DO WE HAVE COURAGE?

By Ruth A. Sheets

I was just watching a program on MSNBC that brought up an issue related to banned abortion states that I had not thought of before, and I am sure the ignorant state legislators who voted so quickly to ban abortions didn’t either.  

Many women have chronic medical conditions that require drugs that could either cause miscarriage or birth defects.  Doctors are now telling women on these drugs they have to be on birth control because if they get pregnant, the doctor couldn’t help them for fear of losing their job or being arrested.  What!

Yep, we’ve entered the age when ignorant, mostly white men, can decide if people live or die due to laws Republican legislators passed and were signed by Republican governors with no consideration for what that would do to real women, not the fantasy women they imagine controlling through their laws.  

I suggest that the doctors of those states, and there are a bunch of those states now, should refuse to treat any member of the state legislature and governor who voted for those laws, and their families too.  Make them have to go elsewhere for care.  Tell them “you wouldn’t want a potential criminal treating you, so you will have to move on.  Maybe when you vote to give women back their bodily autonomy and stop seeing me as a potential criminal, you can come back.  Until then, someone somewhere else can help you.”  Hey, a kind of “strike!”  Oh yes, the “strike” would have to be all doctors even in hospitals and urgent care places unless it is a life-or-death emergency, just like the situation they are consigning the women of their state to.

Some doctors just love these anti-woman laws, so those legislators, et al can find those guys. I suspect it won’t be long before some misogynists who claim to love fetuses more than the women who host them will start making some changes to their laws.  They may pass laws to force doctors to treat everyone, but then, they will have to treat folks who can’t afford their services and the state will have to provide the funds.  Can’t have that!  Maybe they’ll pass laws to arrest any doctor who won’t treat them.  I’m sure ALEC and Republican lawyers will come up with something despicable.  One thing I know, you can’t force someone to care, e.g. the Republican legislators.  

The problem, is there courage to actually do anything?  Without a public push, doctors just won’t.  Their fear in some ways is legitimate because right- wingers are scary, running around with guns and words like “murderer,” shouted into a huge megaphone.  Maybe a well-publicized doctors’ strike would be powerful and not what the Right expects.  Doctors are supposed to follow any law to the letter, aren’t they?  I’m thinking one or two states to start with, then . . . .

I have been thinking about the recent US visit of Victor Orban, Hungary’s autocratic leader and remember the lack of courage of the Republicans at the big Texas gathering.  They did not stand up for this country and our freedom.  They spent time listening to, cheering for, and admiring a leader who has stolen power in his country by disrupting the judicial system and slyly taking away people’s rights while telling them how wonderful they are and how awful the invaders are, tainting the blood of “real Europeans” by intermixing.  That sounds so much like the propaganda of the 1930s Nazis it made me shiver, and it should have made everyone in the room in Houston shiver too.  It didn’t.  They were caught up in the euphoria of imagining a “white America where they would rule and everyone else would either be gone or in some way enslaved to them.  I could tell by their cheering, almost screaming, they were practically orgasmic.  I have heard nothing since the event that indicated any Republican protest of having an autocrat getting more cheers than our own president (I mean Biden), a man who helped keep COVID from being even worse than losing well over a million people, financially supported families during the pandemic, got infrastructure passed that will help everyone, pushed Congress to pass some kind of sensible gun safety regulation, worked to get drug prices down for Medicare users (it would have been for more folks but too few Republicans cared enough to vote for it), pushed for measures to stop global warming, and more.  For them, Biden doesn’t deserve as much appreciation as a foreign dictator. 

Liz Cheyney has a lot of guts.  She identified Donald Trump for the con artist he is and refused to go along with Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, Ron DiSantis, and the rest of the Republican joy of dictatorship club, particularly since she took an oath to uphold and defend our Constitution (which those others did too).  I do not agree with her positions on most things, but I recognize courage when I see it, and she has it.  Yet, she is about to be voted off the island by Republicans in Wyoming.  She helped them to get stuff they need for their decaying infrastructure and older citizens, but she didn’t fawn and drool over Trump as she was supposed to.  The person likely to replace her is not nearly as strong and has little courage as far as I can tell, but “gotta get that traitor Cheyney out.”

I used to think we the people were living in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”  Well, maybe not as much as we would like.  Our freedoms are gushing away each time our Supreme Court drops a decision and one political party can’t find courage to stand up to would-be dictators.  Fortunately, there are people who do want us to continue working to become “a more perfect union.”  

