Feminizing mental health issues and mental instability is a real problem.
“You know how women are.” “She’s just being emotional.” “Do you hear this woman? She’s crazy. She’s out of her mind. She’s a lunatic!”
Blaming women for their experiences of sexual predation, harassment and assault is yet another.
No matter the occasion or the occurrence, thinking it is always a woman’s fault is illogical. That it’s not as bad as she is making it seem or that her testimony is not credible because she is crying is irrational.
Is she expected to just “take it like a man”?
Add this perspective to the fact that her body is the main suspect. It always fits the description of someone who should be molested or raped in the eyes of some people. If she would just control her body or cover up her body, nothing bad would happen.
We just need to fix her body and that would solve most of the world’s problems, right? If she would just smile, just loosen up a bit, just laugh and go along with my inappropriate jokes, then things would be just fine, right?
If all women would just stay at home, limit their movement to square feet, then there would be nothing to worry about, yes? If women would just shrink, just be quiet, just not think, then there wouldn’t even be any problems, correct?
Just forget about individual agency, consent and boundaries, am I right?
Discounting a woman’s voice and the female experience in America, and in most any other place in the world, has been done historically and up to this present moment.
Even Jesus’ disciples didn’t believe the women. They had to go and see the resurrection for themselves. We give it words like misogyny.
But it also remains in some respects inconceivable to watch a world pass you by as if you don’t even exist because of your body.
It is disappointing to work hard in spaces that pass on promoting you, that underpay you because your body comes with ovaries, which somehow take away from your job performance.
It is heartbreaking to listen to your male coworker say exactly what you said and get the credit because they didn’t want to hear it from you.
Because when women talk, they are always angry, only nagging and complaining. And I suppose that I should not complain about that.
The late James Brown dedicated a song to the patriarchy singing, “This is a man’s world!” While he added the caveat, “But it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl,” the initial declaration still stands.
But women bring life into the world, and some don’t make it home. Take a look at the maternal mortality rates.
Giving birth to a child can kill you and if it doesn’t, then most hospitals assume that it makes you stronger. Mothers are sent home two or three days after labor and delivery. Persons who have had C-sections can ask for a fourth day to recover but no more than that.
And she is sent home with a prescription for Tylenol to manage the pain. She is given the same medicine offered for headaches, colds and the reduction of fever.
But what about post-partum depression and the sheer trauma of giving birth? How can she be expected to take care of a newborn baby, her body and get right back to work?
Well, apparently, that’s what some leaders in the U.S. government think that women should do. Nearly $1.8 trillion in social spending being considered right now most likely will not include 12 weeks of paid family leave.
The pandemic has revealed what women have been saying all along: women disproportionately shoulder more caregiving responsibilities than men. Women need time to tend not only to their health and well-being but also to family members who fall ill or are aging and need additional support.
But this paid leave is no longer a part of Biden’s plan. If both the Democrat and Republican parties are to come to an agreement on the bill, then the health and well-being of women is off the table.
Maybe they think it costs too much or is not a good investment of U.S. tax dollars.
Maybe they think she’s just being emotional when she talks about women’s health. Because you know how women are.
Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.
