Kamala Lopez at Fighting Bob Fest, September 17, 2016, by Norman Stockwell
Hello everyone! Welcome to Fighting Bob Fest! I am very grateful to be included with so many of my sheroes, heroes and true American Patriots and I thank the organizers and all of you for your hard work to make this a reality.
This festival brings together those who would speak truth to power and are willing to pull back the curtain and reveal that often the Great Oz is really just a corporate salesman with a bad toupee.
There are many critical issues facing the American people today—issues that threaten to tear apart the fabric of our great nation. These issues are often framed to pit “us” against “them,” so as to divide and conque—as we know, that is the quickest and easiest way to rip people off and slip something past them.
But we at Fighting Bob, are here to do the opposite. We believe that by coming together, as allies, friends and people of good will, we can examine these issues and use our considerable rational power as a diverse and inclusive group of human beings to find just, sustainable and humane solutions to the problems America is suffering.
I am here today to speak about the piece of the puzzle that directly affects more than half of us—I’d like to talk about what’s going on with women and girls in America.
At present, and for the past decade or so, there has been a very clear propaganda campaign in the popular culture designed to convince women that they are equal to men in our society in every way. American girls today are being told that they can be, do and have whatever they want. That they are sexually liberated and empowered. That they can be president of the United States, run their own businesses and swipe right on Tinder. Yet the truth is, they are, were and always have been second-class citizens in the United States of America.
The fact of the matter is that there is a fundamental legal problem with our Constitution. This is not by error. This is not a matter of opinion, discussion or nuance. In 1787, when our Constitution was written, women were chattel (an item of property other than real estate). We were the property of our fathers and then, upon marriage, of our husbands. It is still this way in many parts of the world today. In fact, Gloria Steinem told me that the legal model of wives was the basis for the legal model of slaves.
And while the society has evolved and changed, and women have achieved multiple legal rights, the basic document upon which all legal precedent is based remains, as in 1787, failing to recognize that men and women enjoy the same legal status. So they don’t. And at this point in our history and culture, very few people know this. It has been conveniently forgotten, remains untaught and swept under the rug but has major ramifications that cut across all segments of our society.
Without the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, which simply states:
“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” women find themselves with no solid ground beneath them when they seek justice for gender-based discrimination.
Leaving women out of the Constitutions flies in the face of the values and principles of the United States of America—where we believe that all people are created equal and should be treated equally under the law. It also makes it easier for companies to discriminate against women and get away with it.
Even some extremely well meaning allies and actual icons within the present feminist movement subscribe to the mentality that it’s up to us to have great self-esteem and confidence, be bold and aggressive in negotiating for ourselves, speak up and have a unique and loud voice. Do these things, they promise, and discrimination will crumble before you.
But the fact is that today, in 2016, women continue to be unceremoniously discriminated against in the service of the rights and profits of businesses and multi-national corporations every day.
Over the course of creating the ERA Education Project and filming the documentary “Equal Means Equal,” I have been drilling down into issue after issue with disparate impact on women’s lives. From rape and domestic violence to rates of female incarceration, the gender pay gap and reproductive rights, what has become exceedingly clear is that at the bottom of each of these issues are laws that are failing women. The intention of the laws in place may be good but they are often archaic, invariably insufficient and mostly deliberately ignored and unenforced. In addition, court-created loopholes allow those who would cheat or hurt women a myriad of ways around providing them with equal protection under the law.
If there were teeth to our laws would three women die a day at the hands of an intimate partner? Would students on our campuses be protesting the unsafe world of higher education for girls? These crimes go unpunished. Tolerated. Accepted.
Victims of domestic violence find that a restraining order is not legally enforceable; that having a rapist prosecuted and DNA evidence tested is a pipe dream; that routinely being paid between 22 and 56 percent less money for the same work is par for the course—just keep your mouth shut and put up with it—things could be worse… This is the world we are living in.
