In the relentless march of patriarchy, one thing is certain. Just because they have not come for you today does not mean that they are not coming for you.
As offensive as recent verbal attacks on women have been and, in spite of how emphatically I reject them, they haven’t been personal.
- I am not childless
- I do not own cats (allergic)
- I am not currently in need of birth control or abortion access
And then yesterday an old interview with now-VP hopeful J.D. Vance surfaced. While on a podcast with host Eric Weinstein, Vance agreed with his statement that “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female is to raise children.“
I should have known they’d eventually come for me: a post-menopausal woman. The whole point of the patriarchy is to maintain power by seizing that of others. For men to be the default leaders, women must be required to be the followers. The structures of society and the stories we are told from birth must reinforce those notions in order to perpetuate them.
The sole purpose of women is to be servile and to be oppressed and it would be awfully convenient if we, the women, believed it was God’s will and submitted joyfully and in good faith. If for some odd reason we do not wish to submit than laws must be contrived to make us.
This is what lies underneath the obsession with purity culture, tracking menstrual cycles, reproductive autonomy, no-fault divorce, and now the wholesale assignment of post menopausal women to provide free childcare. If the only way your world view can be perpetuated is through the subservience of others then you will be highly committed to make them submit.
Consider the issue of childcare. We need more highly qualified childcare providers and safe, and supportive learning environments for young children. That is going to cost money.
But if you think you’re entitled to declare an entire class of human beings to be free childcare providers, it won’t cost you a cent. You know you’re dealing with the patriarchy when you see that all of their “solutions” are dependent upon the oppression of women.
I went to Twitter to see what other women had to say about this. Here are a few tweets that spoke to me.
I have spent the entirety of my adult life caring for my own children and other people’s children. I have given it my all. But I did it because I chose to. I pursued these choices because I had free will. No one should be in a position to take away that free will in order to make the world run at their convenience.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all humans are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - - Declaration of Independence
Yes, the original word used was “man” but it was meant to encompass all humans. If you are a man in the year 2024 you think it only applies to you - - there’s something you should know.
We are not going back.
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