WAPO: We are witnessing a war on women

[Lonestarblue]

12. Also making a comeback are efforts to eliminate no-fault divorce so that women are forced to stay in marriages.

This opens the door to extended abusive marriages with little recourse for women because police and right-wing judges often side with the abuser. It hurts poor women because they cannot afford a lawyer to help them prove fault such as an extramarital affair. Certainly men can be affected by a wife’s outside affairs or even abuse, but far too often the abuser is a male who generally controls the purse strings. Just one more step in the patriarchal playbook to eliminate women’s freedom and rights.

I read an article this morning in The Guardian about the plight of girls in Afghanistan now that the Taliban rules their lives. They cannot go to school, they cannot pursue careers, they cannot meet friends because they are not allowed to leave their homes until they are forced into marriage where they are often neaten and abused and destined to have child after child. The right-wing religious zealots here would do the same if we did not have laws to provide public education and protect children. Unfortunately, Republicans are eroding those laws.