Regulating Females, Trusting Corporations:
On Supreme Technologies of Misogyny & Silence
by Aimee Rickman
My country tis of thee,
Land of plutocracy,
Of thee I sing.
A Viagra free-for-all!
A working women slut-shaming-ball!
From every S'preme Court Hall,
Let patriarchy ring!
On June 26, despite maintaining buffer-zones around their own workplace that keep people from interacting with them, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a plaintiff seeking to overthrow buffer-zone regulations around Massachusetts abortion clinics. In doing so, they set a precedent to dissolve ordinances across the country that keep anti-choice protestors from directly approaching and aggressing women seeking abortions and other legal medical services.
On June 30, in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, the Court expanded on its 2010 Citizens United finding of corporate personhood to extend business owners’ religious beliefs onto their corporations. In its’ 5-4 ruling, CEOs of Hobby Lobby and Pennsylvania-based cabinet giants Conestoga Woods Specialties Corporation were given rights that allow their anti-choice ideologies to trump federal laws laying out basic preventative coverage that must be offered to citizens mandated to hold insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
In contrast to the written opinion by Justice Alito on behalf of the Court decreeing this decision “narrow,” Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby has wide implications on Americans’ medical coverage as a whole. While this is most concerning, the focus of this decision must not be diffused. In centering in on contraception, it is important to realize that the five justices affirming this decision named a new right for commercial entities to impede, very specifically and very intentionally, women’s access to legal protections.
"Pregnancy"
This case allows Hobby Lobby to refuse coverage of employees’ significant costs for copper and hormonal intrauterine devices (or "IUDs"), as well as for two types of “morning after pills”: Plan B and Ella. Countering well-established medical understandings, the plaintiffs in this case asserted that they deeply believe that pregnancy begins at fertilization and that IUDs and morning after pills terminate pregnancies. In their ruling, the Court has granted religious business owners the right to have their cake and eat it too. They are free to ignore both federal laws and formal medical definitions, and to, instead, use their personal definitions of life, abortion, and birth control to limit female employees’ pharmaceutical, medical, and family planning options while still earning federal tax breaks.
In failing to reference the formal medical definition of pregnancy upheld by the neither “left” nor “right” American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists bounding pregnancy as “established only after implantation is complete,” the Court officially rejected this important definition, giving tacit approval to the troubling idea that the American public are free to personally define the medical condition of pregnancy however they damn well please. This has succeeded in fueling an uninformed national debate over an unequivocal scientific term.
“The HL decision only involves contraception that ends pregnancies so it’s no big deal,” Facebookians post, inaccurately calling upon their new favorite word “abortifacient” as they back employers in deserving rights to make their own laws for their workers regarding what counts as pregnancy and as abortion. Others’ responses that IUDs and morning after pills are birth control are met by posts commencing with “I feel” and “I think” before laying out their own boundaries around what they believe should count as being enceinte. Comments pile up with cut-and-pasted comments parroting the talking points of talking heads. The idea that the Hobby Lobby decision “only” troubles access to four forms of contraceptives captures a prime moment of success in our nation’s conflating of entitlements with rights. “Let them eat brioche,” indeed.
Got my mind on your money and your morality on my mind
IUDs and Plan B are technologies that prevent pregnancies rather than terminate them. Someone may personally believe life begins when an intent is given to the universe to conceive. They may also personally believe that horseback riding is abortive. Neither of these beliefs is backed by science or by the medical community. A person’s heart-felt belief in either of these matters does not make them medically correct. Deeply held conviction does not entitle someone to impose their views to limit the rights of others. But, still, such beliefs are allowed to shape women’s legal rights to medical coverage as employees of Hobby Lobby. The fact that Hobby Lobby actively financially profits off of the production of the very same medicines they claim to oppose and feel are abortive matters little in this equation. Nor does the fact that the owners of Hobby Lobby make money off of large investments in actual abortifacients.
The Court appears to have paid no mind to these small details of commerce and profit running counter to professed moralities.
