It is no question that women’s rights are under attack with the recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe vs. Wade. This might be stupid to say out loud, but when women have more rights, they advance a nation’s economy. The same is true for minorities and other persecuted groups. Here was a piece in the Washington Post that brought home this point for me.
States may revive abortion laws from a time when women couldn’t vote – Washington Post
The author, Gillian Brockell, notes the following in the last paragraph.
- Women gain the right to vote in 1920 with the 19th Amendment
- Women receive a minimum wage equal to men in 1938
- Women are able to enlist as full members of the military in 1948
- Women are allowed use of birth control in 1965
- Supreme Court strikes down anti abortion laws in 1973, with the Roe vs. Wade decision
- Women are allowed to own a credit card in 1974
- Women can serve on juries without restriction in 1975
- They are allowed to keep a job after becoming pregnant, again in 1975
- Women are freely allowed to attend Ivy League schools in 1983
- Women can press charges for sexual assault against a spouse
- Women are allowed to serve in combat, 2013
- In 2022, a radical Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade, taking away a Constitutional right enjoyed by women for almost 50 years
I was stunned to find that women could not freely attend Ivy League schools until 1983. All of these rights enjoyed by women only happened in the last 100 years, very recently in our species history. It stunned me because all the girls and women in my life, all capable, would not have been able to attend an Ivy League school, simply because they were female.
No one can rightly argue that having 50% of your population without freedom and rights can help an economy. That’s absurd. The contributions of women to our economy and the global economy are everywhere. This is only because of their advancing rights, sparingly given and hard earned. As their rights increase, so do their contributions. Recent efforts to diminish women’s rights are all about control.
With the start of rights rolling back, we’ll see the economic gains made by US women decrease. The Republican Party wants to take us back to the 8th, 13th, and 16th centuries, before women had the right to vote and were considered property in many cases. This is absurd. We live in the 21st Century. Hurting women and their freedom hurts all of us.
When you vote this year, consider your candidates. Are they pro-freedom, pro-democracy, and pro-expanding rights? Or, are they pro-control, pro-cruelty, pro-fascism, and anti-rights? If they are the second, I strongly advocate choosing the first group.
Choose and vote carefully. Don’t take our rights for granted. These posts aren’t popular on the site. That’s okay. It’s a message directly related to sustainability and ethical capitalism.
Fighting mad,
smilingdad
smilingdad 