Women’s rights in a world at war
Democracy is not a zero-sum game
After attacking Iran, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Iranian media that he was doing it to free the people of the country, specifically the women. He stated, “They’ve impoverished you. They’ve given you misery. They’ve given you death. They’ve given you terror... I mean, this is an outrageous radical fanatic regime, and the time has come to defang them.”
This is the Prime Minister of Israel — the man ultimately responsible for the devastation in Gaza, which has resulted in more deaths of women and children than any other conflict over the past two decades. He’s trying to free the women, even if he has to kill them first.
Elon Musk, a pronatalist who believes that the biggest threat to civilization is population decline, oversaw cuts to (among many other things) USAID, which has already resulted in deaths, including those of children. He’s trying to get people in the US to have more children, even as he is responsible for the deaths of many abroad.
I don’t think it’s just cynical messaging. These are men who truly see the lives of only some women and some children as worthy. Those lives are both the human cost of their violent missions and the justification for them.
It’s been three years since the Dobbs decision eliminated the nationwide right to abortion.
In the wake of Dobbs, more people in America are pro-abortion than before, with a notable exception: men.
Since 2022, fewer men identify as pro-choice — a seven-point dip from 48% to 41%. According to a recent Gallup poll, “There is now a record-high 17-point gap between women (57%) and men (40%) in their belief that abortion is morally acceptable and a record-high 15-point gap in women’s (56%) and men’s (41%) support for abortion being legal in all or most circumstances.”
He pushed back asserting that in the time of Trump, when there are wars and people storming the Capitol, we had to be focused. As if my participation in public life was of no consequence to the project of democracy.
This shift represents a difference not just on policy, but on who sees women as individual human beings, with choice, independence and the right to make their own health care decisions. It seems, in fact, that not all lives matter.
People on the left often debate how to finesse messaging to bring men aboard. They worry about how Democrats are “losing men.” So we have to worry about the tone of our voice as we beg for our lives. Recently, a man emailed me to say he supported women’s rights, but he didn’t like my tone and maybe I should consider that women would be better off if we were nicer.
This is the same logic that is extended to policing people over their race and nationality. If you must protest, be respectful. Ask for your rights, but be polite, and work hard.
Sorry, no: The very definition of inalienable rights is that they belong to me regardless of how little I work or how much I scowl and call people dinguses.
I joined the board of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund after the Dobbs decision because I wanted to channel my rage and despair into making my state a better place. The IAAF raises money to give to clinics and patients to help cover the cost of abortion. I may not be able to fix American democracy, but I can make sure that at least 700 people a month have the money to pay for their abortions. I can help them access choice. And that is the foundation of democracy if anything is.
I was at a recent event for the IAAF when a man told me that it was hard for him and other men to support a cause that didn’t affect them. I balked. Was he not human? Did he not have people in his life who he cared about? “Sir, don’t you have sex with women?” I asked. “Aren’t you a human being?”
He pushed back, asserting that in the time of Trump, when there are wars and people storming the Capitol, we had to be focused. As if my participation in public life was of no consequence to the project of democracy.
Feminist author Ellen Willis wrote about encountering logic like this at the counter-inauguration protest on January 19, 1969. In response, Willis noted that solidarity “...will not be accomplished through persuasion, conciliation, or love, but through independence and solidarity: radical men will stop oppressing us and make our fight their own when they can’t get us to join them on any other terms.”
Our individual rights are the foundations of democracy. Writing in Who’s Afraid of Gender? Judith Butler observed, “Stripping people of rights in the name of morality or the nation or a patriarchal wet dream belongs to the broader logic amplified by authoritarian nationalism.”
Sorry, no: The very definition of inalienable rights is that they belong to me regardless of how little I work or how much I scowl and call people dinguses.
Don’t tell me you are fighting for one part of democracy while ignoring the others.
Recently,
, whose newsletter is a necessary and often excruciating accounting of the impact Dobbs has on our country, wrote that she thought about pausing the newsletter in the middle of the war and societal upheaval. She notes, “But then I thought about everything we’ve built over the last three years—the daily ritual of refusing despair, concession, or silence. The hopeful habit of working for change, even when that future feels impossible. That’s not something I’m willing to forgo—especially on days like the ones we’ve had recently.”War and invasions don’t protect women. And our rights are not a distraction from the bigger issues. Democracy, like hope, is a practice that relies on the foundational belief that all people deserve rights. That all women matter, not just the ones that fit our definition of who and what we want them to be.
My daughter graduates high school today. This democracy needs her, though I don’t see a lot of evidence these days that this country deserves her.
Thank you, Lyz, for all you do! A hero for our age!