Many of you are well educated on the issues of homelessness and domestic violence. Of gendered poverty and cultural biases. Of sexual assault and pregnancy discrimination. But what I would like you to look at is how these varied issues form a matrix of prejudice supported by the various social systems (economic, educational, governmental, judicial, cultural). And this matrix of discrimination is perpetuated by the culture, internalized by the victims and generally accepted as normal.
We are living in an age where propaganda, infotainment and soft news are bombarded at the public 24/7. The vast majority of us don’t have the time or investigative skills to get to the bottom of what is actually going on out there. Much of what we are being told and most of the information that we receive must be re-interpreted and analyzed through the lens of whoever is paying to put said information out there.
The effect of this massive and perpetual propaganda campaign on young women and girls is all-encompassing and extremely persuasive. Most of the young women I speak with have, to some degree or other, bought into the empowerment narrative and believe it hook, link and sinker.
But feeling “empowered” is exactly that—a subjective sensation. While I have no beef with young women feeling confident and feeling like they can conquer the world, my problem is the confluence between subjective and objective realities. The objective reality for young women is not at all what is being sold to them. Empowerment is not Power. How you feel about yourself will not get your rapist any jail time or compel corporations to pay you properly.
So American women today are living in a state of perpetual cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is essentially holding two conflicting ideas as true simultaneously, when one clearly must be false. The culture is telling them that they are doing better than ever, that they are the most fortunate group of females on the planet but the reality on the ground is that they can’t make ends meet with three minimum wage jobs and no childcare.
And while one hundred and seventy-five countries have sex equality provisions in their Constitutions, the United States is the only country in the industrialized world without these explicit protections for women.
America is reaching a breaking point. Our systems are outdated and failing. Serving an America that is long gone rather than the one that exists.
If we want change, we must stop gas lighting this generation. No matter how uncomfortable, we must inform them that despite doing the majority of the labor, both inside and outside of the home, our society has always seen women as less, treated them with less respect and dignity and exploited them and their bodies for profit at every turn. And it will always be that way unless we rise up and do something about it.
Women have been a major force in every single successful civil rights movement in this country. We have been out there on picket lines and in marches, knocking on doors and getting arrested—had skin in the game of every social justice movement to date.
Why is it that the one obvious human rights movement that hasn’t gotten the traction it needs to put it over the finish line is the one that counts no men as its direct beneficiaries? Women need the support of all of our allies, in all of our communities to put skin in the game for us. To stand up for us. To take on this fight with us—because we are not going to be able to do it alone. And because we are always there, have always been there and will always be there for everyone else.
The time is now for women to use their voices and demand their due. Without equivocation. Without apology. With full knowledge that not only is this is right thing to do, it is what must be done.
Every day we wake up to see extreme violence unleashed on the innocent. We see growing economic inequity, racial tension, and a huge increase in the “us versus them” mentality that only serves to rip us apart from the inside. We see the increasing speed of the downward spiral as we become more desperate and divided.
All those things that modern American society denigrates: compassion, empathy, collaboration, diplomacy, kindness, gentility, civility—these are the very qualities we need in great abundance and with great urgency throughout the world. Women bring that to the table, in spades. So let us do what we do best—let us take care of the world. We can only do that if we all agree together that it is the next best step. If we stop and look into our hearts and listen to our souls, we know that this is true—women are mankind’s last hope.
There is no doubt in my mind that the ERA needs to be the first action. Federal legal equality is necessary to protect women and elevate their present social standing in America. Once ratified the ERA will either completely resolve or provide a map for how to begin to address the various injustices women have been suffering for the last two centuries.
We should all unite with this goal in mind; bring all of our resources, networks and passions together to achieve what is a very basic necessity for the common good. The ERA is simply a clear expression of what 96 percent of the American public believes is true—that men and women are equal.
More than half the battle this time around will be to combat misinformation, disinformation and find economically viable avenues to reach the public. The single most important thing we can do is to educate and inform. I have made the documentary Equal Means Equal with the hope that you will use it in your homes, churches, union halls, schools and communities to help bring the national conversation to the urgent need for women’s rights today.