They start out as little bits of innocent heaven, so different from little boys, often more refined, controlled, self-disciplined. They become our loyal sisters who defend their siblings with a passion, at times undeserved, big or little. They bloom into young ladies, squealing with delight and full of gossip, sporting horrid make-up jobs the whole way, archetypical maidens.
Some become our teachers, some become our doctors, some become our mothers, some become our lovers. They age, more gracefully than men, and usually outlive the male family members, arriving finally as the repository of family wisdom; walking, living, memory banks.
So thank heaven for little girls, because little girls grow bigger everyday. But heaven is worlds away from what some segments of society, both here and abroad, wish to saddle little girls with for the rest of their lives: Hell is more like it.
Not long after college, round about the time I thought about finally growing up, I chanced to befriend two ladies. I'll call the older one Kaylee and her five-year old daughter Erica. Kaylee was one of those unusual individuals gifted with both prodigious analytical powers and unchained creativity. She was also drop dead gorgeous, an exotic oriental beauty with an elfin face and graceful legs that went on forever. By the time I met the two, they were quite a beautiful pair, mother and daughter. Both with jet black hair, both with the same cute upturned nose, and both with a pair of some of the most magnificent eyes I've ever seen: Imagine flecks of glowing ebony sculpture set in polished mahogany circles, enclosed in a ring of gold embroidery, radiant twin-almonds guarding a renaissance intellect.
Things didn't work out between Kaylee and I, but we remained friends. And from time to time I'd ask about Erica and hear about her growing up, going off to college, becoming a nurse in a neonatal unit in Dallas; last I heard she was engaged. And this last Halloween as I handed out treats to a parade of little princesses, I thought fondly of Erica and thanked Heaven For Little Girls and how we are charged to protect them. Naturally the mind then turns to tomorrow and beyond: What does the future hold for these tiny gals? If the past and present are any guide, that picture looks murky, now troubling.
It's simply a fact: Throughout recorded history and continuing right through to our present era, women have been systematically disenfranchised, abused, degraded, enslaved, disregarded, and finally discarded. That has been the fate of women the world over since "man" first begin making markings in cuneiform tablets of hard clay and probably long, long before.
They are victims of our primate heritage mostly, captives of sexual dimorphism, targets of repressed projection, trophies of conquest; or so it was at one time and remains in many parts of the world. And the root reason is pretty simple and disturbingly plain: The average 25 year old woman has the upper body power of an ailing 65 year-old man and weighs two-thirds as much. The subjugation of women today stems from fear, intimidation, and threat of violence, mostly from other men, over the last one-million years. Like many other primate species, human females needed males to protect them and their children, from other males. For that protection, many primate females including those among our closest chimpanzee cousins must project utter submission at the drop of a hat and at times endure savage, even fatal, beatings.
The contemporary manifestation of that heritage among present day western culture is not nearly so graphic, for the most part anyway. But those echoes are surely seductive to any young lad: Merely by being male, despite any visible shortcomings or hidden weaknesses, every boy finds himself valued at an automatic premium, without even trying.
Through the annals of human history, here and there, some attempts at equality have flourished, for a brief time. A token respect, a facade of humane value, has been extended to wives, daughters, mothers, and mistresses of the ruling class in more recent millennia. But the vast majority of women have always been property, chattel to be traded like oxen and tossed away like trash.
Now finally, in a few enlightened places, the nation of women have been eking out a small portion of the dignity, long overdue, with which we are all ostensibly endowed, but which is in practice shamelessly denied to fully half the species. The justification? Usually a flimsy set of cultural excuses and religious edicts masking the physiological reality set above. The tables are trying to turn though: Ironically, as it's beginning to develop, less testosterone, more intellectual capacity and discipline at a younger age and cool heads throughout all of life, and less wasteful morphology, are all exactly what our modern civilization selects for ...So naturally a large contingent of throwbacks, almost all of them led by males, has dug their heels in and is determined to maintain the double-standardized status quo, or better yet, reverse it.
Here's just one example: Eighty-percent of America's little girls will end up infected with the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). Most will never exhibit symptoms, a bunch will chase the virus out of their bodies without ever knowing they have it. But for many it will remain, semi-dormant, and they can pass it on. The same is true for males.
Millions of them will develop a distinctive wart as a result of infection, easily diagnosed and treated. The most common sites of HPV warts include the genitals, hands, face, feet, and sometimes even the mouth or throat.
The Human Papilloma Virus is spread by contact. You can get it from someone else's hands or fingers, or from your own. It can be picked up from public facilities or by sharing clothes, by kissing, or from sexual contact. However you acquire the little bugger, once it's on your skin, its goal is to get deeper into the tissue, take over the molecular machinery of a host cell, and start making more viruses. Often the virus disrupts a key gene during this process, and if that gene happens to be a control gene which initiates or inhibits some portion of cellular division in the host cell, uncontrolled replication may follow. A little knot of cells will thus grow and grow, usually becoming visible eventually as a small bump with a cauliflower surface. And you have your wart.
But the disruption process is randomized, dependent on local chemistry within the nucleus of the host cells. And as the number of cells increases, more and more combinations of disruption occur. The probability that one of those cells crosses the threshold from benign to malignant goes up. And the end result, especially among certain types of cells, can be a cancerous tumor.
The malignant genesis of HPV to cancer
Cells in the lining of the cervix, throat, vulva, and other locations are particularly vulnerable to some of the most common strains of HPV. In fact, Cervical Cancer is believed to be caused almost exclusively by two strains of HPV. In addition this virus is strongly suspected as a common precursor in a number of other types of cancer.
Oddly enough, the link between cervical cancer and HPV is in a sense, good news. Because vaccines can be developed for viruses, cervical cancer comes with the potential of virtual elimination (Too bad all cancers don't work that way). And sure enough, pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. recently developed a new vaccine for four strains of HPV, several of which are known to be associated with cervical and other cancers. Clinical trials indicate the vaccine is, get this, One-hundred Percent effective in preventing cervical malignancies! As a side benefit it also provides enormous protection against common types of warts which are both unattractive and trigger a false positive on PAP smears.
Results like that are breathtaking, eh? A real cure for cancer, at least one kind anyway, that works every time. Rarely in life or in science is anything one-hundred percent. And what it means is we can now give every little girl (And little boy for that matter) something never before available with a few shots in the arm: Near total protection from nasty warts along and one of the greatest cancer killers of all time, if administered early in life, before they're exposed to HPV.
Except there's a catch, here in the US anyway: The Neo-Christian Right (NCR) is opposed:
[Link] In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favor vaccinating their daughters. "Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.
"Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence [sp?] to engage in premarital sex," Maher claims
It's worth noting: This particular issue may have caught the NCR off guard. My guess would be that Merck and others had no interest in drawing attention to it, sensing that the thuggish enforcers of extremist dogma would infiltrate the studies, freep any positive results, and insert some scare words to boot. And in future clinical trials and reviews, just count on the data being corrupted by ideologues posing as objective researchers, should the forces of ignorance deem it a useful target. Or maybe they'll pretend it's a big deal and then make theatre out of their magnanimous offer to 'compromise' on this issue if, and only if, we ban the morning after pill or prevent teenagers from learning about AIDS and birth control.
These people are not just deluded, they're also dangerous, not to mention cruel: It's fine with them if your sister's uterus goes cancerous and dribbles out in rancid bloody bits, from sitting on a toilet at the airport, because hey, it might scare some little girl into postponing sex.
So often we view the restrictive practices of other cultures with a combination of concerned bemusement poorly concealing an inherent aura of pride. We look at the Burqa of Afghanistan sequestering the terrified woman within a suffocating cocoon, and cluck our tongues, shake our heads, slap our selves on the back for the progressive ways of the West. We look at dowries, arranged marriages, repressive laws from Asia to the Middle East, and are all too often self-congratulatory. Never here, we think, never in America. Or at least we had that luxury for the past few decades.
Now an old force has crawled out of the darkest depths of our collective Id, as surely as racism and ethnic cleansing clawed out of their burial grounds in Central Europe once relieved of their Soviet Oppressors. And as many suspected, there's a big wide streak of sexism (And racism) running right through the heart of the Neo-Christian Base. Broader than the Mississippi and nastier than a concert outhouse.
In the laboratories of the right-wing church, the ancient prejudice is jolted back to life, unloaded from the psyche onto the sanctify of the Temple, washed clean of shame, and offered back to the faithful now refined by convoluted apologetics and stamped with the comforting Seal of Allah, God, or YVHW. From the Sunni bin Laden wannabes to the Mullahs of Iran to loosely confederated Neo-Christian groups across North America, the faithful are schooled in the age old sexist hatreds, at times openly at times subtly, but always reassuringly; women are weak and wicked and the cause of every ill plaguing mankind, natural or manmade. It says so in the Good Book.
In fundamentalist Islamic, Judaic, and Christian Theology, all females inherit this defect from Eve. And followers are warned to observe the screwy traditions of bronze aged shepherds where it is wholly moral, in fact it is incumbent upon mankind as an expression of Divine Righteousness and undeniable Will, to punish all descendants of the Original Sinner: That includes, most especially, all women.
This is only one of the many hideous facets of fundamentalist religion that the GOP has frantically kept behind closed doors for as long as possible; the reasoning for concealment hopefully obvious. Here in the US, our own Neo-Christian Right extremists--if extremist is a fair qualifier any longer -- have been kept mostly hidden from the public for decades lest they shock normal voters back to reality. Now, with BushCo tenuously in power and needful of every swinging dick they can retain, as the whole mediocre crew slides inexorably toward the bottom quartile of approval, the monsters of mankind's past have been reinvigorated, and their legions are marching on modern decency with torches in hand.
Yes, the Religious Ogres of North America are finally coming out, proud Frankenstenien debutantes, crawling like some kind of deformed neo-humans from subterranean nests after nuclear apocalypse, blinking in the harsh light of day. And just like those cinematic icons, the mobs are eager to foist their sickness on the rest of us through deception, raw power, thuggery, or the barrel of a gun. And ladies, along with atheists, Jews, homosexuals, blacks and other minorities, you are a top priority for persecution, assimilation, or elimination, by these NCR creeps. The only thing that has advanced since last they dared show their true ghastly selves in full natural glory, is the sophistication of the emotional appeals they misuse:
Breaking from Faux News: Christmas is under attack! Source "S.C." speaking on deep background; Kids I'm so sorry. But between the feminazis, the queers, and the atheists, and Rudolph running off with Blitzen to get married in San Francisco ... I'm afraid ... Christmas will have to be canceled this year
I've highlighted HPV vaccine for this illustration, but I could just as easily have chosen birth control, the morning after pill, stem cell research, family leave, notification of husbands required for pregnancy decisions, AIDS awareness, Sex Ed, and on and on. Any one of them and dozens of others would have worked to underscore the nefarious agenda of the Neo-Christies and their handlers: It's not about health or morality or values although all three are useful frames for duplicity and convenient vehicles of misdirection. It's about Control. It's about generating outrage to keep those critical thinking facilities turned off, the wallets open, and the votes flowing so as to Control Women, Control Culture; it's about the acquisition of Power and Wealth by way of appeal to the basest of human emotions. Period. The only way they can sell this foul poisonous shit is by wrapping it in Holy Cloth and telling the faithful it smells like perfume. And if the faithful notice the fetid odor and say anything, they aren't praying hard enough!
These extremists would happily sacrifice anyone, even the lives of sweet little girls, on the alter of their warped version of YVWH. If their unscrupulous leaders properly motivate them and can profit financially and/or politically from feminine discomfort and demise, they'd burn them alive. If you're a women (OR any other deme targeted for domination or elimination) you are, quite bluntly, OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND, if you vote for anyone who champions these vicious, predatory sons-of-bitches. That applies as equally to the Shia in Iraq as it does to soccer moms in Ohio.
Anyway, I digress ... A few years ago Kaylee told me about Erica's latest development. The young lady was diagnosed with, you guessed it, cervical cancer at the age of 25 ... twenty-five years old ... and facing not just death, but surgical gender mutilation in the pursuit of life. The disease must have presented little in the way of symptoms, because Erica was afterall a nurse, studying to be a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, and both mother and daughter always struck me as non-nonsense gals.
Erica fought bravely for the last two years. She underwent some kind of cryosurgery, and later, radiation and chemo. At times her weight dipped below 80 pounds and she was so anemic/weak she couldn't feed herself.
She recovered, the disease went into remission, and Erica remained free of cancer for one glorious year. A year in which she took full advantage and experienced things most people only dream of; skydiving, snorkeling, a visit to her grandparents home country, where I understand she freely and lovingly administered nursing care to children packed into over crowded hospitals. She made that time count, because as the late Carl Sagan once said "Almost dying is such a life affirming experience, that I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone; if not for the irreducible yet completely essential element of risk".
But the disease returned, this time spreading further into her organs and eventually even her spine. Specialist tell me the latter can produce unimaginable pain, if left unmedicated. Again, the best medical care was available, Erica had great insurance, and she was pretty healthy and young for a cancer patient. She stared cancer straight in the eyes and didn't blink, she never gave up. I'll spare readers exactly what all that entailed in terms of personal courage. If you've been witness to the brutal ups and downs that makes up a cancer patient's life, you know what I mean. If you haven't, I hope you never are.
