It is utterly incredible that people like Jim Stamas can even be elected at all. How can you seek to ban the use of a word that is the actual, clinical, scientific term for a part of human anatomy? In one fell swoop, Stamas wants to tell a woman what to do with her vagina, but not let her in on the conversation, unless it’s on his terms. With the zeal of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini or any of the totalitarian dictators past and present, Stamas used the power of his leadership role to exile Representative Lisa Brown from the Michigan House of Representatives under pain of physical, forcible restraint in a local stalag. To put his outrageous behavior in perspective, we have movies and TV shows that routinely articulate all kinds of slang words for women and genitalia. Nevertheless, when the clinically and scientifically correct term is used in official discussion about laws that will forever change the lives of hundreds of thousands of women in the state of Michigan, that’s inappropriate?
Stamas has consistently picked sides of issues that deny safe abortion access to women, against legislation regarding hate crimes , in favor of insurance companies , against bans on substances deemed dangerous and used in children’s products , against banning inaccurate descriptions on prescription and herbal drugs and appears to support tobacco.
The hypocrisy is nothing short of puke-worthy. Republicans (Stamas’ political party) is always promoting itself as the party of less government, yet they consistently promote laws that intrude further and further into peoples’ private lives, specifically impacting women. Now the Republicans are crafting laws to control the use of the word vagina. As if the economy and geo-political upheaval in far flung places like the Middle East are not enough to keep lawmakers busy. Listening to the Republicans is like being in some horrific Orwellian 1984 nightmare that you find you can’t wake from. For example, take the rationale of Arizona Republican Debbie Lesko, who authored a bill that allows employers to ask a woman if she is using birth control pills for either medical or contraceptive reasons . “I believe we live in America. We don’t live in the Soviet Union,” Lesko said. “So, government should not be telling the organizations or mom and pop employers to do something against their moral beliefs.” Under the guise of making society less intrusive, they have made society more intrusive. Specifically, this woman Lesko has crafted a law that makes the lives of women less private and allows employers to make women subject to the employer’s value system.
What can be done? Women must take an active role in first of all, limiting the ability of women like Lesko to work against the best interests of women. The main problem at this point is that women generally don’t believe their interests are at stake. The Huffington Post reported on a poll which indicates only a third of women believe there rights are in danger . Women must spend more time researching and studying what is occurring on the political landscape. Women must talk to one another about these issues and inform one another that the slow steady march to the end of life as they know it is at hand.