The narrative in the US media about 'what women want' in recent days has been disturbing.
The argument commonly heard is that the clearly-stated Republican platform against women's easy access to contraception and reproductive health services is irrelevant to women's rights and priorities - because many women care more about jobs and the economy.
This argument implies that women's rights to control their own health and procreation are choices, not principles to be upheld by society at large. This line of argument also implies that women need to trade in their rights for a good economy and creation of jobs. This is madness, and those making such arguments are not being called out sufficiently on this.
Take an Oct. 9 Washington Post column by Kathleen Parker.
While these incidents and anecdotes provide handy faces for dart practice, they constitute a war on women only if all women find these positions reprehensible. And only if all women care more about contraception and reproductive rights above all other issues, which is not the case.
Ms. Parker is presenting the issue as an individual choice or lower priority for women and society in general, when it is not so.
In my country, India, for decades, strenuous effort has been exerted by millions of social workers, going village to village, trying make 100s of millions of Indian women aware of their right to control their reproductive choices. It is found that control exerted by women over their reproductive health is an indispensable factor in improving women and children's overall health and mortality. Healthy women with ability to plan their families are a direct cause of improved literacy rates of their children and improved economic condition of their families and communities.
Those communities/regions in India where women do not control their reproductive choices, by and large lag educationally and economically and women's rights in general in those communities/regions remain curtailed.
The USA, meanwhile, seems to want to roll back any consensus on primacy of women's health to the well-being of society and to retreat to a time when women's lives were at the mercy of their reproductive process, better accepted as God's will. It is amazing to realize that in the year 2012 in the US, many women will vote to curtail their control over their own health.
About women's rights in general - I often wondered about Afghanistan under the Taliban - why did Afghan men and women never object to the oppression of women - they were so many and the Taliban were relatively so few.
In Ms. Parker's arguments I see the analogous mechanism of how consent for Taliban came into being - she argues(as Islamists did/do) that not all women think the same on women's rights with respect to reproductive health and contraception, and hence the general principle of such rights need not be upheld.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s I kept watching for moderate politicians in Af-Pak to speak up on women's rights, against the extremists in Afghanistan. I am still watching for moderate Republicans in the US to speak up on women's rights against extremist Republicans.
I am also watching for Democrats to point out the false choice put forward that women can either consider important their reproductive rights and health insurance options relating to their own health or they can consider important a good economy and jobs.
I am also waiting for a SINGLE debate moderator to ask Republicans about whether their stances on male contraception are as ideologically rigid and about when will Republicans project the same point on behalf of men - namely that 'men care more about the economy than their own prostate cancer screenings(and vasectomies)'.
Update: Many thanks for republishing this dairy in the Community Spotlight!
Update 2: Am very grateful for your comments and recommends. Thank you. Hope termites eat up Republican framing and hope this stress about rights ends on Election Day!