Men, ownership and control

By Dr. E. Faye Williams
TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist

I have been blessed to be a friend or associate of numerous men who love, appreciate and respect women personally and professionally.

Now, I am having a hard time understanding this sudden urgent need of some men to own everything—even the bodies of women!

When I first heard about some men wanting to impose medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds on women, I figured those were just a few men who’d lost their ability to compete with instruments and decided transvaginal probing was a thing of pleasure. I then began to hear the meanness from the voices of men like Rick Santorum (the angry white man), men in Virginia, men in Pennsylvania and men all across the country, so I decided that this was not about seeking substitute pleasure they could no longer provide. This is more about owning and controlling us. This is about the inadequacy of certain men to compete with women.

Women are now in high-level positions—such as Secretaries of State, governors, heads of corporations and other influential organizations, etc. Women are everywhere, breaking glass ceilings every day! It’s no longer unusual to think of a woman becoming President of the United States!

Certain people tried to keep minorities out of meaningful positions so the world would never know the brilliance of people like President Barack Obama, Ambassador Susan Rice, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Secretary Hilda Solis and others, but the “secret” of the brilliance of minorities and is finally out. So, where do these narrow-minded, insecure men go now? They’ve decided to knock their own sisters, mothers, and daughters down a notch!

Remember when the ancestors of our white sisters would not even allow them to vote? Well, some of these chips off the old block have never gotten over the woman voting. I think they’ve decided it’s payback time for women gaining that right and having the nerve to vote against them and their silliness. We already knew these same men hadn’t gotten over minorities surviving slavery and making it all the way to the White House. Just open a newspaper or magazine, turn on a radio or television or read some of the garbage on blogs and you know what a tough time bigots are having with minorities enjoying any measure of success.

Let’s go back to this transvaginal invasion obsession. Don’t just get angry with Mr. Santorum, Mr. Romney, Mr. Gingrich or Mr. Paul. Recruit women to run for office at every level (Ms. Bachman, Ms. Palin and Ms. Brewer excluded!). Every day between now and the time voter registration closes, register someone to vote. Be sure to get them to the voting booth on November 6, armed with information on which candidates have proven to be in the best interest of women.

This is Women’s History Month. What better month than now to begin working to rid ourselves of men who want to control our bodies because they are obsessed with the concept of “ownership,” and who see no other way to control their surroundings except through forcing women to undergo an invasive procedure known as a transvaginal ultrasound before a woman would be allowed to have the choice of an abortion—even for the purpose of saving her life or ridding her body of conception as a result of rape.

Let’s do what our sisters in Virginia did. Actively show your opposition to any forced invasion of a woman’s body. Let women know that such invasions forced on them are the same as rape, and that legislators who insist upon passing the laws should at least be considered conspirators to rape. It’s that serious, so let’s get on this before Pennsylvania and other states decide we don’t care about this draconian anti-woman legislation.

This article was originally published in the March 12, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper