@Sci_Fi_Fan My dear, unfortunately, the equality act has never actually been passed in the U.S.; neither has the equal rights amendment. Women have no governmental rights to earn the same wages as men, even in this day and age. In my state alone, women earn an average of 38% less than a man in the same job. We’re the worst state that way. There is no state, yet, that guarantees equal wages for women. The stupid United States is wayyyyyyy behind every other first world country in this regard.
en.m.wikipedia.org
en.m.wikipedia.org
Imagine that 52% of the population, the female population, is still being mistreated that badly in this country. African-American men (7% of the population) were allowed to vote at the end of the Civil War, 120 years before any woman (52% of the population) was allowed to vote. LGBTQ rights basically don’t exist here, other than the right to marry. In fact, their rights are being stripped away everywhere you look, except in glorious California. The legislature in my state just passed a ton of anti-LGBTQ bills over the past six weeks. The governor had a great big huge smile on his face when he signed them, and also when he signed the anti-women’s choice bills.
If we’re that behind on *women’s* rights, which are the rights of the *majority* of the population, imagine how far behind we are for the rights of minorities. It’s a horrible shame and it’s nationally embarrassing. It breaks my heart. Caucasian, “Christian” men - most of them sinners of the worst kind - rule this country. They don’t care about anybody but themselves and the lobbyists stuffing their pockets.
When I go to other countries, I say I’m from Canada so I don’t get yelled at by every foreign citizen I meet . . . like America is my fault, as if *I* voted for the Cheetoh Terror, as if I have any right to change anything other than by the way I vote. I was just born here. I vote for better people than who typically get elected. That’s basically all I can do. I used to march and protest all the time and it never did any good, so I quit - also because I became incontinent and there aren’t typically public restrooms where one typically protests, and because my knees and spine can’t handle that kind of stuff any more, either. Now I typically bombard my legislators, senators, and representatives with letters. I write 3 to 5 letters per week. I don’t think they do any good, either, but I keep trying. I act locally and think globally. I attend my local City Council meetings, participate in many surveys, and let my Mayor know how I feel. I protested in favor of Black Lives Matter for close to a week, a couple of years ago. Did it change anything? No, it just led to nearly all the non-violent protestors being arrested and getting even more worked up. Do politicians care about protesters and what they’re advocating for? No, not at all. All they care about are getting checks and vacations from lobbyists, and their bizarre genre of fame. Did any of the women marching in favor of keeping Roe vs. Wade intact make any difference? No. 70.7% of the women in this country are in favor of women’s choice. But are women in charge? No, not even close, we’re just things to be used on the sidelines, unworthy of being paid fairly, even, let alone given the right to decide what happens to our own bodies.
I don’t think the rest of the world really understands how paralyzed and hopeless the average American feels. Being in a democracy does not mean that my 1/325,000,000 of a vote will count. I don’t have the power to change the police system; neither does anybody else. Nobody has the power to fix the healthcare system, either. If you pay attention, you’ll realize that presidents don’t really have power (though Trump the Fascist STOLE power), nor do governors, mayors, nor city council members. Basically, the only people with power are the Supreme Court and Congress at the federal level, and the legislatures at the state level. When politicians are running for office, they ALL promise things that can never happen, that they have no power over. They promised they’ll vote a certain way once they’re in power, but then they don’t.
So I, and most Americans, don’t even feel like my vote actually matters. But believe me, I dutifully still vote, at every level of every election. And every year I volunteer at the polling locations, as well. I started the first “Rock the Vote” chapter in Utah when I was 16. That was a movement created by people in the music video industry to encourage young people to vote, and particularly, to vote to make a difference to bring about real change. That didn’t matter to anyone either; it didn’t change anything politically.
At least we do have some choice here about our healthcare. We choose the companies and policies that we wish to pay for, so in essence, we choose our own benefits. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we can afford those plans! The plan I want, for instance, would cost me $894 a month. Nope, can’t afford that, stuck with the $699 a month plan. But still, I’m grateful I have the choice, unlike those of you in the UK. The worst part of health insurance here is that it’s tied to our employment. So, if my employer doesn’t carry a good health insurance policy, then I don’t get access to a good healthcare insurance policy! I’ve turn down jobs because their policies were inadequate for my healthcare needs. That really hurts. And it’s verboten to ask for information about the benefits until after you’re actually hired, which is so unfair, given that companies these days run 17-50 pages-long background checks on job applicants, yet we can’t ask questions about the benefits they offer without being disqualified during the interview process? It wastes so much time to go through all of the interview process and get hired, just to find out a compsny’s benefits are wholly inadequate, and to have to quit before even starting. Talk about disheartening. I got offered a job as an event planner for the state of Utah about five years ago. But their insurance was so horrible that they were actually paying for people’s flights and hotels to go to Mexico to get surgeries. It is a federal felony to do so, yet that’s what the state was willing to pay people to do. HOW IS THAT LEGAL; HOW ARE THEY GETTING AWAY WITH THAT?!!!! No, thanks; I’m the one who would get arrested if I did that, not the state! I walked away. I *really* wanted that job! I got along really well with the people who I would’ve been working with, and the assignments sounded like so much fun. I had so many ideas that would have benefitted them. My office would’ve been in a brand new, design-award–winning building. I was sooooo excited. But because of their crappy insurance, I had to say no. Can you believe that’s how it works here? Can you believe I have to choose my job based on how they provide my healthcare plan?!!! Those two things should be thoroughly distinct. My healthcare is none of my employer’s business!!!!
Anyway, I can’t think about all of this very much because it just makes me want to crawl in a hole and die. It’s hard to breathe or see straight when I consider the futility of all of our existences.
The bulk of what I write letters about and march for, and the causes I volunteer for, are actually for wilderness and wildlife protections rights, not human rights. A more disgusting species has never existed than the human species. Regardless of our political and sociological views, we are ultimately nothing but a scourge in the universe. If I really had things my way, I’d make it a law that every human baby born on the planet was euthanized and/or sterilized so our species can go the way of the also-ultra-destructive dinosaurs: extinct. I’d gladly participate myself in that plan. We’ve had our time and ruined everything on this planet with our selfish greed and it needs to come to a complete halt before there is nothing left alive, anywhere on the earth, which means anywhere left in the universe. I suffer horribly with eco-guilt, and I have since I was a child. The primary reason my ex-husband and I chose not to have children was to be kind to wilderness and wildlife. We took the un-selfish route. That path made our hearts hurt and deprived us of the one true love in life: the love between a parent and a child. It deprived our existence, not to mention our marriage, of longterm meaning. But it was the environmentally ethical choice so we committed to it. Also, I would never pass on my crap DNA to a baby, but I would have liked to pass on my ex-husband’s awesome DNA. Too bad you don’t get to choose which parent’s DNA gets to be the DNA that’s passed on!
Anyway, blah blah blah, no such thing as equality.
