The Week in Patriarchy is a weekly roundup of what’s happening in the world of feminism and sexism. If you’re not already receiving it by email, make sure to subscribe.
There’s enough news this week to break your heart, and all of it is important – but in the interest of brevity, I’ll choose one thing. Roe v Wade is in absolute danger of being overturned, thanks to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement. The right is planning on it, and we have to move forward knowing the consequences should such a horror happen.
If the supreme court overturns the decision, nearly half the states in the country will outlaw abortion – maybe more. Women will die from illegal abortions – as they did before – and most of those women will the poorest, youngest, and most vulnerable among us. (As has been pointed out for years: a “pro-life” world has a lot of dead women in it.) Women will be imprisoned for trying to end their pregnancies. Doctors and nurses will be, too. The tangible and troubling effects will be immediate.
And then there’s the simple message the decision will send to women: you don’t matter. You don’t get a choice about what happens to your body, your family, or your future. You will be forced to be pregnant, whether you like it or not.
This is not the future I want for my daughter – and it’s not the present I want for myself or any woman. Now is the time to plan, and to fight.
Glass half full
Turns out there’s still good news in the world: A man who tried to use a “shoe camera” to take pictures up women’s skirts had the contraption explode on his foot.
What I’m RTing
“Amnesty International reports that suicide now accounts for 57 percent of deaths of pregnant females ages 10-19 in El Salvador.” That’s what a “culture of life” looks like. https://t.co/9779QxJ6Ui
— Emily Gould (@EmilyGould) June 28, 2018
1/ It's not a big mystery what would happen if abortion were suddenly illegal across large parts of the US.
— Molly Redden (@mtredden) June 27, 2018
In many places, it already might as well be illegal – it's that inaccessible – and the accounts of what that looks like are sobering.
NEW: The Capital Gazette shooter, Jarrod Ramos, was the subject of a Capital article in which he's described threatening and harassing a woman on Facebook.
— dell cameron (@dellcam) June 29, 2018
According to the article, he had pleaded guilty in 2011 to a misdemeanor harassment charge. pic.twitter.com/NFSuuiycRx
My 5-yr-old client can’t tell me what country she is from. We prepare her case by drawing pictures with crayons of the gang members that would wait outside her school. Sometimes she wants to draw ice cream cones and hearts instead. She is in deportation proceedings alone. https://t.co/johWiKbzHh
— Laura Barrera, Esq. (@abogada_laura) June 28, 2018
Who I’m reading
Dylan Matthews on what Kennedy’s retirement from the supreme court will mean for the issues we care about; Alissa Quart’s new book, Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America; and the Texas Tribune on how toddlers at the border are being ordered to appear in court alone.
What I’m writing
Trump officials don’t have the right to eat in peace – not while there are kids in cages.
How outraged I am
It’s not that I’m outraged this week as much as I am deeply, soul-crushingly sad. Sad for the families of those killed Capital Gazette, sad for the journalists who have to work in fear, sad for all of us as we enter another week when families still have not been reunited with their children. That said, I’m glad that I’m sad – because the only other alternative is apathy, and none of us can afford that right now.
How I’m making it through this week
Remembering that there are amazing people in the world. This woman took puppies to a local nursing home and it just about broke my heart open.
