What Are We Going To Do?

As 2022 drew to a close, the Respect for Marriage Act became law, protecting gay and interracial marriage. Many of us breathed a sigh of relief because those vital protections of privacy, despite being among many imperiled by Dobbs and its implications via the religiously and politically motivated Trump Court, are now the law of the land. But the RMA’s passage throws into sharp relief the lack of protection of women, at both the state and federal level. Does anyone think that if the only people affected by the Respect for Marriage Act were women that it would have gotten any kind of traction? In a world where the Violence Against Women Act is not only controversial, but was allowed to lapse for *four years*? Why are women continually held in place as second-class citizens? Why are Americans so afraid of women’s equality?

I believe the answer lies largely with the “pie” theory – that an increase in what one person gets means a decrease in how much of it is left for others. If I have a pie to share with my family of four, we each get one-fourth of the pie. If you and your family of three also get equal parts of my pie, everyone gets pie, but less of it than if your family had no right to the pie. Although it is a woefully uninformed position, I think a lot of people feel that if women have equal rights, men will have fewer rights – less pie. Yes, it’s complicated. Some of it is male supremacy, a need to have more and better than anyone who is not male; some of it is fear of fewer opportunities if there are more women qualified to compete for jobs and resources (a position that is more and more untenable as women achieve and men still get jobs); some of it is religious dogma; some of it is simply fear of the unknown, clinging to the way “it’s always been done”.

There Are No Women’s Issues

In the end, every reason to deny women equal rights is a red herring, because women’s issues are . . . issues. Because women are people. Human beings with families and friends and social and professional networks. We are half the population and our physical, mental, professional, social, economic, and every other category of wellbeing affects everyone in our lives. I know people who don’t want universal healthcare because they pay for their own and don’t see why they should pay for anyone else’s. But they are ignoring simple facts – we already pay for healthcare for people who can’t afford it, we just pay indirectly and far too much. People without insurance get sick and injured, too. But they tend to wait until it’s an emergency that can no longer be ignored, then go to the ER. When they can’t pay the hospital bills, the hospital has to charge everyone who *can* pay more, to cover their costs. A disproportionate percentage of the poor are women. It would be so much cheaper, easier, and more humane to just have free, easily accessible universal healthcare. You know, like every other First World country except Venezuela, Turkey and Russia.

Pregnancy

No laws have been passed to protect the rights to privacy that are perceived to be “women’s issues”, pregnancy primary among them. Never mind that access to contraception and abortion, in reality, affect everyone; they are mistakenly viewed as a women’s issue, so the Right to Contraception Act was blocked in the Senate and Republicans continue to promise a national abortion ban. Access to contraception and abortion profoundly affects women’s ability to control their lives, but it also affects men’s lives, and the more decent and responsible the man is, the more profoundly it affects his life. Unintended pregnancy, particularly in an era of abortion deserts, changes the course of both partners’ lives and the lives of their pre-existing families, both nuclear and extended. But because men can still walk away virtually – and often literally – scot-free, contraception is viewed mainly as a women’s issue, because women cannot simply ignore or escape unintended pregnancy. There are even those who see pregnancy as what a woman “deserves” for being sexually active, taking the absurd position of making pregnancy a punishment – for being human.

Sexual Assault

Nearly half a million people are raped or sexually assaulted in the U.S. every year. Most of them are women. That number excludes children under 12, who make up 15% of rape and sexual assault victims (that’s over 75,000 child victims annually, for those of you counting). Full disclosure: I believe rape should be treated just as seriously, and investigated and prosecuted just as zealously, as murder. What a rapist does is take the victim’s life from them, in an intimate and violent way. He is demonstrating that they have no control, not even over even their own body, and they will live with the trauma of that for the rest of their life, along with increased likelihood of depression, substance abuse, and suicide. I believe that rapists and pedophiles should remain in prison until they die. No possibility of parole. There are just some crimes that cannot be purged through repayment of debt to society. Crimes so extreme, so unpardonable, should never be pardoned.

But unlike murder victims, rape victims can be intimidated and shamed into silence. They can be blamed for the violence perpetrated against them. So rape cases most often go cold and unaddressed, if they are reported at all.

Only 6% of rapists ever spend a day in jail. The Stanford Rapist’s dad infamously said that he didn’t see why his son’s life should be ruined over “twenty minutes of action”. I do. Rapist Brock Turner got a six-month sentence with time served, even though there were witnesses. Even though he took photographs of his unconscious victim and texted them to his friends. But *his* life mattered. Why?

I’ll tell you why. Because he is a white man. And because rape and other sexual crimes are primarily committed against women and children, who matter little, if at all, especially in comparison to the American white male. We need it to stop. The most effective step, of course, is to stop rearing our boys to believe that the privilege they are born to in our society is deserved, a herculean task that can only start with education, at home, at school, and in society at large. But actual consequences for rape and other sexual assault would help address the problem and give more than lip service to taking it seriously.

Domestic Violence

The Trump Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen ruled that gun control is only legitimate if the Framers had it in mind. It has already spawned a decision in Texas overturning the law preventing convicted domestic abusers from legally owning guns. The reasoning is that domestic abuse was permissible in the 1700s, so, effectively, the Framers wouldn’t have minded if abusers murdered their spouses with guns. The decision clearly demonstrates both the ridiculousness of “Originalism” for its doggedly purposeful failure to evolve with real life, and the disdain for women, their rights, and their safety that is all too prevalent in American society. So, particularly if you live in Texas, the abuser’s right to guns is more important than your right not to be murdered. Unless maybe you’re a man, not clear on that, really, but it’s almost a completely moot point because the vast, vast majority of domestic violence is committed against women.

What Can We Do?

I am told that pro bono work, in any profession, is not tax deductible in any circumstance. Why not?

