William Rivers Pitt: This Will Not Stand

William Rivers Pitt: This Will Not Stand

In 1878, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony drafted an amendment to the US Constitution that would make it illegal to bar citizens from voting based on gender. It took 42 years for their amendment to be ratified by Congress, but nearly 100 years after that historic decision, it seems the modern GOP hasn't yet gotten over that vote.

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, you're supposed to believe there is no "War on Women." Don't buy it. These right-wingers despise and disdain women with an energy not seen since the end of World War I, and all you have to do is look at their remarkable record of legislative actions over these past few months to see the truth of it.

One example of this pernicious phenomenon: the Brennan Center for Justice reports that some 10 percent of voting-age Americans do not have the proper ID - with current name and current address - to vote in the states where the GOP and their friends in ALEC have been pushing restrictive voter ID laws. The brunt of this burden falls on poor people and especially women, who are the most likely Americans to change their names and addresses. In other words, tough luck if you're a woman who just got married, just got divorced, or are running for your life from an abusive relationship.

Three guesses who has been sponsoring these anti-democratic bills, but the first two don't count. Since gaining control of the House of Representatives in 2010, the hard-right boys' club that is the GOP in that chamber has vomited up no less than 916 anti-woman pieces of legislation, most of which are aimed at reproductive rights. Contraception is bad. Choice is bad. Being an unwed mother is bad. Sex education is bad. Translation: women are bad, not to be trusted, and are to be treated as chattel in all cases.

It is all too astonishing that people of good conscience have been required to stand the barricades in a fight for women's rights that many believed settled long ago. Clearly the fight is not settled, especially if these unconscionable throwbacks have their way, and so here we stand. Truthout makes it our business to report on the issues that affect women (no matter their skin color, economic status or profession), and to run stories written by women - and we will not, not ever, not one time allow an attack on women to go by without bellowing from the rooftops that it is wrong, and will not stand.

I've been writing about these issues because I care deeply about the progress we've made and the fight for equality still to come. Truthout works to change the discussion and cut to the point - but because we refuse to take advertising or corporate sponsorships, we can't do this work without your help. Our fundraising drive has started slow. If our efforts are meaningful to you, please help support them so we can continue doing this vital work.

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