She was a tough cookie; but alas, toughness was not the measure; the cancer was eating her alive. And finally Erica, the girl who would scrunch her cute little mug in a parody of disgust at the mere mention of onions, the grown-up French-Vietnamese beauty who used to gaze out of a sleepy Texas hamlet at the Gulf of Mexico with an infectious grin and gorgeous eyes, slipped into a dreamy opiate coma, and silently, lost her fight.
And just in case that didn't hit close enough to home, Mrs. DS was almost done in by an eerily similar problem a year later. If she hadn't caught it when she did, about as early as is possible, she'd might be dead right now or in the midst of being ravaged by the disease. So ladies, I ain't writing this for DKos PC brownie points. And if some drooling freeper psycho ever gets in my face about a women's health issue, I'll try, I'll really try by golly, not to beat them into a bloody pulp.
For the working classes, the poverty stricken, the disenfranchised, the orphans, the homeless, or powerless, dying of cancer is often a protracted, painful, and lonely process. Hospice Care can make the difference between dying alone in a dingy ward writhing in intractable pain caked in unspeakable filth. Or dying with dignity, all funeral arrangements made, surrounded by caring people trained in healthcare, in clean sheets, and with the soothing effects of high grade painkillers dulling the worst agony. This is truly the work of Jesus Christ, as opposed to NCR Fascist bullshit
Mrs. DS and Erica are by no means alone. Nationwide, about 5,000 women will die of cervical cancer this year out of the over 12,000 cases that will be diagnosed, the great majority attributable to HPV. The virus is also known or suspected in uterine, throat, vulvar, rectal, and even sometimes, penile cancers. All told, the impact of HPV on the US is roughly equivalent in terms of mortality, morbidity, and expense, to a 9-11 attack every month. And now, finally, after truckloads of disease ridden body parts have been incinerated in hospital waste facilities and millions of lives world-wide torn asunder, we can end at least this one threat to little girls and the women they will become. Maybe forever.
In all likelihood little could have prevented Erica's untimely passing. This is no longer operative. We can cut into that Cancerous Grim Reaper with a razor-sharp sword of biotechnology, that foil indeed already exists in the HPV vaccine! And we the people can restore all the other hard fought progress on behalf of our daughters, sisters, mothers, teachers, and matriarchs. Better yet we can press that battle onward until all people are created equal, and equally deserving of every Constitutional mandate. But in that duel against the simplest of viral creatures and lowest denominator of human hatred and fear, we must combat the cleverest and vilest among our own kind.
If you're a past GOP voter, motivated by fiscal restraint, wise, well executed foreign policy, accountability, responsibility, and small government; if those are your issues, that party simply no longer exists. The current manifestation therein has in most cases completely flip-flopped on all those critical components. Leaving as one of the few remaining constants, Dominionist spooks.
If you're now feeling some buyers remorse going forward, you face a choice: You can either go with the political faction which proudly features equality for woman, for everyone, as a top rung in their ladder of political ideology. Or you can trust the crew which has been stone-cold busted lying through their teeth on every important issue for the last five years; the party which has left a trail of dead and mangled bodies, broken promises, busted budgets, and devastated families; the group currently betrothed to a brutish monstrosity resurrected from the worst of mankind's violent past and now repackaged in false Divinity shouting empty platitudes of a Glorious future in servitude to their peculiar whims: the cult of neocons who have betrayed most every core conservative value: The Cabal now squatting front and center in the political corpus of the White House and the Republican Party.
Can you help us? Would you be willing to help all the little girls, to perhaps err on their side if you're going to err at all? Because their future, and ours, is now in the hands of some rather disgusting immoral characters who will look you straight in the eyes and lie their asses off, while assuring you they represent the greatest degree of morality possible.
What does the ocean of time hold for these two American Beauties? Will they inherit the promise of future technology or the chains of past enslavement?
Thank Heaven for little girls! They are as delightful sugar and spice and everything nice. They're cuter than dogs playing poker and cooler than an Eskimo on ice skates. I cannot conceive of a world without them. So please, help us deny victory to the shameful opportunistic sexist, race baiting assholes who falsely claim to speak on behalf of heaven, while gleefully planning to erect an all too hellish future for American women by way of the past.
Some identifying details in this essay were altered at
the author's discretion. This post is presented
with permission, and dedicated to the memory
and the family of M. J. T.
~DS~