Thanks to the Women's Liberation Movement that got underway more than forty years ago, the issue of protecting women against violent men became a national concern. The 1969 Redstockings Manifesto explained women's circumstances in the starkest of terms. In the excerpts that follow, it also offered a context for understanding why violence against women has proven to be so difficult to alleviate:

I. "After centuries of individual and preliminary political struggle, women are uniting to achieve their final liberation from male supremacy. Redstockings is dedicated to building this unity and winning our freedom."

II. "Women are an oppressed class. Our oppression is total, affecting every facet of our lives. We are exploited as sex objects, breeders, domestic servants, and cheap labor. We are considered inferior beings, whose only purpose is to enhance men's lives. Our humanity is denied. Our prescribed behavior is enforced by the threat of physical violence.


"Because we live so intimately with our oppressors, in isolation from each other, we have been kept from seeing our personal suffering as a political condition. This creates the illusion that a woman's relationship with her man is a matter of interplay between two unique personalities, and can be worked out individually. In reality, every such relationship is a class relationship, and the conflicts between individual men and women are political conflicts that can only be solved collectively."

III. "We identify the agents of our oppression as men. Male supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of domination. All other forms of exploitation and oppression (racism, capitalism, imperialism, etc.) are extensions of male supremacy: men dominate women, a few men dominate the rest. All power structures throughout history have been male-dominated and male-oriented. Men have controlled all political, economic and cultural institutions and backed up this control with physical force. They have used their power to keep women in an inferior position. All men receive economic, sexual, and psychological benefits from male supremacy. All men have oppressed women." [1]

Today, Patriarchy is Coming Back.

First Dog food art is made with fondant, jellybeans, and Peeps at the Let's Move!-themed White House Easter Egg Roll...
White House Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses and his team annually make an Easter-themed work of food art for the White House Easter Egg Roll. This year's 135th anniversary eggstravaganza, unveiled on Monday, was a giant egg-shaped "basket," featuring a sweet rendition of First Dog Bo and--a little ironically--carrots and the Let's Move! theme spelled out in fondant: "Be Healthy, Be Active, Be You!"

First Lady Michelle Obama joined Food Network star Anne Burrell as she demonstrated a healthy pasta recipe, and the Bo egg was visible behind them the entire time. (Above, Burrell flips broccoli rabe as Mrs. Obama watches)

Bo starred in a White House video ahead of the Roll, hunting for souvenir wood Easter eggs on the South Lawn; there was a special teal wood egg featuring his "paw print" available for sale from the National Park Foundation.

Though the Roll included a mini-farmers market booth where kids could select their own hand fruit in the Play With Your Food area at the bottom of the South Lawn, all child guests went home with a gift bag that included some candy too: A four-pack of marshmallow Peeps, and a bag of M&Ms. There was also a bag of Goldfish crackers, and a pack of Welch's gummy fruit, in addition to other swag, including a wooden souvenir egg.

As I mentioned the other day, I've been thinking a lot about what "justice" means. And I was particularly struck with this statement about it from Al Giordano.

There are times when “The Law” is dressed up in liberal language in a way that masquerades the bloodlust behind witch hunts and impulses to scapegoat individuals for crimes or taboos that, in a democracy, we’re all responsible for having enabled.

The photo above was taken at the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center. It was created by Maya Lin (the same women who created the Vietnam Memorial Wall in D.C.) and features the biblical quote used by Martin Luther King, Jr. at the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and again in his I Have a Dream speech..."Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a might stream."

Its clear that Dr. King was a man committed to justice. But I can't think of a time when that included a call to punish those who committed heinous crimes against him or others involved in the movement. He certainly had ample opportunities to do so. There was no shortage of brutality in the beatings, lynchings, bombings and assassinations of his day that might have stirred a call to implement the "rule of law" for the perpetrators.

But take a look at the powerful words he spoke when four little black girls were killed at the bombing of the church in Birmingham, AL.


SNIP:

Its clear that Dr. King was a man committed to justice. But I can't think of a time when that included a call to punish those who committed heinous crimes against him or others involved in the movement. He certainly had ample opportunities to do so. There was no shortage of brutality in the beatings, lynchings, bombings and assassinations of his day that might have stirred a call to implement the "rule of law" for the perpetrators.