While We're at It, I Want Reparations for the Entire Human History of Female Oppression

Right Wing News reports on yet another absurd proposal to pay "reparations" for riots in North Carolina that occurred more than 100 years ago.

Of course, the so-called "reparations" would be paid to people who were not even alive when the riots happened.  The reparations would be paid to their descendants. 

Funny, but that sounds a bit like racism to me.  If you have the right bloodline, regardless of the fact that you weren't even alive in 1898, you're in the money.  If not, tough luck.  It's your fault for being born to the "wrong" parents.

And the "reparations" would be paid by people who weren't even alive when the riots happened.  How fair is that?

While we're at it, I want reparations for the entire human history of female oppression throughout the world.  After all, my female ancestors were treated as men's property, slaves, and worse for almost all of recorded history.  For most of human history, women could not own property in their own names, avoid physical abuse, or even choose their own husbands.  Just think of where I might be today if my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother had been allowed to enter a profession and own property!  When my reparations come in, that's going to be an awfully big check.  Let's see, if I had a thousand dollars for every female ancestor who was oppressed throughout human history . . . . 

But guys, don't worry -- you're in, too!  You're just as entitled to reparations as I am -- as long as you have female ancestors.  (Trust me; you'll qualify.)

Being a victim is great, isn't it?  Or descended from victims, anyway.  Same difference.

Let's get busy and demand our rights.  It will fit very nicely into my financial planning.

Comments

[Pat R.]

Women's reparations are certainly a class of consideration for the history of human oppression, which like slaves, were often subject to disposal at will - the reality of matricide.

It does not take much imagination to perceive the minimal logical rationale that evolves from the mindset of witch trials and public church beatings to the concept of justifiable homicide.

In fact, in many older films and writings, topics about unruly women and their demise are quite common.

Since wife beating was acceptable, mishaps were bound to occur, which today amounts to manslaughter at least, but were exonerated if a male happened to be drunk, for example, and therefore, could not form the required "intent" to murder.

Exceptions were also made in the case of adultery when a man found his wife with another man, and those remained the topic of modern honor killings much as they are today in less modern societies - but where the women are also killed, or abandoned.

The history of females as inanimate objects is long, varied, and irrationally configured to excuse misconduct that may still be at question today in terms of invidious discriminaton, the refusal of police to interfere in domestic arguments, and the recognition of the marital union as one of privacy, regardless of harm.

Reparations, if examined, would surely produce a plethora of platforms upon which other groups are receiving compensation, many for lesser, or less offensive violations than those from which women are perpetually subjugated under a theory first of Biblical supremacy, and secondly, of Darwinian proportions, where women are characteristically abused because they are weaker than males.

Gender reparations, like racial, ethnic, or religious reparations is entirely conceivable within the scope of female subservience which continues to a large degree and is summarily defended, and excused sufficiently to keep its premises in place - in the interests and perceived necessity of patriarchal control. Women remain under that yoke of oppression unable to achieve the freedom by which even racial minorities now measure the quality of their liberty.

[Sara PAtel]

Reparations are divisive and backward looking and they encourage the oppressed to wallow in their victim states. This book is quite good on the issue whilst making a case for forward looking progressive politics.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/377/