Salon: Ending the downward spiral on women’s rights

[maddezmom]

The battle for birth control revives a feminist movement that was dormant and defensive

Republican Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell agrees that the state should not compel a woman seeking abortion to take a probe up her vagina. Polls show that even Republican women flee the specter of Rick (no amnio) Santorum, opening a gap in his improbable march to the nomination. And these are considered feminist victories?

Where once angry feminists flooded the streets of New York with photogenic protest marches and vowed to “take back the night” on campuses across the nation, now they’re grateful that their penetrator is not the government they elected. Where abortion was legalized and protected in every state in the nation, now they fight the government they elected not to empower their employers to deny them birth control insurance. Where once feminists combined support for the Equal Rights Amendment with campaigns to address the scourge of breast cancer, now they fight their own cancer charity, the Komen Foundation, not to victimize Planned Parenthood.

Amid all the celebration of the reversal in Virginia and in the Komen Foundation and the insurance of birth control in the Affordable Care Act, one thing remains true: If that’s where the battle over women’s lives is taking place, you’ve come a long way, baby. A long way down, that is.

For 40 years, women, the majority of the population and the majority of the electorate, have been the Sleeping Beauties of American politics, slumbering obliviously while vigilant and relentless adversaries surround their rights with a thicket of thorn trees.

more; http://www.salon.com/2012/02/24/ending_the_downward_spiral_on_womens_rights/singleton/

While I don't care for a lot of blame game going on in this article, I believe some great points are made. We all need as women/feminists, no matter how we label ourselves to get together and take on the people that are intent in taking us back to the dark ages.