While Hobby Lobby's moralities receive sparse critique, females are not so fortunate. The debate around pregnancy and contraception has succeeded in shrouding women’s legally-sanctioned rights to an abortion even deeper in shame. This, at a point in time when mainstream media refer to women seeking reliable birth control as “sluts” despite official statistics finding that more than 70% of reproductive-age women aged 15-44 in the US are sexually active, and that more than 60% use some form of contraception. This, at moment when 3/4 of Americans have had sex by the time they leave their teenage years, at a time when states are only recently (and very weakly) turning from 30 years of mandated abstinence-only education in public schools, during which time studies have consistently found abstinence-only curricula linked to increased teen pregnancy rates, and as the US once again tops the list of industrialized nations with teen pregnancy. Despite the feelings of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga, abortion is legal in this county. The recent decisions of the Court have further stigmatized and guilted American girls and women as they attempt to live under protections allegedly granted to them through the rule of law.
Overall, the Court’s rulings chip away at the hard-fought rights women have earned allowing them to work within the law to control their bodies, their health, their economic standing, and, in no small part, their lives. These rights came from centuries of struggles aimed at protecting females’ well-being by establishing them as full people who can be trusted to act in their best interests. No longer.
It's another great day for misogyny
Americans are quick to share outrage about treatment toward girls and women far away in countries we deem inherently hostile toward females, but we regularly ignore the harmful legislative and social processes our own country enacts that deny US females of full rights. Even when these plights are shared, we typically brush them aside as individual cases or as no big deal, comparatively.
But they are a big deal. And they are not individual. They are an integral part of our culture. With all our big talk of freedom, equality, and justice, we see women regularly treated as lesser throughout American society in the workplace, in STEM fields they are being encouraged into, in sports, in social media, and in many other areas. Laws exist to protect citizens, but we consistently see females of all ages let down when seeking recourse for having their rights violated, as was the case recently with Walmart workers fighting wage discrimination and with many campus and community rape cases that have somehow miraculously made it past the scarlet letter phase to the courts. And now, the Supreme Court has chosen to align with profit-driven corporations and patriarchal religious institutions over science in redefining females' medical realities and their rights as citizens.
Hobby Lobby's Assemblies of God joins some Protestant sects and Catholicism in forbidding premarital sex, contraception, and abortion (Catholicism also forbids masturbation in or out of wedlock and, like Hobby Lobby's religion, condemns homosexuality). However, the fact is that the vast majority of reproductive-aged men and women in the US have sex with partners, ignoring these rules. Despite this, only females are socially cast as greedy whores taking money out of others' pockets for having the gall to attempt to be both sexual and responsible. Some brave women are speaking out against these degrading and sexist framings, often unfairly feeling the need to out their medical histories in attempts to open minds. But the paucity of male voices condemning the selective moralizing of women and drawing attention to the legal-yet-incessantly-scandalized abortion elephant in the room is positively deafening.
It does make some sense. Indeed, sexist inequality makes perfect sense when placed within its wider misogynistic, patriarchal context. Sexual double standards in the US allow heterosexual males to more easily break social rules of the church and to remain unjudged and even heralded in their hypocrisy within lay and secular communities. With a wink and a nudge, men in this society are encouraged to explore and even own their sexuality. They are given rights to both choose and to access medical technologies through their medical insurance to take care of their reproductive health without public shaming, legislative regulation, or breaches to their privacy. They are trusted to use reproductive health medicine when they feel they need it without being told to return after a waiting period, and without the involvement of "sidewalk counsel." And, bolstering their impunity, they are allowed to either stay quiet or to chime in when women are condemned for being sexual just as they are. Females are not given any of these freedoms.
