This Week in the War on Women - Election Day Edition

First, a rant.By this time next week we will know whether we will have elected the first woman president of the US, or perhaps the most misogynistic president/vice president pair in history. Why this is even a question is beyond me though I recognize some of the reasons — racism, misogyny, the normalization of Trump’s outrageousness and deterioration, righteous indignation at the Biden administration’s continued arming of the genocide in Gaza, the continuation of an alternate reality in which too many people live, failure of the media to cover all this fairly, cowardice of most Republicans in government. All these are factors but this couldn’t be happening without a good deal of simple denial that none of this is normal. The main thing is for every sane person to turn out to vote — it won’t be the crazies who decide this election, it will be the sane ones who realize or don’t realize that there is only one sane way to vote this year. Here in Arizona, it matters. I already voted, and checked online to see that my ballot was accepted. But there are some sane ones who may not feel free to vote, and it fits with this series all too well. Rabecca Solnit wrote in The Guardian :Lots of memes and tweets and posts and videos are popping up, assuring women that they can keep their votes secret from their husbands and boyfriends. The unspoken assumption is that lots of women are bullied, intimidated or controlled by their partners, specifically in straight couples when she wants to vote for Harris and he supports Trump. The messages assure these intimidated voters that they can vote in peace and privacy at a polling place. But a lot of Americans now vote by mail, which generally means they fill out their ballots at home, where that privacy may not be available.On the one hand, I’m glad there’s outreach to those voters. On the other, the way these messages are framed seem to regard the grim reality that a lot of women live in fear of their spouses as a given hardly worth stating outright, let alone decrying. I get that right now we’re fighting for the future of democracy in America, the public version in which rights and norms and the rule of law are preserved – as the Washington Post humor columnist Alexandra Petri put it: “I am endorsing Kamala Harris for president, because I like elections and want to keep having them.”But a lot of households are not democracies; they’re dictatorships. This may impact public life, in that it seems to generate a meaningful amount of voter intimidation and suppression. As in previous election cycles, people doing door-to-door outreach to voters are encountering men who prevent their wives from even conversing at the door or who believe their registered-Democrat wives are Republicans and women fearful of speaking or of disclosing their party and chosen candidates.www.theguardian.com/...Kamala Harris spoke on Tuesday at the Ellipse in what has been called her closing argument. I personally thought she delivered. YouTube VideoSee you next week.In Other NewsAbortionFrom ABC News- Abortion Rights Initiatives Are on the Ballot in 10 States Arizona is one of those states; we have a whole lot of terrible initiatives to vote no on, and this one proposed constitutional amendment to give a resounding yes.From Mother Jones- The Catholic Church Is Spending Big to Defeat Abortion Rights Ballot MeasuresFrom USA Today- Anti-Abortion Groups Want Supreme Court To Get Rid of Protest-Free Zones at ClinicsAnd from NPR- Faced With Obstacles to Abortion, Military Women Have Built Their Own Support SystemProPublica is running a series looking at deaths of women whose emergency care was delayed because of abortion bans. One of these is the case of Josseli Barnica, whose death from sepsis came after Texas passed a fetal heartbeat law before the Dobbs case overturned Roe v Wade:Barnica is one of at least two Texas women who ProPublica found lost their lives after doctors delayed treating miscarriages, which fall into a gray area under the state’s strict abortion laws that prohibit doctors from ending the heartbeat of a fetus.Neither had wanted an abortion, but that didn’t matter. Though proponents insist that the laws protect both the life of the fetus and the person carrying it, in practice, doctors have hesitated to provide care under threat of prosecution, prison time and professional ruin.ProPublica is telling these women’s stories this week, starting with Barnica’s. Her death was “preventable,” according to more than a dozen medical experts who reviewed a summary of her hospital and autopsy records at ProPublica’s request; they called her case “horrific,” “astounding” and “egregious.”www.propublica.org/...*****ViolenceA US army soldier has been charged with murder in the death of a fellow service member at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, the military announced Thursday.The army office of Special Trial Counsel charged the 21-year-old specialist Wooster Rancy on Wednesday with murder and obstructing justice in the death of 23-year-old Sgt Sarah Roque.Originally from Ligonier, Indiana, Roque worked as a mine-detecting dog handler – was reported missing 20 October. Her body was discovered in a trash bin on the base two days later.Roque is at least the third Hispanic female US army soldier to be murdered in a high-profile case since 2020.www.theguardian.com/...I find that last sentence alarming.*****Some kinds of repression are also violent — the restrictions on women the Taliban keeps adding to women’s lives are a kind of violence it’s hard to imagine. The Taliban has decreed that Afghan women are forbidden to: Go to high school or university Work in the civil service Attend a protest Go abroad Drive a car Travel alone Ride in a taxi Speak in public Speak loudly inside your house Sing Read the Quran aloud in public Speak to a... pic.twitter.com/osQgMm6mzZ— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 30, 2024I will add that I also find the stories about women dying because of abortion bans could also be classified as violence against women, and perhaps ought to be.*****Why we still need feminismI have been unable either to copy or embed this look at some significant numbers.www.facebook.com/...*****As always, thanks go to the WoW team for support, links, and discussion, this week including elenacarlena, officebss, TaraTASW, SandraLLAP, and Angmar.