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Women’s rights are
human rights?
Stephen Henry Lewis,
United Nations’ envoy for HIV AIDS in Africa, 2006, said:
“[Women's rights have] never been made real, and so long as men control the levers and bastions of power… it never will be real. The demeaning diminution of women is everywhere evident… where freedom from sexual violence, the right to sexual autonomy, to sexual and reproductive health, social and economic independence, and even the whiff of gender equality are barely approximated. It’s a ghastly, deadly business, this untrammeled oppression of women in so many countries on the planet.”
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Equality vs. Extinction
Will women ever be able to claim and prove equality with men?
Claim=to assume ownership of something
Prove=to declare the truth of a matter based on facts
Females have been around as long as males, yet males dominate females in almost every mammalian species. Regardless, many inherent characteristics and conditions of female biology have proven the worth of females beyond a reasonable doubt.
For instance, in embryonic development, all start out as female for a short time until biological signals instruct an embryo to become male. Further, females safeguard a developing fetus within their bodies, protecting it from external threat. To further guarantee survival after birth, female anatomy evolved to provide offspring with sustenance during the first few years of life.
Males, however, are only necessary to impregnate the female’s microscopic egg with one tiny sperm—a short-term investment by him with long-term consequences for her. From the time of conception until the child is able to care for itself, the mother is not only responsible for her own well-being, but for the well-being of the child—with or without the father. Not a good deal for her.
Birth Insurance
Given the severity of the female’s responsibility, it’s doubtless that she would subject herself to copulation time and time again—each time subject to entering the valley of the shadow of death to give birth. And yet females have populated Earth with nearly 7 billion people, plus all the ones who have been born and died already. So what biologically ensures that births will continue to happen, no matter how the participants feel about their roles in this animalistic ritual?
Males evolved with endlessly active libidos (sex drive) and have acquired the physical superiority to overpower unwilling females. Therefore, until females achieve equal physical capabilities, or unless we have the help of our counterpart gender or empathic members thereof, the remaining gender equality issues will be subjugated by females’ biological constraints. That’s not to say females should give up their quest for other forms of equality. But it does allow the pursuit of gender goals with mutual benefits. For instance, eliminating the fear of nuclear annihilation.
Extinction by nuclear weapons is a possibility that has grown into a probability. A function of masculine reality is the exclusion of one’s enemies in order to dominate territory, resources, and other power prizes. Even before such prizes were known to be of value, males fought for the right to mate, still do, and probably always will. However, death by nuclear blast or radioactive fallout is not gender specific, is totally preventable, and is the biggest man-made threat to humanity and all other living things.
But wait—there may be hope! It seems that at last, intelligent males are beginning to see the extinctive dangers of such weapons. (Females have always known and have often voiced opposing opinions to the man’s way. But too often, vociferous women have been ridiculed, ignored, discounted, and dismissed. Only a few voices could be heard—until now.)
Global Zero Nukes
There’s a new organization called Global Zero insisting on the elimination of nuclear weapons. “Zero nukes” is their motto, and a world-wide invitation to join the movement has been issued. You can be a part of ending the insanity that has been threatening citizenries since 1945 when the first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. For more than sixty years, humanity has been on red alert for an intentional or accidental detonation. Now, with your help, we can end the fearful siege of wondering if and when it might happen.
More than 100 political, military, business, religious and civic leaders have lent their support to the campaign:
Former President Jimmy Carter; former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger; former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci; former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev; Shaharyar Khan, a former Pakistani foreign minister; retired Air Chief Marshal Shashindra Pal Tyagi of India; and Malcolm Rifkind, a former British foreign secretary.
Albeit there are no female names in the sample list above, women have an opportunity as never before to lead in the numbers of voices crying out against nuclear weapons.
I urge you, beg you, and wish I could bribe you if necessary to go to Global Zero to sign and submit your declaration of approval to rid the world of nuclear weapons before a planetary catastrophe can occur.
Don’t hesitate. Do it now. All it takes to wipe out the birthing efforts of our millions of ancestors is one tiny nuclear holocaust. Such an event could escalate to include you and me, our children and grandchildren, and possibly every other living thing on our planet.
#0054 Albeit Rantler
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