someone else's tragedy and snacking while doing it.

It's sublime social media absurdity in some highly specific way. I wish I were interested in content creation. It would be so much fun to satirize this by creating a character for social media who layers themselves over the worst possible videos and acts completely oblivious and inappropriately during the video they're sharing. Just crazy shit going on in the foreground.

It could work.

WhiskeyGrinder

(22,436 posts)
17. White women believe that their allegiance to white supremacy will protect them; many refuse to believe it won't until
Mon Mar 18, 2024, 09:37 AM
Mar 18

they lose those protections -- and even then, they won't do the work to dismantle it. It's very easy for a white woman to watch that and think, "That would never happen to ME, I would marry the right man/work the right job/vote the right way/whatever."

Response to ecstatic (Original post)

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