Breaking women’s bodies
Bangladesh is experiencing political turmoil, Hindu women are being abused, their bodies broken simply because of their faith. Refugee women in Gaza, Syria, and on the American boarder face harsh conditions through no fault of their own, their identities erased and treated as a mass of terrorised faces. In Britain women face being statistics as rape goes under-reported, and perpetrators rarely face conviction. Globally, women’s bodies are broken on the wheel of political patriarchy, their lives something lesser because it suits men to keep them that way.
The current US presidential election cycle shifted when Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, yet the Republic right-wing media circus was quick to jump on her ethnicity, womanhood, and seeming light-heartedness to critique her. Much like every other woman to run for office her body and womanhood are the focus, not her policy positions or policy record. To be a woman is to be a walking double standard, expected to be seen on the arm of serious male politicians ala Melania, at best silent; speak up and you are treated as an up start crow with no weight.
This goes all the way back to ancient Greece and Babylon. Read any of the legal codes and women are missing, Plato explicitly excludes women from his notion of utopian government, and the veil was obligatory long before Islam imposed it. Women who disagreed, who fought…