On June 30, in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, the Court expanded on its 2010 Citizens United finding of corporate personhood to extend business owners’ religious beliefs onto their corporations. In its’ 5-4 ruling, CEOs of Hobby Lobby and Pennsylvania-based cabinet giants Conestoga Woods Specialties Corporation were given rights that allow their anti-choice ideologies to trump federal laws laying out basic preventative coverage that must be offered to citizens mandated to hold insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
In contrast to the written opinion by Justice Alito on behalf of the Court decreeing this decision “narrow,” Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby has wide implications on Americans’ medical coverage as a whole. While this is most concerning, the focus of this decision must not be diffused. In centering in on contraception, it is important to realize that the five justices affirming this decision named a new right for commercial entities to impede, very specifically and very intentionally, women’s access to legal protections.
"Pregnancy"
This case allows Hobby Lobby to refuse coverage of employees’ significant costs for copper and hormonal intrauterine devices (or "IUDs"), as well as for two types of “morning after pills”: Plan B and Ella. Countering well-established medical understandings, the plaintiffs in this case asserted that they deeply believe that pregnancy begins at fertilization and that IUDs and morning after pills terminate pregnancies. In their ruling, the Court has granted religious business owners the right to have their cake and eat it too. They are free to ignore both federal laws and formal medical definitions, and to, instead, use their personal definitions of life, abortion, and birth control to limit female employees’ pharmaceutical, medical, and family planning options while still earning federal tax breaks.
In failing to reference the formal medical definition of pregnancy upheld by the neither “left” nor “right” American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists bounding pregnancy as “established only after implantation is complete,” the Court officially rejected this important definition, giving tacit approval to the troubling idea that the American public are free to personally define the medical condition of pregnancy however they damn well please. This has succeeded in fueling an uninformed national debate over an unequivocal scientific term.
“The HL decision only involves contraception that ends pregnancies so it’s no big deal,” Facebookians post, inaccurately calling upon their new favorite word “abortifacient” as they back employers in deserving rights to make their own laws for their workers regarding what counts as pregnancy and as abortion. Others’ responses that IUDs and morning after pills are birth control are met by posts commencing with “I feel” and “I think” before laying out their own boundaries around what they believe should count as being enceinte. Comments pile up with cut-and-pasted comments parroting the talking points of talking heads. The idea that the Hobby Lobby decision “only” troubles access to four forms of contraceptives captures a prime moment of success in our nation’s conflating of entitlements with rights. “Let them eat brioche,” indeed.
Got my mind on your money and your morality on my mind
IUDs and Plan B are technologies that prevent pregnancies rather than terminate them. Someone may personally believe life begins when an intent is given to the universe to conceive. They may also personally believe that horseback riding is abortive. Neither of these beliefs is backed by science or by the medical community. A person’s heart-felt belief in either of these matters does not make them medically correct. Deeply held conviction does not entitle someone to impose their views to limit the rights of others. But, still, such beliefs are allowed to shape women’s legal rights to medical coverage as employees of Hobby Lobby. The fact that Hobby Lobby actively financially profits off of the production of the very same medicines they claim to oppose and feel are abortive matters little in this equation. Nor does the fact that the owners of Hobby Lobby make money off of large investments in actual abortifacients.
The Court appears to have paid no mind to these small details of commerce and profit running counter to professed moralities.
While Hobby Lobby's moralities receive sparse critique, females are not so fortunate. The debate around pregnancy and contraception has succeeded in shrouding women’s legally-sanctioned rights to an abortion even deeper in shame. This, at a point in time when mainstream media refer to women seeking reliable birth control as “sluts” despite official statistics finding that more than 70% of reproductive-age women aged 15-44 in the US are sexually active, and that more than 60% use some form of contraception. This, at moment when 3/4 of Americans have had sex by the time they leave their teenage years, at a time when states are only recently (and very weakly) turning from 30 years of mandated abstinence-only education in public schools, during which time studies have consistently found abstinence-only curricula linked to increased teen pregnancy rates, and as the US once again tops the list of industrialized nations with teen pregnancy. Despite the feelings of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga, abortion is legal in this county. The recent decisions of the Court have further stigmatized and guilted American girls and women as they attempt to live under protections allegedly granted to them through the rule of law.
