Part IV: The War on Women

Like we have argued previously, there is probably hyperbole in using the words ‘war’ and ‘women’ in the same statement. However, it might behoove one to understand the essence of why this even came up. There is, in fact, a semblance to 6 blind men trying to describe an elephant. Each one has a different take and although each will be wrong based on the whole picture, the blind men’s descriptions of the elephant will be spot on. That is how complicated the war on women is. The war itself is made even more complex considering that it is fought on individual women’s battlefronts. When a woman gets pregnant, she does not have an army of supporters, cheerleaders or opponents there with her. When a woman is being battered by her husband, there is no one else right there with her. When a woman gets raped, it is her against her attacker. The entire collection of battle fronts and their stories combined with the different post event interpretations might make up the parameters of a war on women.

Alternatively, the world has, for over half a century now, sought ‘guidance’ from America on how to move towards civil liberties and human rights. Stemming from this country’s war for minority rights and the rights of the African Americans, there is a beaten path available to achieve an end for women and all those who seek a place in the sun. There are questions about what a free woman around the world looks like. Well … It might be a little easier to imagine in some tribes in Kenya considering that they are matriarchal societies, or better still, apply it to the specific circumstances. For example, domestic violence in Uganda might be a little more pronounced than the domestic violence in Tanzania. For these circumstances, freedom or rights for women in Uganda might mean stringent legislation and law enforcement to stave the tide of abuse.

Conversely, if the Democratic Republic of Congo is the rape capital of the world, women ought to be given tools to protect themselves against attackers or more importantly, the central government there ought to provide a police force that ensures the peace. In each case, the rights of women are very specific, very personal and ultimately in need of direct attention to root cause.

That is why this so called ‘war in women’ in the U.S. is a little jarring. In the state of Virginia – a state that shares a border with Washington, D.C – there was an anti abortion provision that [before it was struck down in embarrassment] stipulated that if a woman sought to have an abortion, some sort of electrode or probe was to be inserted into her vagina to ‘educate’ her on zygote or fetus growing inside her. In the end, this was to prevent her from going through with the pregnancy termination. One can only imagine who came up with this bright idea. The Governor of Virginia could not even bring himself to respond to this with a straight face when asked about it by a friendly media house in May 2012.

Another Governor – this time in the State of Arizona – recently proclaimed that her state would no longer fund Planned Parenthood – a nationwide organization that provides reproductive health for women. While this organization is the face of anti abortion campaigns, abortion is not what it does the most. It also provides medical care for under privileged or poor women and they also look for early warning signs of breast cancer in women. Defunding them probably means that fewer women will be able to discover that they have cancerous cells carousing their veins! There are 26 other states looking to do all kinds of things to prevent women from choosing whether they ascend into motherhood or not.

At the center of these things above is a huge grey area and also, a battle for the soul of America. The grey area is that women cannot be expected to make proper choices in the first place if they have the ability to get themselves in a situation where they need an abortion. This is important to dwell upon. And secondly, the conservatives and progressives, represented by the Republican and Democratic party respectively are currently fighting for supremacy. The victor will protect women by ensuring that their reproductive rights are sacrosanct. Interpretively, one side will do this by regulating what a woman can do, when she can do it and how she can do it in the eyes of the Lord while the other one will try to shore up a woman’s right to choose – even though the woman ‘made’ the mistake of putting her life in danger in the first place. Of course this is not the best way to present the differences between the ideologies and parties. However, like the blind men and the elephant, this is how sad it can get when we think of the battles, the war and forget that the elephant in the room – the individual woman – is being completely ignored.

Dennis Matanda,
Editor – [email protected]