Robes of Oppression -- Attack on Women’s Rights!

Robes of Oppression

                                                                 

After the U. S. unceremoniously pulled out of Afghanistan the Taliban escorted with guns a small group of women draped in black from head to toe with only a tiny slit to look through as alleged support for their repressive interpretation of Islam. Most certainly a death march for women’s rights in that country. No way to be sure real women sat beneath those shrouds. The covering by design conceals the individual and every aspect, every contour of femininity. Everything about the staged scene suggested herded chattel. 

Free Afghan Woman

    In protest Afghan women living safely outside of the country took pictures of themselves in colorful traditional dress. Suggesting the black hijab to be a foreign totalitarian imposition on Afghan women.

Most women’s schools were quickly shut down and working women suddenly had no employment. The freedom to get educated, to work, overnight taken away by repressive male authoritarianism. A woman’s role under the severely patriarchal Taliban restricted to staying home, making babies and taking care of the young.  Now many of those babies starve under Taliban rule.  

Robes of Democracy?

        What a contrast here a few months earlier Amy Coney Barret had recently donned the black robes of a Supreme Court justice. Groomed by Catholicism and the Federalist Society, a handmaid picked as a conservative. Her political agenda to undo a woman’s right to choose given in the landmark case of Roe v. Wade. Her salary $220,000 plus Cadillac health insurance and retirement all supplied by the American taxpayer guarantees none of her children will ever starve. In fact Amy can afford live-in Nannies and the best child care money can buy. 

The contrast between Women’s rights in a western Democracy and the totalitarian Taliban in Afghanistan appears stark. To get a perspective on this we need to look back to prehistory about 40,000 years ago when our ancestors created great works of art in the Caves of Europe following the last ice age. Beside cave paintings our ancestors also created mobility art. The Venus of Hohle Fels, carved of ivory 40,000 to 35,000 years ago is one example.

 

The Venus of Willendorf 25,000 years ago another example. Both representative of that mobility art. Small figures evidently made to be worn around the neck. To our modern eyes they seem almost obscene in exaggerating the reproductive aspects of a woman. Yet they are called Venus in allusion to beauty since they represented the ideal image of a woman at that time. That ideal: a woman gravid with child ready to give birth her breasts filled to overflowing with the mother’s milk needed to nourish that child. Be assured that our female ancestors of that time didn't look a thing like those idealized depictions.

In prehistoric times all emphasis put on the importance of a woman’s role to produce and raise children. To put in context at that time only a million humans lived and roamed Mother Earth totally outnumbered by the other animals that numbered in the billions. Now our human population at about 7.5 billion dominates. There's no shortage of our species. Inversely as our numbers have grown exponentially extinction threatens many wild animals. The cave paintings reflected their world as they painted the dominant animals that swarmed around them. Our ancestors main concern a woman's ability to reproduce and care for the next generation. Some scientists speculate that our prehistoric ancestors may have outbred Neanderthals which led to their disappearance. How things have changed. With our opposing thumbs, tool making ability and big brain now our only real threat ourselves has become our success leading to global warming and/or atomic war.

A real connection still exists between our prehistoric cave painting ancestors with their Venus figures and modern women who enlarge their breasts with surgical implants to increase sex appeal. This demonstrates a direct link to the Venus figures of prehistory and the impact of biologic drives. Unlike the prehistoric Venus fertility figures the current ideation of the female body is large prominent breasts without the bulging distended belly. Dolly Parton provides an example of this idealization with augmented breasts. A talented singer/song writer with a wonderful generous spirit Dolly shares her success by giving back. (Recently tornadoes wreaked havoc in Kentucky. Dolly used a portion of her financial resources to help those who have been devastated.)  

To understand the Taliban's use of laws to oppress Afghan women we can look to prehistory, history, and mammal biology. In mammal biology the males always attempt to control who the females mate with. The Taliban use the camouflage of religion to justify their treatment of women as chattel. The real drive appears simply to be animal biology.

Rape does not exist in nature. If a male animal can catch any female animal he can force himself on her. His limiting ability to do so may be only competing males. Humans, that be us, have evolved into moral beings which make complex societies possible. As moral beings our customs and laws seek to insure individuals the right to decide who they share physical intimacy with. Our higher level of being expressed as morality provides a woman the right to determine who she will have intercourse with. Who she will marry. Who's child she will bear. We also know that this right is unfortunately sometimes illegally violated.

In contrast to the Taliban western Democracies now empower women to develop beyond the primary role of mother and progenitor of the species. Women are provided higher educational opportunities and empowered to seek powerful positions in business, industry and politics. Thus spiritual evolution follows and flows with the rise of democracy. But even in the west this spiritual evolution has been a struggle for women. The right to vote. The right to fully participate in Democracy. The right to be treated equally. The right to control their own body. Women organized and fought long hard political battles to gain these basic human rights in the west.

At the same time the Taliban subjugate Afghanistan women by rolling back their human rights we see a subtle form of the same regression being attempted in the United States. The stacking of the Supreme Court with politically motivated judges to deny a woman the right to control her own body and reproductive activity. Amy Coney Barrett no doubt functions simply as a good Catholic School Girl. She doesn't question the dogma she grew up with in a religion that refuses the right of women to participate at the highest levels. Another although maybe more subtle animalistic religion.

A difficult yet necessary thing for judges to do is consider all sides of the right to choose. To do that requires frankly reviewing the biology in detail. Real biology not fake ideology. Questions I would have asked Amy Coney Barrett before her appointment: 1) How many eggs were you born with? 2) How many eggs did you have left at puberty? 3) How many eggs have you flushed down the toilet? 4) Which form or forms of pregnancy prevention did you use? 5) What motivated you to get so much schooling versus having more children? 6) Why is it that you can be selected as a Supreme Court Justice on the highest court of the land, but you're not qualified to be a Priest, a Cardinal, Bishop or Pope in your Religion?

    Think on that last question particularly long and hard. Motherhood is important and demanding. In the west we also believe that educational opportunity for all regardless of sex or ethnicity is important. Leo Tolstoy said, "Nothing is so necessary for a man as the company of intelligent women." How limiting and debilitating to restrict the development of women. How enriching for everyone when both sexes participate fully in society.

To see how women suffer now in Afghanistan under Taliban rule exists as a true tragedy. To see a woman seek to put her repressive religion before the Constitution of the United States even use her legal education from a Catholic Institution to attack a woman's reproductive rights although appearing less severe certainly indicates how fragile women's rights can be.

    I personally stand with Tolstoy's sentiment. For I have certainly benefited from the company of intelligent women. The road to full development as human beings seems long at times and fraught with frustration. Physically each of us manifest in a mammal body yet our spiritual potential to be moral human beings means rising above animal hormonal drives. My current book length project attempts to put into perspective the ongoing collective development of human consciousness by looking at cave art, mythology and science. At the moment I feel overall we function well below our potential. All the great teachers suggest we can attain a much greater potential. We must reach for that potential.

Unfortunately the great suffering unfolding today in Afghanistan evidently must happen, and there's no guarantee we will reach our potential. The Taliban demonstrate that regression into violent animal behavior no matter how robed can happen quickly and swiftly. While in the United States the black judicial robe can be used as a more subtle form of animal regression.

The justices on the Supreme Court who established Roe v. Wade as the guide for a woman's right to choose channeled the wisdom of Solomon. Due to their consideration of all aspects of a woman's right to choose that decision has withstood the test of time. To roll back that decision in any form would be a tragedy for women's rights in the United States.

Thank You for the willingness to explore this subject. May Peace & Serenity Be Yours!