We are Women

I have always been interested in social issues.  However, everything is upside down. After enduring a long lasting pandemic, the war in Ukraine is now weighing heavily on people’s hearts.  Addiction and poverty are crippling so many people.  Alcohol deaths and suicide rates are up.   As my interests’ meander in the world I see many markers of a society in peril. We have lost trust in our institutions. I see a lack of appreciation for the progress that’s been made regarding bigotry and racism in Canada. I don’t think an honest person can stand before you today and debate that a gay person or a black or brown person is worse off today than they were three or even four decades ago, yet we have a media culture and government obsessed on it. The virtuous trilogy of diversity, equity and inclusion insist that meritocracy should not and cannot exist because of our racist and discriminating past.   I see a society fixated on gender and race.   

Maybe it’s okay that the word woman is becoming unclear and controversial but I worry about women’s rights. We clawed our way to get where we are. New York City’s chief medical officer has referred to us as birthing people instead of mothers.  This makes me sick as I just lost my mother.  We aren’t vulva-havers, chest feeders or bleeders.  We are women.  We stand on the shoulders of giants who have helped pave the way before us.  You don’t get to tell a woman she isn’t a woman anymore.  History is full of preposterous ideas.  This is just another one. The unprecedented access to information is destroying our ability to think for ourselves. 

All the distractions and noise are making us dumber. It’s an advanced form of tribalism enhanced by echo chambers and not good for our brains or for society.  Group-think has propagated into full on cult like ideologies.  Even the calm, rational voices of those who dared to argue for softer lockdowns is right-wing and, of course, tied to white supremacy. Then there’s the right-wing that claim that tyranny and overreach may equal loss of civil rights and free speech.

We all want similar things. We just have different views on how to get there. While I understand that a small minority are the loudest, perhaps the great reset won’t be that bad after all.   A population this obsessed with labels and malarkey and foolish noise can only be improved upon. 

Am I the only one?