Rush, Thank you! Your uninformed, derogatory, and inflammatory language about one politically responsible female law student’s testimony has sounded an alarm to women across the country — and across party lines.
The media coverage of your comments quickly surfaced attention to efforts from Arizona, to Pennsylvania, to Virginia to legislate against womens’ rights to health care and contraception, and limitations on access to abortion. Now an intelligent dialogue is taking place. Awareness is higher. The necessity to elect more women to political office to give voice to over 50% of our population is catching fire. Change is possible!
The inequity in the balance of power between women and men in our culture — across systems — is the foundational issue. As long as women as a group are seen as powerless, our rights — our individual freedoms, our safety, our future progress — will be threatened.
Thanks to you Rush, many women are mobilizing to “Take Back Their Power”……..When I first wrote Release From Powerlessness: Take Charge of Your Life, I said that women were powerless in the majority of our institutions. Today, in the third edition, I continue to write, to believe, that although women have made huge strides in taking back power, in moving to positions of power, in leading lives with more opportunity and freedom to pursue their personal and professional goals, the system powerlessness is largely still the fundamental issue we must face. The foundational challenge — the issue that makes it easier to threaten womens’ rights and the ability to live free of violence — physical, psychological, legislative! Women are stepping up again — in numbers we have not seen since the 60’s. Again, change is possible. When I speak to audiences of women across the country, or to individual women in therapy, my message is: Keep the dialogue going. Build awareness. Become as powerful as you are capable of being. And to remember what Eleanor Roosevelt said: You must do the thing you think you cannot do.