Politics
August 2021
CATALOGUE
The Future Is, Indeed, Female, by Carolina Vilalva
Not Pro Life, Pro Birth, by Arianna Harris
The Future Is, Indeed, Female
Carolina Vilalva
Claudia Ferreira was dead and dragged by the military police and turned to be "the dragged" in the newspaper's headlines. Angélica Aparecida Souza was arrested and sentenced to four years of semi-open regime because she stole a jar of margarine for not being able to stand seeing her 4 year old son starving and unable to buy food. Those two of millions examples were about black women who were totally injusted. Black feminism is not just feminism and racism together in one, black feminism is actually a revolutionary range of social and political movements that fight for the black women's right, with its main concern being understanding problems facing black women and their rights.
It all began with the Black Liberation Movement and the Women's Movement, a group of black women feeling they were being racially and sexually oppressed. The sexual and racial discrimination black women suffered participating in both the Black Feminist Movement and the Women's Movement made their life almost unbearable, so in 1973 the Black Feminist Organization was oficially formed in New York. The purpose of this movement was to take action to stop sexism, racism and class discrimination. One example of what they wanted to stop was black masculinity, when black men assume they are more harmful from racism than black women. Both of them feel the same way! In 2013, black people got 54,7% of the salary white people got and most black women were the majority of unemployed people in Brazil. Just imagine: you're a woman, that first of all, don't have all the human rights you deserve to have, also black, that decreases even more your number of rights, and you're unemployed. How can you feed your child? How can you buy a house? I also don't know, and it was the Black Feminist Movement time to answer those questions.
The black women's fight for rights had a lot of progress over the years, with achievements including their right to vote, their right of education, and their right to work. In my perspective, one of their greatest accomplishments began in 1911, with the International Women's Day. It is marked annually on March 8th to celebrate their achievements and accomplishments, raise awareness on women's equality and they usually fundraise for female-focused charities too. We still celebrate the International Women's Day nowadays, and with black inspiring women such as Michelle Obama, Rihanna, Beyoncé and Oprah Winfrey, our society can have a great influence of people who stand by the cause and perhaps influence them to join the Black Feminist Movement fight. I can assure you that in our society we have a lot of empowered women all over the world, a lot of singers, actors, and tv hosts, can help a lot to spread the word, like Emma Watson, a actress who did a great speech on the UN about men and boys helping the change of gender equality.
We're in 2021, and we have to continue our fight having lots of women empowerment. By the way, the word "empowerment" is often misunderstood, but in the black feminist community, it has a collective meaning, and it actually means empowering yourself and others to be an active fighter of social changes. It is necessary to create empowerment strategies for our daily basis so we can finally have all of the human rights we deserve! African Americans, for example, have used social media to inform the population and media about feminism. The use of hashtags in social media has changed a lot of misconceptions about who they are and what they believe! In Tumblr, there's a page that asks people of all ages, gender and classes to write down why feminism is important to them. From personal reflections to stories of feminism, social media has helped to expose the feminst history to new audiences.
Black feminsm movements happen all over the world, and it has been there for a very long time. As I mentioned before, during their journey, they had accomplished a whole lot of things, but there's a lot of rights they still have to gain, like the ending of violence against women, racial rights, economic justice, reproductive rights and much more. Black women are strong and powerful and I really think they'll change the world. The future is, indeed, female.
Not Pro Life, Pro Birth
Arianna Harris
Limiting a woman’s access to abortion is not only inhumane, but it is a recipe for disaster. By passing legislation that makes abortions harder to access, you are not protecting the baby, and you are not protecting the holder. You are forcing your religious and ethical morals on everybody because you feel so strongly that you are right, and that everyone else who doesn't agree with you is wrong.
Passing anti-abortion legislation is posting anti-womens rights legislation. This is not a check on religious freedom or the separation of church and state- this is a war on women’s rights that is only getting more heated because of the old rich white republican men that impose these laws on the general public.
These people who claim to be pro-life only care about the life that is unborn- the life that hasnt even lived. They care more about a fetus or embryo than they do women, children, transgender people, queer people, and people who have a different political ideology than they do. This is not an effort made by those who are pro-life to protect lives, they are protecting the lives of a select few Americans who benefit off of these laws being passed.
This can almost be described as cult culture. The same laws that these conservatives want to force on to women, almost eliminating any sort of bodily autonomy they have, are the same sort of ideas progressives have been trying to put on guns for years.