Do you know who needs pro bono help?

People in poverty.

Do you know who most people in poverty are?

Women.

Do you know what most women in poverty have?

Children.

But we refuse to credit pro bono assistance or provide universal healthcare, universal childcare, or universal access to free, high quality education, all benefits that would disproportionately, directly benefit women and their children, *because* they would disproportionately benefit women and their children.

Women and children of color most of all.

But here’s the thing. That help, those programs, would benefit everyone. They would eliminate many of society’s ills, produce happy, healthy, educated citizens who would contribute to and improve the economy, be far less likely to turn to crime or substance abuse, be far less likely to harm others, and allow the U.S. to move forward stronger and better than ever before. But the straight, cisgender, white men who currently run most things might not be as nearly universally in charge anymore, so of course we can’t have that.

Pro Bono and Other Volunteer Work

One way to help alleviate the inequities ubiquitous in women’s lives would be to revise the IRS Code to allow pro bono and volunteer work in *every* area to be at least partially tax deductible. First of all, the fact that there is no financial incentive to do pro bono or other volunteer work means that most people do exactly none of it. They need to make a living too, they have families and goals and personal and professional obligations, so they don’t think they have the time. Pro bono and volunteer work to improve the lives of people in need should be incentivized like any other charitable contribution, for anyone whose help could afford some relief to their fellow humans that can’t afford to pay – which is to say pretty much all of us. I don’t know enough about Habitat for Humanity, but doesn’t it seem like they could do a lot more of the great good they are already doing if everyone they need - plumbers and contractors, carpenters and roofers, architects and copywriters and advertisers, accountants and lawyers – everyone who lends a helping hand, could volunteer to help and not lose money by doing so, because they can write at least part of the time off on their taxes?

Wouldn’t it be better if that elderly person, just scraping by on a fixed income, who needs a wheelchair accessible shower but can’t afford to pay for the remodel, could get it done through pro bono contractors and plumbers? Or maybe could get pro bono grief or financial counseling after the death of a spouse? I know it would be complicated, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work or that it wouldn’t do a great deal of good in the world. Doesn’t that make it worth at least a try?

I don’t know if it’s still going, but ten years ago or so I became aware of a group of local dentists who got together in each other’s offices one night a week and treated patients who couldn’t pay, for free. They rotated whose office they would work in, and I have no idea how they got the word out. Their patients knew them as the Traveling Dentists. What an amazing program. May they prosper forever.

Why shouldn’t those dentists have been able to deduct at least a percentage of the time they spent from their taxes? And again, who do you think most needs free dental care? The people in poverty we talked about earlier, the ones whose child support rarely gets paid, who have children to support and so they go without so their children can have a little more of what they need. Mostly women.

And lawyers. Lawyers are desperately needed to help women, especially in the area of family law. I was reliably informed a few years ago that there were exactly *two* family law attorneys in my entire STATE who do pro bono work. They were both out on the seacoast, where the rich people live and the demand for pro bono family law attorneys is unlikely to be anywhere near as high as in the lower income counties. Now, there are a lot of attorneys who do other pro bono work, and there is a project under the auspices of the state Bar, to help victims of domestic violence. But there is no one to help women who simply cannot afford an attorney to help with divorce or child custody issues. To go after the deadbeat parents. And pro bono attorneys in every area are relatively scarce. Oh, and just to make it that much worse, it’s a race to the pro bono office if both parties are low income. So if the deadbeat partner, or the abuser, or the fraudster, applies for pro bono assistance first, they have blocked the victim from obtaining pro bono assistance. Period. I don’t think that’s right, either.

Nothing Will Change Unless We Help

The U.S. can somehow afford to spend trillions of dollars on maintaining a war footing 100% of the time, but we cannot afford to ensure the future of the country and the planet because doing that means benefiting all of our citizens and not just the dominant class. And you know what? That’s bull. Plain and simple. We need to reprioritize.

Our failure to support women and children by ensuring access to basic necessities and protection of fundamental rights means most women never achieve anything like their potential and therefore never contribute to society or the economy the way they otherwise would. Elizabeth Warren’s entire career was nearly derailed by lack of access to childcare. A relative stepped in to help, allowing her to finish law school, and the rest is history. But how many more Elizabeth Warrens are out there? The ones who didn’t have help? How many spectacularly capable women has our society failed to benefit from because we failed to support *them*?

Now don’t chide me for not addressing the women who *have* succeeded. We all know they are out there. In fact, your ability to immediately come up with exceptions to the rule is only because they *are* exceptions and celebrated as such. And if you are a woman who has fully achieved your potential, two things: a) you didn’t do it without facing discrimination and harassment, because no woman does; and b) the odds are that you are white, straight, cisgender, able-bodied, slender to medium build, not born into poverty, and at least ostensibly Christian.

So Let’s Start

Society’s failure to recognize and support women and children belongs to all of us, including women. We are not turning out to vote or to volunteer or organize or just GET INVOLVED nearly enough. Just imagine if our representatives in Congress and the statehouses *knew* that they could not get re-elected if they did not actively support women and children.

What if the 28 Republicans who voted AGAINST the Respect Child Survivors Act knew, without a doubt, that their “no” vote would cost them their elected positions? It certainly should. And if we work at it, it will. “’Politicians are very responsive to what voters want and what they won’t tolerate . . . [i]f suddenly there’s pushback and you think this will get you fewer dollars and fewer viewers, then [politicians] recalibrate.’”

We need that accountability. There is only one way to make it happen. Get involved. Vote. Contact your state and federal representatives and tell them unequivocally that you want them to support women and children, and that you will organize to vote them out if they do not. Then do it. Accept the fact that we can change things, but only if we take that first step, and then the next one. And never stop until we have equal rights and equity, until we have blind justice, for every single person in these United States.