Here's How They Keep Us Divided.

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Here's how it works. The right-wing attacks, demeans, humiliates women by saying they are stupid, incompetent, weak, emotional, incapable of rational thought or cool heads, not qualified to be in charge. And further attacks any ambitious woman based on her appearance -- she's not thin enough or pretty enough, she dresses too provocatively and is a slut or dresses too conservatively and is a lesbian. What kind of a woman is she that she does not stay home with her kids, or what kind of a mother is she that she can spend so much time on her career. It is a "you can't win" situation. They convince enough women and enough men that these cruel assaults are proper, even using religious quotes to justify them (the woman who works is evil and should be put to death) that eventually a lot of women just learn to stay quiet, try to avoid drawing attention to themselves, just get by as best they can. They give up any hope that our society will ever be fair in its dealings with women, and come to accept the lower pay, lack of promotion, lack of political representation, lack of respect.

Now they've gotten rid of (silenced) half the population, so they start on the next group. Let's say non-whites. That would be another 20% of the country (half of the non-white citizens are female so are already excluded). And a similar approach is used on them.

Now we're down to 30% of the country, only white men. Lots of them are then marginalized, told they are stupid, given guns and sent off to war, given dead-end jobs and told they must stay home and control the women. So now we're down to what? 10% of the country, all white men, run everything, steal everything, dictate everything, destroy everyone else's life, keep everyone divided against each other.

These attacks on women and minorities are not done without thought, they are not just the crazy rantings of lunatics. They are part of a carefully-planned program of people like KKKKarl Rove, Dick-In-A-Dress Cheney, Rupert Murdoch, the deaf drug addict on the radio, the teabaggers, most of the Republicans, to take over the country, steal all the money for themselves, and keep everyone else paralyzed with self-doubt and a hatred of their neighbors which prevents them from working together to fight the real enemy: the people who have stolen all the money and sent our jobs to other countries, the people who are selling off our nation's future to corporations and letting them destroy our environment.

We are smarter than that, and we need to begin calling these people out, fighting back. The real problem with the Democrats' non-response this week is that it shows they do not want the public organized, they do not want us to fight back, they do not want us to stand up for our own rights. They think we should silently accept vicious assaults on innocent people based on race or gender, to avoid conflict.

But there already is conflict in this society. It is a war being waged against most of us. We need to start standing up and fighting back. And here's the good news: there are more of us than there are of them. And we've got right on our side.

Because We're Women
Joyce Stevens (1975)

Because women's work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or repetitious
and we're the first to get the sack
and what we look like is more important than what we do
and if we get raped it's our fault
and if we get bashed we must have provoked it
and if we raise our voices we're nagging bitches
and if we enjoy sex we're nymphos
and if we don't we're frigid
and if we love women it's because we can't get a 'real' man
and if we ask our doctor too many questions we're neurotic and/or pushy
and if we expect community care for children we're selfish
and if we stand up for our rights we're aggressive and 'unfeminine' and if we don't we're typical weak females
and if we want to get married we're out to trap a man
and if we don't we're unnatural
and because we still can't get an adequate safe contraceptive but men can walk on the moon
and if we can't cope or don't want a pregnancy we're made to feel guilty about abortion
and ….. for lots and lots of other reasons we are part of the women's liberation movement.