Overall, the Court’s rulings chip away at the hard-fought rights women have earned allowing them to work within the law to control their bodies, their health, their economic standing, and, in no small part, their lives. These rights came from centuries of struggles aimed at protecting females’ well-being by establishing them as full people who can be trusted to act in their best interests. No longer.
It's another great day for misogyny
Americans are quick to share outrage about treatment toward girls and women far away in countries we deem inherently hostile toward females, but we regularly ignore the harmful legislative and social processes our own country enacts that deny US females of full rights. Even when these plights are shared, we typically brush them aside as individual cases or as no big deal, comparatively.
But they are a big deal. And they are not individual. They are an integral part of our culture. With all our big talk of freedom, equality, and justice, we see women regularly treated as lesser throughout American society in the workplace, in STEM fields they are being encouraged into, in sports, in social media, and in many other areas. Laws exist to protect citizens, but we consistently see females of all ages let down when seeking recourse for having their rights violated, as was the case recently with Walmart workers fighting wage discrimination and with many campus and community rape cases that have somehow miraculously made it past the scarlet letter phase to the courts. And now, the Supreme Court has chosen to align with profit-driven corporations and patriarchal religious institutions over science in redefining females' medical realities and their rights as citizens.
Hobby Lobby's Assemblies of God joins some Protestant sects and Catholicism in forbidding premarital sex, contraception, and abortion (Catholicism also forbids masturbation in or out of wedlock and, like Hobby Lobby's religion, condemns homosexuality). However, the fact is that the vast majority of reproductive-aged men and women in the US have sex with partners, ignoring these rules. Despite this, only females are socially cast as greedy whores taking money out of others' pockets for having the gall to attempt to be both sexual and responsible. Some brave women are speaking out against these degrading and sexist framings, often unfairly feeling the need to out their medical histories in attempts to open minds. But the paucity of male voices condemning the selective moralizing of women and drawing attention to the legal-yet-incessantly-scandalized abortion elephant in the room is positively deafening.
It does make some sense. Indeed, sexist inequality makes perfect sense when placed within its wider misogynistic, patriarchal context. Sexual double standards in the US allow heterosexual males to more easily break social rules of the church and to remain unjudged and even heralded in their hypocrisy within lay and secular communities. With a wink and a nudge, men in this society are encouraged to explore and even own their sexuality. They are given rights to both choose and to access medical technologies through their medical insurance to take care of their reproductive health without public shaming, legislative regulation, or breaches to their privacy. They are trusted to use reproductive health medicine when they feel they need it without being told to return after a waiting period, and without the involvement of "sidewalk counsel." And, bolstering their impunity, they are allowed to either stay quiet or to chime in when women are condemned for being sexual just as they are. Females are not given any of these freedoms.
Instead, they are confined, judged, and surveilled. They are given ideologies linking chastity to purity, and laying out binary options for good and bad girls. They are taught to feel shame and be mistrusted for their sexuality, further disconnecting them from caring adults and from themselves. They are taught stories telling them they are the root of sin. They are taught to hide their desires and their realities to maintain important relationships with adults. They are refused access to information about their bodies and to family planning resources that would help keep them safe. They are left to make sense of the unfair social stigmatization of their sexuality on their own. And, as was the case with slavery and racial discrimination in the US, many justify lesser rights for of women by calling upon religious doctrine. None of this is negligible. It is all part of our country's hostile climate toward females.
Your silence will not protect you
I grew up in a very conservative religious home and church that opposed pre-marital sex, contraception, and abortion. I was a geeky, high achieving honor roll/varsity sport kid with lots of life goals. I was also well-schooled to believe that having a baby would ruin my dreams and to know that abortion was not a choice under any circumstances. Knowing these odds, as the relationship with my first love heated up, I made a point to sit him down to let him know that I would run off and kill myself if I became pregnant. I was determined and driven. We both had no doubt that I would have done it. I know even now that, had I gotten pregnant, this would have been my course of action. I would have killed myself. I consider myself very lucky that I didn't have to, and my heart still grieves for that girl who once knew these to be her only options in life.