We all need to remember that we have a lot of courage floating around and all kinds of people have it.  However, a bunch of scared folks are fearmongering, threatening, and otherwise making life difficult for a lot of people, and it is time more of us locate our courage and stand up to it.

Here are some of the most courageous people I know about.  They put their values, even their lives on the line for others and take an ordinary salary home for it, or just have the knowledge they are making a difference. 

- the front-line workers who cared for people with COVID when Trump and Kump didn’t get protective gear to them.  They stuck with it until they got sick or burned out, then when they recovered, most went right back at it.  

- the firefighters all over the country who are trying to hold the line on the massive wildfires that global warming is igniting.  Those dealing with the massive floods are pretty brave too.

- teachers who did their best to be sure that children were able to learn what was required despite being at home while COVID raged.  Every day, they are working with our kids, but teaching online has challenges most teachers had not previously faced.

- workers who care for people who face mental illnesses of all kinds and the challenges of aging, despite being overworked and understaffed, show up for their shift every day and do their best.   

- people who live with serious chronic illnesses, yet just keep on moving, caring for others, raising their children or grandchildren, and keeping the world turning

- workers who accompany abortion-seekers through the angry protesters who have no clue what the women they are maligning are going through as they wrap themselves in some warped sense of righteousness.

- children who stand up to bullies on behalf of a classmate, friend, or stranger.

- And more!

See what I mean, there is a lot of courage, it’s just ignored when the fearful, the conservatives trying to conserve a time and conditions that never existed constantly have the spotlight on them and their bad behavior. 

Maybe each of us needs to pledge to be more courageous, make our voice heard when we see a wrong, even if it is a risk.  Think of the kids in Birmingham, AL who faced police dogs and fire hoses aimed at them.  Think of the students who protested until a terrible, unjust war was stopped.  Think of the people who came here to this country looking for a better, safer life who faced all kinds of struggles and discrimination.  Consider the Capitol police who held off January 6th insurrectionists until help could get to them, saving the lives of our elected officials.  Those were ordinary people like us.  Their efforts can show us the way.  

Letting poorly informed elected officials decide what our rights will be and who can have them is unacceptable and should be for every American.  We can start with courage in little things, like informed voting in every election, not accepting sexual or any other kind of harassment in the workplace, calling on our religious institutions to live their faith, etc., then branch out.  Let’s foster courage when our kids are young.  It’s a good habit, and we are going to need it throughout the next few decades.

TOO MUCH TESTOSTERONE OR SOMETHING

By Ruth A. Sheets

Wow!  2022 is turning out to be another year of mostly white male abuse of power.  This year we have men working really hard to take away our right to vote; to put women even more under male control by banning abortion, criminalizing miscarriages and crossing state borders for reproductive care, and planning to ban contraception; invading and preparing to invade neighboring countries (Ukraine by Russia and Taiwan by China); continuing and accelerating greenhouse gas emissions; pouring guns into our communities; and using religion (Christianity in particular) to justify their moves to take away our rights. 

We seem to have tacitly agreed to let men decide that when they want something it is OK for them to kill, cheat, steal, lie, and commit atrocities of all kinds to get it.  Why did we women and men do that?

I suspect it is some men's big mouths, big size (even if just in their heads), and strength that let them get away with so much.  The rest of us are so busy with family, career or just survival to notice their bad behavior until it is too late.  I think this group of power-hungry men is hoping that banning abortion, suppressing voting, etc. will keep us in this country distracted indefinitely so they can take over, then do what, that is unclear, perhaps make themselves even richer and the rest of us poorer?

Here and in other countries too, it is not enough to control women and decent men, they have to recruit often vulnerable women who will follow their actions hoping to get a piece of the testosterone pie, big fish in a small pond.  These women can be even more misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, and racist than the mostly white men who direct them.  Their patriarchal intensity is their effort to prove their Bonafides.  After all, there were white women gazing in rapture at public lynchings too.

I believe there are some things we can and should do to end or move to end the patriarchal usurpation of power and violence that has scarred our world for millennia:

• We must raise our male children with less violence and less acceptance of pushy disrespectful behavior.  Significant community resources should be employed to help families and their boys who are struggling with their behavior and inability to be with other kids without bullying, before the problems get too bad.
• We need to raise our children to know their value and not accept coercive disrespectful male behavior from anyone.  Girls need to know that finding a man is not their primary goal in life.
• We must help our children grow into the gender (or lack of gender) that reflects who they are and rejoice with them when they truly know.
• We should finance research on safe medications for men that can tamp down or disperse the violent tendencies that keep getting people killed and women raped, just because, then administer it secretly if necessary to stop the violence.

