Courtesy of wikipedia.org
Felled by ageism, Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 campaign for U. S. President, and the country lost one of its greatest leaders. A gracious man, he put the nation above his ambition and ended Democratic anxiety about his ability to defeat Donald Trump. On the upside, his decision may have paved the way for our first woman president. Many of us are happy about the prospect but not all. Among those are Republican women.
To be honest, when I saw Keri Lake, Nikki Haley, and others of my sex cheering for Donald Trump at the Republican Convention, I was stunned. The former President has shown little respect for women, though he has yet to subscribe to one Republican leader’s goal which is to deprive them of their vote.
Trump’s plans for the future are far from visionary either for women or the country. He wants to crush his detractors and build as many hotels bearing his name as he can. His promise to reduce taxes on the rich has garnered him some friends among the oligarchs of Silicon Valley, and other billionaires. They also support the ultra-conservative proposals of the Heritage Foundation, goals that would end democracy and establish patriarchal authoritarian rule. These billionaires see Trump as the perfect Presidential candidate. Ignorant, vain, and unscrupulous, he is easily manipulated because he has no interest in governing but is attracted to the limelight.
J. D. Vance, his vice presidential pick, is a man of a different stripe. The creation of tech billionaire, Peter Thiel, Vance is a politician with a biblical bent who speaks openly about denying a woman the right to a divorce even if the spouse is abusive. He believes the sanctity of marriage transcends a woman’s need for safety, and once married, she must confine herself to the home, her voice silenced and her role limited to raising children and serving her husband.
Like Project 2025, (pg. 481), Vance not only upholds this view but agrees with its tenant to ban all abortions and bar pregnant women from traveling to places where they could obtain one (pg. 471) The end game is to reduce females to chattel again.
I confess the sight of Republican women waving Trump signs at the Milwaukie convention was no less stunning than if a gathering of African Americans had met to repeal the Thirteenth Amendment and restore slavery. How did these women arrive at this place of subservience? I suppose the course of human history should tell us something. Women have always been in the crosshairs.
In war, rape is the weapon of choice used against them. In peace, femicide abounds. Western cultures are as guilty as any other of such violence. In Britain, A woman is killed by a man every three days and one in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime…Male violence against women and girls is at epidemic levels…
Institutions designed to help females often prove to be poorly funded and ineffective. An example is Micro-banking. Designed to enable women to become entrepreneurs, it has a predatory side. The loans are too small–which forces women to take out more than one–and interest rates are as high as 30%. In many countries, when a woman fails to pay her debt, she is thrown into prison. Micro-banking has fallen out of favor for that reason. (“The Big Truth,” by Mara Kanda-Nelson, The Nation, July 2024, pgs 46-53)
Consider too, that Prostitution is dominated by males. As pimps, men pay their workers poorly and expose them to abuse. As a customer, once a man pays his fee, he does what he wants with a woman’s body.
Those who provide sex talk over the internet don’t fare much better. Mostly from third-world countries, these individuals can work 70-hour weeks for as little as $1 per hour. (“She Contains Multitudes,” by Brendan I. Koerner, Wired, July/Aug. 2024 pg. 33)
Surprising as it may seem, Crime conventions that focus on violence are gathering places for female victims. Their attendance can be as high as 80%. (“Suspicious Minds,” by Kathleen Hale. Vanity Fair, July/Aug. 2024, pg. 107). When asked why they attended these conferences, the answer was they were places of therapy—settings where abused women could tell their stories, expose their vulnerabilities, and be comforted. (Ibid, pg. 111)
Madeleine Albright, the first woman to serve as the U. S. secretary of state once said, “There’s a place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” A majority would agree. But not Maga women. They are a breed apart for they have carved out a place for themselves within the patriarchy. Centuries of exploitation have broken them.
Perhaps even a change in genetic coding is at play. As we know, genes adapt to environmental conditions over time. Whatever the reason, these women have applied a willful ignorance to their sorry lot and chosen to identify with their masters. The strategy is to endure by posing no threats.
A “sister” caught up in this madness lies beyond rational argument. She is a victim of Stockholm Syndrome and though she is worthy of our sympathy, she is beyond our power to heal. Her mind, bent by the weight of abusive doctrine, has learned to submit and perhaps come to see bondage as a form of security