While living in New York City, I volunteered regularly as a Planned Parenthood escort to help women and their accompanying men through the throngs of protestors yelling insults and pushing pictures of both dismembered and angelic babies in their faces as they headed blankly for the clinic door. Doing so helped me feel I was, in a very small way, actively speaking out to support women in making choices for themselves in the face of limited options, violent oppression, and overwhelming silence. I wanted to do something to not stay complicit in one blaring space where my neighbors are oppressed and shamed.
Telling of my own experiences of abstinence-only education and near-death might do some similar work. But, really, I shouldn't have to tell my personal stories for others to see non-demeaning ideologies and reproductive health options as essential to females. Women shouldn't have to breach their right to private medical and emotional histories to encourage some to think beyond dehumanizing doctrines backed by patriarchal, anti-choice institutions. But, right now, they do. And this, in itself, is unfair.
In lieu of other personal disclosures, consider this: Elizabeth Smart stated that being brought up in a religious home and school that preached abstinence kept her from attempting to flee her rapist kidnapper as a teen. Thinking back to a teacher who told her class that having sex irreparably ruins you, leaving you like a used piece of gum, she explained:
Your silence will not protect you
I grew up in a very conservative religious home and church that opposed pre-marital sex, contraception, and abortion. I was a geeky, high achieving honor roll/varsity sport kid with lots of life goals. I was also well-schooled to believe that having a baby would ruin my dreams and to know that abortion was not a choice under any circumstances. Knowing these odds, as the relationship with my first love heated up, I made a point to sit him down to let him know that I would run off and kill myself if I became pregnant. I was determined and driven. We both had no doubt that I would have done it. I know even now that, had I gotten pregnant, this would have been my course of action. I would have killed myself. I consider myself very lucky that I didn't have to, and my heart still grieves for that girl who once knew these to be her only options in life.
While living in New York City, I volunteered regularly as a Planned Parenthood escort to help women and their accompanying men through the throngs of protestors yelling insults and pushing pictures of both dismembered and angelic babies in their faces as they headed blankly for the clinic door. Doing so helped me feel I was, in a very small way, actively speaking out to support women in making choices for themselves in the face of limited options, violent oppression, and overwhelming silence. I wanted to do something to not stay complicit in one blaring space where my neighbors are oppressed and shamed.
Telling of my own experiences of abstinence-only education and near-death might do some similar work. But, really, I shouldn't have to tell my personal stories for others to see non-demeaning ideologies and reproductive health options as essential to females. Women shouldn't have to breach their right to private medical and emotional histories to encourage some to think beyond dehumanizing doctrines backed by patriarchal, anti-choice institutions. But, right now, they do. And this, in itself, is unfair.
In lieu of other personal disclosures, consider this: Elizabeth Smart stated that being brought up in a religious home and school that preached abstinence kept her from attempting to flee her rapist kidnapper as a teen. Thinking back to a teacher who told her class that having sex irreparably ruins you, leaving you like a used piece of gum, she explained:
"I thought, 'Oh, my gosh, I'm that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.' And that's how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value. . . . Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value."
The recent decisions by the Court are part of an expansive culture of sexist aggression. Like coffee and oral contraception, hostility toward women is a daily part of life in the US. It won't just go away on its own.
Even ignoring the existence of Rush Limbaugh, the examples of overt female slut-shaming are overwhelming. Just last week, Utah Senator Mike Lee publicly backed the idea that women are greedy for expecting their "recreational" birth control to be covered by health insurance. He joined the vocal chorus of conservative news pundits ignoring how health insurance works to, instead, condemn women for making "others" pay for "their" contraception.
We don't even raise eyebrows at these comments anymore. Women are regularly insulted, demeaned, and denied rights, often by folks quoting scriptures while claiming morality. They have learned to avoid giving voice to their realities as sexual, knowing these admissions can and will be held against them. And too many men on the sidelines are sitting silent, not wanting to "get political" or to become involved in the nasty fray as corporations play politics with women's health. So, happy independence in America, ladies! Good luck laying low to avoid social targeting while you cling to those recalled rights without the help of your friends, family members, and partners!
