Jan Jordan
Jan Jordan is an emeritus professor of criminology at Te Herenga Waka at Victoria University of Wellington. In 2022 she published two linked books on sexual violence, justice and patriarchy.
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The overturning of the US groundbreaking abortion access decision is the latest iteration of decades of opposition to feminism, Jan Jordan wrote.
opinion: The US Supreme Court’s decision to overthrow the Roe v. Wade case has, of course, already been widely criticized not only in the United States but around the world. Many have expressed shock and surprise at the passage of this legislative initiative. However, the writing has long hung on the wall. In fact, 50 years.
In the 1970s, feminists fought fiercely because they struggled to recognize women as human subjects with equal rights to men.
They were not the first to express such a radical purpose. Recall the 19th-century safragists and early writers such as Mary Astel and Mary Wollstonecraft, who advocated that women receive equal education as men in the 17th and 18th centuries, respectively. The latter also argues that inequality is a social creation based on prejudice, “an image of marriage based on equality, choice, complementarity, mutual respect, and an interest in personality, based on higher lines of friendship.” Asked.
She was dismissed as a “petticoat hyena” and the notions of equality and mutual respect were rejected in favor of maintaining division and the existing hierarchy of power. Wollstonecraft’s despair can be imagined 200 years later when a woman knew that she was advised that “a good wife always knows her whereabouts” (Good wife, wise mother’s guide1955), one of the best-selling books of the 1970s included advice to promote marriage, such as a happy housewife greeting her husband at a wrap-only door (, 1955).Total woman1973).
The more women who refuse to be obedient, the more opposition and misunderstandings they face. The feminist was accused of being an angry Khalidan who needed to be put back in place.
The term “sex war” is polarized and unacceptably militaristic, but the phrase reflects the intensity of the fighting and suggests a high number of casualties. At this point in the 21st century, many have been welcomed as a postfeminist era dominated by #MeToo empowerment, and it is easy to be fooled by the interests of individuals who believe their overall victory has won. But the enemy is still very big.
Polarizing rhetoric often reverses the most basic hierarchy of patriarchy and frequently classifies feminists as male haters motivated by a vengeful desire to put a woman in a cowgirl position. This depiction is a misleading structure that itself aims to maintain the current gender hierarchy. It reflects the fear that the victims of the abusers will one day face them and enjoy being exposed to the same kind of fear.
Bible encouragement that justifies eye for an eye intensifies this fear and makes it difficult to imagine another scenario. Against this background, it is not surprising that the benefits of feminists cause a vitreous reaction in people with imminent blindness.
The last 50 years, especially the last 5 years, have been horrifying for men who agree with such rhetoric. For many, this text was written on the wall in 1985, when Aotearoa in New Zealand was one of the first countries to pass a law abolishing her husband’s immunity for rape charges by “his” wife. I was there. If he can’t rape his wife, the old “joke” lament that one can rape said it all. Men were used to control the body and voice of women.
As more women try to break the silence over men’s violence, efforts to oppress women are intensifying. Thousands of women living in forced and violent relationships know this as a daily reality. Resisting the power of men is dangerous and sometimes fatal. Despite half a century of legislative changes and successes, women’s security remains an ambitious goal rather than a guaranteed reality.
Today, the opposition to feminism is reinforced by providing the opportunity for the Internet and social media to form and prosper Misogyny’s global network. Technology cannot be considered a neutral and non-political medium if it exists in the social context still defined by gender inequality. Historically, it is no coincidence that the more women fight to be treated as human rights subjects, the more silent their voices are and the more objective their bodies are.
We face a strange coexistence of important feminist interests this century on the one hand, while on the other hand the bodies of girls and women are more terrifyingly objective and sexualized than ever before. How can gender equality move forward if online pornographic Jaguar notes constantly tell men that women exist as objects with a choice of fantasy, misogyny, and aggression?
Today’s concept of ownership and qualification is firmly established in the mindset of many, strengthening women’s object status and status as “other”. Patriarchy is supported by the maintenance of division and survives through the reproduction of the hierarchy of power. At this moment in our gender history, it is more essential than ever to resist the stories informed by the patriarchal mindset. It is this idea that is the “enemy” for all of us, the apparent masculinity of the harm it has done to men and the harm it has done to women.
The US Supreme Court has given us the latest examples of how patriarchy is trying to reassert itself in the aftermath of #MeToo. My hope is that this will be seen as one of its death rattles over time.