This is what Hillary said:
"Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed." HRC
A relative of mine posted that Hillary is an evil witch and linked to an opinion who summed up the preceding quote of Hillary’s as “Christians In America Must Deny Their Faith In Christianity.”
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Obviously, Hillary is not saying anybody must deny their faith. Hillary was addressing the fact that Republicans have been making it difficult for people to get birth control through the ACA, through Planned Parenthood, perhaps through aid given out in Africa and elsewhere, etc. How is being against others having access tied to 'faith', exactly? What beliefs demand that? Christians are not required to believe such things - It is certainly not Biblical.
Weirdly, my relatives who hate Hillary and hate this quote of hers have used birth control - of one sort or another - and controlled their family size. (They also had safe childbirths - and those who could not afford such received government assistance). Which is really all HRC is encouraging - that - and the recognition that all women should have access to birth control - even women with few resources. I remember the days of poor women and huge families. That is what we could potentially go back to in this country if birth control could not be accessed easily through Planned Parenthood or similar sources. Our society would have more people with more poverty - as obviously when poor people have more and more children - they have less and less money. Middle class and wealthier women have had access to birth control for a long time - even when it was illegal to even talk or write about - let alone actually use. Birth control was not legal for everyone in the USA until 1972, with abortion becoming legal in 1973. It is difficult to see how that would be anyone's desired goal.
Weirdly, my relatives who hate Hillary and hate this quote of hers have used birth control - of one sort or another - and controlled their family size. (They also had safe childbirths - and those who could not afford such received government assistance). Which is really all HRC is encouraging - that - and the recognition that all women should have access to birth control - even women with few resources. I remember the days of poor women and huge families. That is what we could potentially go back to in this country if birth control could not be accessed easily through Planned Parenthood or similar sources. Our society would have more people with more poverty - as obviously when poor people have more and more children - they have less and less money. Middle class and wealthier women have had access to birth control for a long time - even when it was illegal to even talk or write about - let alone actually use. Birth control was not legal for everyone in the USA until 1972, with abortion becoming legal in 1973. It is difficult to see how that would be anyone's desired goal.
Some figure that part of the reason some argue for less access to birth control for the poor is related to a desire by the powerful to insure a large group of ‘dispensable’ people for combat (for death).
Actually, I don’t think a person can make sense of it. I think that there are underlying, unconscious views tightly held (esp. by Fundamentalists across several religions) that men should have more rights than women, that men should control women, that men should have control over their families (and women should not), etc. Most of my relatives (but not all) who hate Hillary would probably deny that they believe that women should be submissive in all things to men. But it is easy to see how some people come to 'hate' women who are for women's rights with Republican politicians and pundits who have derided Hillary and Sandra Fluke, and any women who encouraged feminism / women’s equality, and Republicans who have denounced Planned Parenthood (with doctored videos and other means), who are fighting to make birth control and abortion difficult to access. The Republicans mostly fight against these things which feminists see as both a bodily integrity issue and a being-in-control-of-one’s-life issue. Republicans do not generally say “Men should have rights over women / women should lose what rights they have gained.” But Democrats notice when it is nearly all men who sit on these panels and denounce access to birth control and abortion. Democrats notice when it is mostly Republican men who denounce feminism (with Republican women backing them up - and denouncing people like Hillary.)
Lest people forget, contraception has made it much easier for women to participate in a variety of activities and jobs which formerly few women could or did participate in. Part of it was attitudes, part of it was laws. We can credit the women’s movement from Seneca Falls to the Suffragettes and beyond to the facts that women can write books (or do anything) and keep the profits (instead of handing them over to her husband); that women can get loans and have credit cards in their own name; that women can get divorced (without having to prove adultery or something); that women do not have to feel ‘owned’, that women’s accomplishments can be appreciated.
Male privilege started around 2000 BCE when codes were written that women could no longer have more than one husband, that women could no longer have businesses. IOW - they had previously been able to do such things - at least in Babylon. Male privileges are chronicled in the Old Testament of the Bible from about the same time (or earlier) - with women being considered the property of men. But why should we continue to believe such ideas now - even the New Testament (and most Jews) moved beyond that. And why should any of us be considered ‘evil’ if we do believe that women are equal, that all women should be able to make decisions regarding bodily integrity?
This is way beyond what Hillary was talking about - but I'm just going to say that Goddesses had “ruled” (been worshipped) prior to the male privilege / ‘One God’ take over of ideology. Some would rather that we forget about such things (or think such ideas are 'evil'). The concept of God or Goddess or Supreme Self or similar does not have to have a gender. People can choose a gender, or no gender. A God or no God - and not be evil. Those of us who love equality, and free-thinking, can be just as good as anybody. This is the truth that some still need to come to grips with.