“Dehumanization,” critical pedagogue Paulo Friere observed, “although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed.” (¶3) Last week's Supreme Court rulings on women shine a spotlight on some who are given permission to be free here in the land of opportunity and on others who are required to be brave.
With liberty and justice for... some more than others
The US government's Supreme Court website outlines the role of the Court as meant to protect its citizens. It explains: "As the final arbiter of the law, the Court is charged with ensuring the American people the promise of equal justice under law." However, rather than upholding equal justice, this court just deemed females expendable and far less deserving of justice than others. On June 30, females were told by five Supreme Court justices that they, specifically, must have permission from others and pay extra to be allowed to act within the rule of law. On June 30, they were ordered to hand their reproductive health care decisions over to their employers and to the newest "American people," corporations, as the "final arbiter of the law" passed a precedent for anti-abortion personal beliefs to trump medical science specifically for women. On June 30, the Supreme Court sided with religious conservatives in telling women they should feel shameful for having sex.
According to the Court, these new corporate Americans are more able than women, themselves, to make important medical decisions for females. And, as employer-controlled entities that limit employers' liability, the Court in essence found in favor of the notion that corporations -- not females -- are trustable enough to be granted full rights to choice. They are told they have options.
With these recent rulings, the high Court of the land affirms that, while rich Americans' right to do what they want is protected and increasingly unregulated by law, females' (especially poor females') right to even have basic rights established by laws is most definitely not protected.
As Independence Day looms then fades, can you hear that selective freedom continue to ring?
Listen. And know that your silence makes it even louder.
Even ignoring the existence of Rush Limbaugh, the examples of overt female slut-shaming are overwhelming. Just last week, Utah Senator Mike Lee publicly backed the idea that women are greedy for expecting their "recreational" birth control to be covered by health insurance. He joined the vocal chorus of conservative news pundits ignoring how health insurance works to, instead, condemn women for making "others" pay for "their" contraception.
We don't even raise eyebrows at these comments anymore. Women are regularly insulted, demeaned, and denied rights, often by folks quoting scriptures while claiming morality. They have learned to avoid giving voice to their realities as sexual, knowing these admissions can and will be held against them. And too many men on the sidelines are sitting silent, not wanting to "get political" or to become involved in the nasty fray as corporations play politics with women's health. So, happy independence in America, ladies! Good luck laying low to avoid social targeting while you cling to those recalled rights without the help of your friends, family members, and partners!
“Dehumanization,” critical pedagogue Paulo Friere observed, “although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed.” (¶3) Last week's Supreme Court rulings on women shine a spotlight on some who are given permission to be free here in the land of opportunity and on others who are required to be brave.
With liberty and justice for... some more than others
The US government's Supreme Court website outlines the role of the Court as meant to protect its citizens. It explains: "As the final arbiter of the law, the Court is charged with ensuring the American people the promise of equal justice under law." However, rather than upholding equal justice, this court just deemed females expendable and far less deserving of justice than others. On June 30, females were told by five Supreme Court justices that they, specifically, must have permission from others and pay extra to be allowed to act within the rule of law. On June 30, they were ordered to hand their reproductive health care decisions over to their employers and to the newest "American people," corporations, as the "final arbiter of the law" passed a precedent for anti-abortion personal beliefs to trump medical science specifically for women. On June 30, the Supreme Court sided with religious conservatives in telling women they should feel shameful for having sex.
According to the Court, these new corporate Americans are more able than women, themselves, to make important medical decisions for females. And, as employer-controlled entities that limit employers' liability, the Court in essence found in favor of the notion that corporations -- not females -- are trustable enough to be granted full rights to choice. They are told they have options.
With these recent rulings, the high Court of the land affirms that, while rich Americans' right to do what they want is protected and increasingly unregulated by law, females' (especially poor females') right to even have basic rights established by laws is most definitely not protected.
As Independence Day looms then fades, can you hear that selective freedom continue to ring?
Listen. And know that your silence makes it even louder.