photo credit: WoodysWorldTVI once knew a woman whose husband beat her regularly. I’ll call her Alice.
After every beating Alice would have fresh bruises and wounds, all of which she took pains to conceal with long sleeve clothing and the clever application of makeup. In public she smiled, and when asked how things were going in her life she would always respond, “Fine! Couldn’t be better.”
Alice didn’t want to face the truth. She wanted to pretend that her husband loved her, and she wanted to believe that the beatings would stop. She thought she could apply enough makeup to hide the truth.
Alice’s friends… they looked the other way. They averted their eyes. They thought, I guess, that an unacknowledged truth might somehow become a truth no more.
I found out the hard way that talking with Alice about her problem was difficult. It was more than difficult. Her responses to any suggestion that things might not be hunky-dory at home were vehement denials and general hostility. She wasn’t about to let anyone criticize her husband. She was loyal to a fault. She was so loyal that one day her loyalty killed her.
Then everyone knew the truth. They could avert their eyes no more. Alice was gone.
It’s easy to understand why Alice acted as she did. It’s hard to admit that someone you love doesn’t love you. It’s hard to admit that you can’t always defend yourself against a stronger attacker, and it’s hard to live with yourself when your self-esteem is gone.
Every day several hundred thousand American women put on their makeup and wear a false smile to hide the worry, hurt and humiliation they feel because their homes are in foreclosure and there is nothing they can do to stop the inevitable. They are losing their homes to greedy and powerful corporate thugs who brutalize struggling, hard working people in cowardly and shameful ways.
Every day millions of American women smile and say “God will provide” as they proudly pledge their allegiance to a country that has abandoned them to poverty and servitude at a less than living wage.
Every day millions of American women quietly pray for a miracle to heal their uninsured husband whom corporate healthcare refuses to treat, continuing all the while to smile and say, “We’re getting by.”
Every day millions of immigrant women are exploited, cheated and reduced to slavery by heartless employers who use their undocumented status as a tool of terror to insure their silence.
How long can American women continue to deny the truth? How long will their pride keep them silent? What will it take to get them to fight back?
How long can we continue to avert our eyes? How many women—and husbands, elderly parents and children—must suffer, and for how long, before we rise up in our own defense? Before we act to intervene in defense of others?
Just how much suffering and death with it take?
Last week at a high school dance in California twenty people looked on while a young woman was repeatedly raped and brutalized, none raising a hand in her defense. Last year forty-five thousand Americans were condemned to death because they had no health insurance, and no one came to their aid. Tonight millions of American men, women and children will go to bed hungry, but they will not sleep as they lay in their beds of worry, wondering if they will have a roof over their heads tomorrow.
When will enough finally be enough? For me, it is now.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Isn’t it hard to get anybody to really care about anything? Sometimes it feels like I’m wanting to start a revolution all by myself. I want to stand up and run out my front door and do something, but I am afraid that I would just look like one crazy woman standing in the street screaming. all by myself. Political action is the kind of thing that really requires a crowd.
Mary Ann I believe that for the vast majority of women enough is already enough! But sadly many of those women seem to hold the believe that your reader Carla put into words “Political action is the kind of thing that really requires a crowd”. Thankfully that belief system is a bit outdated in this new cyber world we travel.
As a disabled woman I am not able to take to the streets to march, chant, yell or hold up banners on a regular basis. My ability to gather with a like-minded crowd is very limited. Indeed if I did “gather” I wouldn’t be able to hang around for very long on two artificial knees. Furthermore the disability income I receive is hardly enough to make a practice of making financial donations to political candidates or causes. That is the bad news.
Now for the good news! From my living room using a broadband internet connection I am able to move freely into the very active world of politics and political action. I sign petitions, post thoughts, and encourage others to do the same. I receive requests to call my representatives or to email them regarding my political thoughts. And I honor these request 95% of the time. From my computer, or telephone, I have become a very active political person.
In the past two months I have campaigned for candidates in Houston and in Michigan. From my living room chair I have, with the use of my computer, been able to speak with registered voters in Maine, Washington State and Michigan urging them to go to the polls to vote in the November 2nd elections. Some of the candidates I supported lost their bids, one is in a run-off and another won. In Kalamazoo, Michigan the issue I supported won, but in Maine my efforts were of no help. Yep, I lost some and I won some. BUT I DID SOMETHING!
This thing called the information highway enables all of us, should we take the time to do so, to stand up for our beliefs and to campaign for those beliefs. I encourage Carla and others like her to jump on the bandwagon and to speak out. We no longer have to be sick and tired of licking the wounds we have received from others. We simply have to make a commitment to step out of our comfort zones and join this revolution of change. The young people of this nation believed Barrack Obama when he encouraged them to take action and to believe his “yes we can” pledge. They believed Obama and took action. Today our nation is honored by having the first African American President thanks to these youthful believers. There is no excuse for any of us not believing in something, even if others don’t believe the same. There is no excuse for any of us for not becoming politically active. Yes we can, yes we can!