I
Just Don’t Understand Women?
In this one statement by men
lies an underlying, unspoken prejudice, and that is that all women are the
same, and since they are all the same, we should be able to understand
them. But since we don’t understand them,
and since men are the more rational gender, then the fault lies with the women
for not being understandable.
Once, many years ago not long
after Vatican II and before a lot of people came to embrace the theology and
rationale of Vat II, some member of the Roman hierarchy decided that before any
woman, world-wide, could have a hysterectomy, she must first get permission
from her parish priest. At that time I
wrote a letter-to-the editor of National Catholic Reporter stating that this
was by far one of the more stupid edicts regarding women to come out of Rome
ever! I continued with the fact that
every woman who faces a hysterectomy has emotions, spiritual values, physical
and psychological attributes that are unique to that woman, and to lump all women
of the world into one category was about as misogynistic as one could get. Probably there was a universal uproar also from
all the parish priests who certainly did not want to deal with that can of
worms relative to the women in the parishes.
Todd Akin and the rest of the
Republicans who believe what he said about “legitimate rape” preventing
pregnancy have fallen into that same trap.
The problem with them is that they have mixed up their religion with
politics. They believe that women should
rely on their husbands to provide them with health care – or not, as the case
may be, but it certainly is not the purview of government to be involved in a
family matter. It says so in the Bible. Once again, all women are all alike.
And this is why, even though
I am absolutely opposed to abortion, I am pro-choice. I not only value the life of the fetus, I
value the life of the mother as well.
There are some women who will make the choice not to have an abortion
after being raped and becoming pregnant.
And that is admirable. But there
are some women for whom this would be a devastating experience, and they may
well never recover from it. One has to
leave this choice up to the individual woman.
And, once a woman has been raped, the so-called “morning after” pill ought
to be made immediately available to her.
This is not to induce an abortion.
It prevents the fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall.
For all of those
men who say they don’t understand women, try to understand women one at a time!
Each woman is as unique as each man. By understanding one, and then understanding
another one, and another, a thinking man will realize that any woman is as easy
to understand as any man. My exhortation
for women, and all people of color, or no color, for the sake of our country, to
vote this year.
In conclusion, let me quote David Letterman, 8/23/12: “The fact that hurricane Isaac is moving
north and will impact Tampa (during the Republican convention) is irrefutable
proof that God is a woman.”
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