In this case, then I guess I am pro life. I am pro life because I care about everyone’s life, their safety, their human rights, and their freedom. No woman should lose the freedom of choosing what happens to their body because someone disagrees with their decision. No one should die due to gun violence. No one should die or have a low quality of life because they don't have access to basic necessities like clean running water, food, electricity, and a roof over their head. I am pro-life in this case because I care more about the life of those living than of those who haven't experienced mortal existence on this planet yet.
If you're going to say you're pro-life in the way that republicans and conservatives say they are, then you might want to re-think what pro-life actually means to you. If being pro-life means you believe only a certain percentage of citizens get “luxuries” like healthcare, an affordable secondary education, and enough money to thrive, then you are not pro-life. You are entitled, and you are a monster.
Being pro life has got to be one of the biggest jokes, especially when it comes to party-line identities. Coming up with a “clever” rebuttal that includes stating that you're pro life when facing opposition from another part of the political spectrum is not a valid argument, nor is it a smart one.
We see politicians and activists all the time stating whether they are pro-life or pro-choice. A woman’s right to choose should not be a political ideology, and it should not be a part of either side’s political affiliation.
Women’s rights should not be political. Human rights should not be political. The right to access basic necessities in order to have an improved state of living is not a privilege or a luxury. It is a right.
If the right is so pro-life, then why are many of them against same-sex couples adopting? Why are they repulsed by trans youth and trans people in general for merely existing? To what expense does their liberty and freedom cost you? Why do you limit the pool of people who can adopt? These women that cannot provide the means for a quality life for a child because they cannot access abortion have the option to put their baby up for adoption or in the foster care system. But they don't seem to care about what happens to the baby after it's born.They want the baby born, but they don't care what happens after birth. They’re not pro-life, they’re pro-birth.
Conservatives care more about the unborn than minorities in America that are put at a disadvantage even before they are born due to systemic racism and discrimination. Women make 80 cents for every dollar the man makes. Therefore, all female babies are predestined to be treated as less than a man before they are even born. But of course conservatives won't do anything in an attempt to fix this problem, because it is not an area of their concern.
Now, in Texas, if a woman is raped and finds out she is pregnant 6 weeks later, she has no other choice but to endure the trauma of that horrible experience and carry the baby, or seek an illegal, or unsafe abortion. This is not pro-life. It almost seems as if the politicians signing these bills into law care more about the protection of an unborn baby and the regulation of a woman's body than they do the liberation of women and their freedom to do whatever they want with their body. Women have the right to an abortion because of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case, as well as the 14th amendment.
All those who can no longer seek a safe and legal abortion deserve justice. They deserve liberation. This is a violation of our privacy. It is unreal how educated members of our society can look past the inhumane laws that are being passed and base their entire argument off of religion.
Not everyone has the same religious beliefs and moral standards that you do. America is a melting pot of so many different people, who all have different cultures and practices. Having the authority to introduce and pass legislation does not give you the right to impose your beliefs on every woman in this country.
Imagine if the same laws and restrictions that are being put on abortions where put on guns. Think about how angry conservatives would be.
If people on the right want less government, why are they so adamant about the government controlling women? Why are they so insistent that the government get involved with abortion, but not guns? This is because one benefits them directly, and the other oppresses a large group of people, which can indirectly benefit them. It oppresses half of the people in our country.
For people who claim to have such high moral standards, they really do love to oppress minorities. It is as if the only people they care about are white religious people. Funny, huh?
The fact is that conservatives care a lot about freedom. But when they cannot recognize their own privilege, they view others getting the same rights they do as oppression towards them. We see this as a common pattern, especially during the Trump administration. When people protest on the streets saying Black Lives Matter or Protect Asian Lives, they respond with All Lives Matter, or Blue Lives Matter. It seems that they are unable to acknowledge the fact that other people are also entitled to basic human rights, regardless of their color, gender, orientation, or where they are from. They are oblivious to the fact that they are not always right.
They are oblivious to the fact that Black Lives Matter became a large civil rights movement during the summer of 2020 because of the systemic racism within our country that Black people still face, especially within our police system. They fail to realize that the Protect Asian Lives movement came into fruition because of hurtful xenophobic rhetoric Donald Trump and his followers hurled at asian people. They are oblivious to the fact that women want to have control over their bodies because why else would they not have that right, except for the fact that it is just another way for the majority to control and oppress the minority. Women want control over their bodies because women are not property. They want control because they live in America and they have that freedom, and the fact that men want to take away their freedom is inhumane and unjust.
Your opinion does not matter more than the decision that a woman makes regarding her body.