I opened the paper the other day to read that the Taliban in Afghanistan was now requiring women to wear full burqas with only netting for the eyes. I opened the paper the other day to read a draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court that abortion could be illegal in the United States. Two countries trying to drag women back to the Dark Ages.I feel like I did the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. It felt like a close family member had died. Shock and horror led to rage and despair.
I am taken back decades to old struggles — when girls weren’t allowed to play sports in high school; when women weren’t allowed into West Point; when the military was segregated and women weren’t allowed to go to jump school — parachute — or be pilots; when the Equal Rights Amendment was rejected by enough states that it never passed. I thought those struggles were long gone. I was wrong.
I feel like we women are being drowned and the public stands by watching, passively. Our choice is being taken away. And it’s not just about abortion. We’ve all heard the decades-old rationales against abortion, but I have yet to see the hordes of men jumping in line to go adopt cocaine babies and fetal alcohol syndrome babies. On the contrary, society is overfilled with children needing foster care and adoptions. Our politicians underfund Medicaid, food stamps, welfare — all the things a disadvantaged young mother who chooses to have a child might need. And now they propose to take away all choice. I can imagine no greater horror than being forced to carry a child of rape. Only a man could think that up.
What’s next? Eliminate laws against date rape, marital rape? Make birth control illegal? Make it legal to hit your wife with a rod no bigger than your thumb? Prohibit women from working outside the home? Make it illegal for women to vote? Require women to wear full burqas with only netting for the eyes?When women are not free, no one is free. Women have more power now than ever before. More political power, more economic power, more social power. Eventually rage and despair lead to decisive action. We are not going back.
— Maj. Holly R. Hill, U.S. Army, retired
Anchorage
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