-Seriously lower military budgets.  If the money and weapons aren’t there, war is made a bit harder.  This will be tough because war is like a team sport and we have a tendency to root for our team no matter what havoc it causes. 

- We will need to find safer ways for men to prove their manhood.  Sports work for some, but for those who need a more dangerous structure, the military has worked.  However, it is the military that caused a lot of the patriarchal problems over the years.  We need a different approach.

-Better regulations on corporations, their size, and practices and the amount CEOs can earn in relation to their median worker’s salary would help decrease the power the corporation and its usually male CEO holds. 

- Nationally requiring practices like automatic voter registration, vote by mail, ending gerrymandering, limiting financial donations to any candidate at all levels, a reasonable amount for the specific position would stop a lot of the male posturing and corruption. 

- Recommit ourselves to the First Amendment of our Constitution including freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion.  Men have ruled most religions of the world and religious power has given men all kinds of permission to act badly, often in the name of god.

- Reconfigure our understanding of police and law-enforcement in general:  what should it be and do, who should be employed in the work, what should they wear and how should they get around, what kind of training should they receive and how often?

It's time folks!  Efforts to stop global warming, to establish peace, to develop farming revolutions, to ensure educational opportunities will go only so far as long as men have too much control.  Too many men have never had to fully grow up, so these whining, lying, cheating, sneaking, bullying toddlers will keep us in constant conflict of all kinds.  Such bullies can't stand peace and people actually getting along, unless they are forcing it to happen and are sure there is no opposition to them and their power:  Myanmar, China, North Korea, and the other countries moving foolishly in their direction. 

OMG!  What will those immature men do if we limit their power!  People might notice that those dictators have no more skill, talent, or intelligence than women and that white dictators have no more of those than any other men.  That will be scary for them and problematic for the rest of us for a while. 

Mr. Putin and his unwarranted attack on Ukraine is just the latest in a long string of men in the past 50 years from Nixon to Reagan to Baby Bush and Dick Cheyney, to ISIS, the Taliban,  et al, to the Trump and Kump cult, to Hungary’s autocratic Orban and his Republican fans, to China’s Xi who is throwing a tantrum because a powerful American woman visited Taiwan, to Israel abusing the Palestinians, to The Syrian and Saudi leaders who kill anyone whom they don’t like, and on and on, all men throwing their political and physical weight around harming others for their own benefit. 

We raise bullies and permit them to have power, so we should expect bullying and a big portion of insanity, and that is what we get.  The wonder is that it seems more autocracies are popping up, not because people want them, but because the practitioners have access to media which can amplify their lies, and they can get financial support from huge corporations whose male CEOs believe they can get even more money and power by hitching themselves to the autocrats’ wagon.

So, the patriarchy will continue with its wars, attacks on women and women’s rights to bodily autonomy, keeping girls from attaining education or anything else in society, permitting (even encouraging) sexual harassment in the workplace and on the street, and not prosecuting physical abuse within autocracies until the people stand up to it and get support to end the insanity.  We don’t want autocracy here, but we are going to have to actively work to stop it.  There are a lot of desperate scared men.

My life has been blest because most of the men I have known personally have been really good people.  I think that is the case for a majority of us.  I suspect power is not on their bucket list.  They care about people, including women.  I have worked with men at their lowest point and highest and they treated me well and mostly respected my abilities and contributions.  When they didn’t, all but one just stopped interacting with me more than necessary for both of us to do our jobs.  I left 2 jobs because of male harassment but it was only one man on each job who disrespected the women and some of the men there, and both were disabled white men.  I can’t help but wonder if disability for white men can create a drive to prove superiority even stronger than most men.

In ministry, I had the most difficulty.  I was an Associate Pastor in a large church for 16 months and came to be resented by the Senior Pastor as well as the choir director.  A male church leader got me fired for personal reasons. (I didn’t learn the whole story for many years after I left.)  I was that church’s first woman in ministry, so I guess it was hard for them, and they made it impossible for me.

Perhaps my good fortune in knowing such terrific men had to do with the careers I have held:  working with people related to AIDS, assisting in a library, working in a low-level government job, work-study on college campuses, and teaching.  Perhaps those fields don’t call to so many men who need to wield power over others.  In any case, it frustrates me that more men like those I have worked with aren’t the type people choose to represent them in government or to lead corporate boardrooms.  We’d be better off if they did.