I generally don’t like to talk about politics. I am children’s book writer, damn it. But what is going on with Roe vs. Wade combined with an article I read about the creation of the U.S. Constitution got me thinking.
Let’s go back in time to what instigated the creation of our country: No Taxation Without Representation. So a group of old white men got together and wrote up a list of rules. And without so much as a nod to women, America was fathered.
This was a time when women had no voice, when women weren’t involved in the writing of these rules, when women were considered chattel signified by the changing of their last name to match their husband’s, when women couldn’t hold property and any money they earned belonged to their husbands. This was a bad time for women.
Fast forward to today. We live in a country governed by a Constitution that excluded women. Women didn’t even get the vote until 1920. 133 years later! Wow.
And that was only women over the age of 30! What, I wonder, made a 30-year-old woman more capable of making a decision than a 25 year old? Twenty-one-year-old men were able to vote. And don’t tell me a 21-year old man is any better at making decisions than a 21-year-old woman. That wasn’t the issue, though. The issue was fear. Men couldn’t allow all women over 18 to vote. That would be too many. They would lose control.
But in these modern times we are still allowing men to decide what we women are allowed and not allowed to do with our bodies. They still believe we are their property, don’t they? They still fear losing their dominant position. What ever happened to No Taxation Without Representation?
What gives these old white men the power to legislate over a woman’s body? Have they ever menstruated? Have they ever been molested by an older male family member? Have they ever been impregnated by a step-father? Have they ever been pregnant – at 12 or 14 years of age? Have they ever been raped? Have they ever been told that their baby’s and body’s health is imperiled by this pregnancy? Have they ever miscarried? Do they have three children already and live in poverty? Are they women of color? What gives these old white men the right? Obviously, they derive this right from the Constitution that was written in secret by 55 well-to-do mostly drunk or hungover white men who believed women were simply part of their livestock.
Where are the rules legislating what men can and can’t do with their conscience and bodies? I bet you all can think of a few. But they won’t be enacted because men still write the rules.
It occurs to me that everything that is wrong with American society derives from our male-oriented Constitution. It is time for a change.
I propose a new amendment to the Constitution: No ruling body shall have the right to make rules about what women can and can’t do with their conscience and body unless that ruling body has a 50% or more membership of women. And that 50% must include an equal representation of all colors.
No Legislation Without Representation: If you don’t have the members, you can’t make the rules.
Done.
Books by Marilyn Wolpin 