Put a Gag on Her (Silencing the Female Voice in the 21st Century)

Around the time of the Republican Presidential primaries, I ran across an editorial on Time's website entitled, "Subject for Debate: Are Women People?" It was so clever, I wished I could claim it as my own. At the time I read this article, I was extremely discouraged by the way women were being not only degraded but outright silenced and dismissed as non-entities in our society.

Also around this time, Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke, who was advocating for women's health, a slut and a prostitute and requested that she broadcast her exploits on the Internet. He received a slap on the wrist. A few advertisers pulled out (which is not 100% effective by the way, ha ha!), then returned, while he and many other male politicians demonstrated a complete lack of understanding about the way contraceptives really work: "She has to use so much birth control . . . "

Limbaugh has now moved on to claim a new liberal conspiracy, that the villain's name in the new Batman movie (Bane) was expressly conceived to suggest that Romney's ties to the Bain corporation are evilllll. Never mind that the two Bains/Banes are not even spelled the same; they are what we call "homophones" - can you say it with me? And never mind that this comic book villain was created long before Romney's tax returns and corporate world track record came into question. Okay, crazies . . . at least my birth control is still insured for now.

But I digress. Lately, it seems that we want to silence women in a way that would make the Apostle Paul happy. Let me just say that if women were not allowed to talk at my house (or at any of the houses in my family for that matter), it would be a very quiet world indeed. It might make my husband happy for a while, but he would eventually miss my intellectual discourse. I guarantee it.

Situation #1
Recently, I heard a Fresh Air interview with Sister Pat Farrell, the president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Toward the end of the program, it was noted that in response to the LCWR's "questioning the role of women in the church and asking . . . to be able to speak more openly about what women are thinking," a panel of three bishops (obviously male) have now been assigned to review and reform the group.

Implication: Women are incapable of creating and/or leading organizations, especially in regards to issues that directly affect them.

Situation #2
Just for kicks, I was watching an unnamed conservative news channel one evening (don't judge me). My husband was out of town, and it reminded me of him (don't judge him). Let me explain.

In one of Idaho's smaller mountain resort towns, this is the only news channel available at the hotel in which we typically stay. We occasionally watch the programming with the intention of ridiculing it, but we usually end up silent and staring at the TV monitor in horrific disbelief. In some twisted way, watching this unnamed news channel helped me feel closer to my absent husband that evening.

I guess, considering my track record with this station, I shouldn't have been surprised at what I witnessed that night - the blatant disregard of the female voice.

The discussion turned to women's rights, health issues, and the "Liberal War on Women" referencing the so-called "attacks" on Ann Romney (poor multimillionaire politician wives). The female panelists, mostly conservatives who spent the time ganging up on the one liberal woman, started to contribute to this discussion but were cut off mid-sentence (conservatives and liberal alike) so that the host could get the opinion of . . . drum roll please . . . a man.

It was almost as if the moderator said, "Excuse me, ladies, you've talked enough. Let's listen to the voice of reason now."

Then the voice of reason spoke. And since he had much higher levels of testosterone than those XX'ers, he obviously knew so much more about the issues women face in our quickly regressing 21st Century society.

We all know that the male political pundits arguing with and yelling over each other on these 24-hour news networks represent the more rational gender.

Implication: Women should be prohibited from discussing issues and/or policies that directly affect them. They should not be allowed to have the last word on anything. Every conversation should conclude with the male perspective.

Solution: Isn't it clear? Put a gag on us. You obviously don't want to hear us anyway.