Due to mass public outrage, the disgusting reactionary Rush Limbaugh was recently forced to make a feeble apology for calling college student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” for speaking for the right of women to receive contraceptive coverage in health insurance plans.
Every day, in the workplace, on campuses and on the street, women are exposed to demeaning, woman-hating language. Language that describes women in the grossest of terms, as being nothing more than sexual objects.
When we were children, we were taught “sticks and stone can break your bones, but words can never hurt you.” The truth is that words do hurt—this is recognized legally with the concept of the creation of a “hostile workplace environment” in sexual harassment suits.
What is behind the use of such language that assaults women’s integrity? At the present time, there is an increase in the ongoing war on women that is carried out by the capitalist class. In the Republican primaries (a competition of “idiocy and ignorance,” as Fidel Castro has called it), right-wing candidates Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are competing to win the votes of the far-right wing of their party.
The right wing is attempting to make gains with the introduction of so-called personhood amendments that elevate a fertilized egg above a woman. State legislatures are passing laws that interfere with a woman’s relationship with her doctor by requiring ultrasounds prior to legal abortions. The right has seized on what should be a non-controversial addendum to Obama’s health care law that mandates contraception coverage in employer-provided insurance plans.
The religious right squeals about the “religious freedom” of bosses—freedom to impose their ideology on women employees of religious institutions—while the non-religious right has launched a direct attack on women’s dignity by using the most offensive language imaginable to attack women who speak out.
The Democrats make political hay of women’s anger at outrageous statements such as Limbaugh’s and the intensified attacks on women’s rights, yet the Democrats have been willing to throw women’s rights under the bus. Such was the case with Obama’s executive order prohibiting the use of federal funds to pay for any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, as part of a compromise to pass his health reform law, and more recently with the quick compromise with the religious right regarding contraception coverage.
Where do these ideas come from—that it is immoral for a woman to control her reproductive processes, that it is immoral for a woman to have sex for any purpose other than to become pregnant and have a child?
This ideology has its roots in the overthrow of matriarchal pre-class society. In that society, which lasted for hundreds of thousands of years, women were respected not only as the producers and nurturers of human life, but also for their wisdom and leadership.
What happened to change this? Friedrich Engels’ “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State” dissected the work of anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan to explain this historical development.
As humans transitioned from hunting and gathering to herding, planting and farming, society for the first time had a surplus of goods. In early communal society, scarcity was the norm—all had to work for the group as a whole to survive. But once more was produced than the bare minimum needed for survival, it was possible for some to reap the fruit of the labor of others. Control over the herds and the land translated into privilege. Instead of cooperation, those who were the owners of the means of production used coercion to appropriate what others produced. Class society emerged.
With this historic development came the demotion of women from leaders to breeders. Men who controlled the means of production wanted to be certain that “their” sons would inherit their property—hence the newfound concern with women’s “purity and “chastity.” Women’s sexual expression outside of marriage was condemned as sinful because it interfered with the line of inheritance. Under the new, class-based value systems, no such restrictions were placed on men’s sexual behavior.
There is indeed a war on women, but it did not start yesterday. Nor is it limited to the attempt to deny women the right to control our own bodies. Access to effective means to prevent and, if necessary, terminate pregnancy is not enough for women to achieve full equality.
The war on women can be seen in the epidemic of rape and violence against women, in the commoditization of women’s bodies through advertising, pornography and the so-called sex industry. It is seen in the rate of poverty among women, which rose to 14.5 percent in 2010, up from 13.9 percent in 2009, meaning that more than 17 million women were living in poverty in 2011, compared with 12.6 million men.
Globally, women make up 70 percent of the poor. Why are so many women poor? Because it is profitable to pay women less than men for work of equal value, and to keep women in the reserve army of the unemployed, which keeps wages low for all workers.
Women have not stood idly by while our rights and integrity are under attack. Every right we have today is a product of unrelenting struggle by our foremothers. As long as we live in a capitalist state, these rights can be taken away in the absence of a struggle to defend them.
March 8 is International Women’s Day—a day rooted in the struggle of women workers. What is perhaps its most memorable celebration took place in Russia in 1917, when a women’s strike led to the February Revolution that overthrew the czar. It was socialist women who revived the celebration of International Women’s Day in the United States.
We need to continue our struggle for equality, side by side with our working-class brothers around the world, and not be misled into supporting “lesser evil” politicians who will compromise our rights for their political gain while posing as allies. Equality is not a gift bestowed by a beneficent ruling class but the product of mass struggle. Let us continue to struggle until victory is won.
