Hey Everyone!! :-)
I've got a little more of Alyce's adventure to share with you, today! Enjoy! :-)
Excerpt from sci-fi satire novel:
I shrugged. "Well, other than forcing women to be little more than baby-making machines, as I said, there is the opposite problem. In some cases, women have been forced to undergo abortions when they didn't want to. In extreme cases, those in power have forcibly sterilized women. It has usually happened among racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups and among the disabled. Sometimes the people who committed such atrocities said they did it because they believed their victims weren't capable of properly caring for children, but that was a lie. They did it for the same reason anyone interferes with another person's reproductive choices. They wanted to control people they considered inferior."
"That's appalling!" exclaimed the big alien, though it came out barely as a whisper. Clearing his throat, he looked over his shoulder at the exhibit they had built. I couldn't be sure, but it seemed to me that he was looking at it through new eyes. He turned back to me. "Have the people in your nation-state done such things? If so, to whom?"
I nodded and wrapped my arms around myself. The hallway suddenly seemed chilly. Swallowing against the lump in my throat, I said, "Yes. People in my country have done things like that to people. It was done to Native American women, to African-American women, to women of various immigrant groups, to women who were either physically or intellectually disabled, or both, to women who had been convicted of crimes and were prisoners, and sometimes, pretty randomly, just to poor women who didn't have the means to defend themselves. That's what it always boils down to, hurting women who are powerless to prevent or escape the abuse."
"It sounds like something only people who were cowards would do," observed Squid-boy.
"It is. Why else would they only ever target people who couldn't defend themselves and who had no voice in the halls of power?"
"But things like that don't happen anymore?" asked Squid-boy.
I shook my head. "They do. Not as often on a large scale, but they still happen. And, frankly, the way things are going in my country, I think it's likely that the way women are treated will only get worse, and that the rights that we have will only become more limited."
"Forgive me for saying, but you're usually not quite so pessimistic about the chances for reform in your society. Why such a lack of optimism about this issue?" asked Yax.
"Because our courts have largely been taken over by religious fundamentalist extremists who don't consider women to be people worthy of the same rights as other people. It's hard to maintain a cheerful outlook when you know that any laws that exist to protect the rights of women are likely to be struck down within the next few years."
"Can anything keep that from happening?"
I shrugged. "As always, maybe if there is enough public outcry. But I think the odds of that are low. People are just too busy trying to survive to constantly keep fighting against all the horrible things the people in power are trying to do to us. Eventually, most people reach a limit in their ability to continue to resist and they just give up."
"But the things they are fighting against don't go away."
"No. They don't. And the people who are doing those things are only emboldened when they get away with their evil and no one even protests. But, realistically, that's what often happens. There's only so much energy and attention most people can devote to fighting. Which is why the people in power have designed the system the way that they have."
Now Out:
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