Happy new year, women? Let's first take an important look back at the old to assess our odds.

Despite ongoing ballot box defeats, misogynists were out in force in 2023. And promise not to ease up.

Editor’s Note: The Resistant Grandmother (trg) is back from spending an exhausting but exhilarating two weeks with my five-year-old granddaughter and two-year-old grandson. If there were ever a reminder of just what’s at stake in the year ahead, their vibrant spirits and trusting nature made it clear. We cannot leave them or any children or grandchildren an uncertain, and perhaps dystopian future, which any reelection of Donald Trump and a reward election of Republicans, in spite of their traitorous mindset and do-nothing track record, would bring about. 

While I was gone I worked a little researching and writing about the threats to freedom and women we saw too clearly in 2023 . But it’s a serious piece that did not line up with the joy of baking cookies, reading Christmas stories, watching reruns of White Christmas, or (my grandson’s great passion) forever watching endless loops of trash trucks going about their work. But I’ve returned now, with the time and inclination to get back at it. As suggested, the column is on the longish side with more to say in a subsequent posting: Part I comes about now; Part II will follow in a day or so. In the meantime, I wish all my readers a happy new year. We’ll need a positive spirit and determined focus to make that come about. 

--trg  
  

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As we close out 2023, it is fair to say that misogynists have chalked up a momentous 12 months for their scrapbooks. We saw them come out in full force in Israel with Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. The spate of anti-abortion laws since the Supreme Court’s June 2022 overthrow of Roe v. Wade’s federal protections and their Draconian aftermaths have signaled their own unique wave of destruction against women in the U.S.  

With a presidential election year now upon us, the question is, will misogyny continue its good run in 2024? 

It’s riding high in the Lone Star State
Let’s begin in Texas, one of the 13 states that has essentially banned abortion by making it next to impossible to get one. There, a 31-year-old pregnant woman, Kate Cox, had to flee the Lone Star State to get life-saving reproductive care.  Texas law prevented doctors from performing an abortion to avert septic shock and possible death and danger to her future fertility from carrying a non-viable fetus to term.  

A Texas lower court ruled on Dec. 7 in Cox’s favor. But less than a week later the Texas Supreme Court reversed that opinion, sending Cox and her husband out of the state to get help. (theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/12/texas-abortion-ken-paxton-kate-cox). 

The Cox case puts into clear focus the deliberate confusion around and animus behind abortion laws in Texas and other states that seem bent on destroying any agency for women, their families, and doctors to make life-saving decisions without state intervention.  

Ken Paxton, again
After the lower court’s ruling affirming Cox’s freedom to get a medical abortion, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton doubled down. Before the Texas Supreme Court’s decision on the lower court’s ruling was even announced, he wrote to Texas hospitals threatening to indict the woman, her doctors, and anyone else who helped Cox if she were to leave the state to obtain the care she needed. Because she did, Paxton’s warning remains a live threat with real-world consequences for Cox, her family, and anyone who counseled or aided her flight to another state to secure her future fertility and life.  

At issue for Cox, a mother of two who wants to have more children, is the Texas law which bans abortion but includes a stipulation that one may be performed only in cases where the mother’s life is in danger. But the lack of clarity in this “serious risk” provision in Texas and the 12 other similarly restricted states renders the protection of an abortion “to save the life of the mother” useless. 

Texas abortion law’s mistakenly or purposeful convoluted wording — you decide
A look at the language of the law confirms for me the difficulty for anyone to understand it. Its deliberately convoluted syntax and reliance on “legalese” begs for clarity where none is provided.  

For example, the Texas statue’s all-important “exceptions” provision explaining when an abortion may be legally permissible is written in the negative, saying, “A person may not knowingly perform...” instead of, more clearly, when an abortion may be performed. The exact wording is as follows:  

“Sec. 170A.002. PROHIBITED ABORTION; EXCEPTIONS. (a) A person may not knowingly perform, induce, or attempt an abortion. 

(b) The prohibition under Subsection (a) does not apply if: 

(1) the person performing, inducing, or attempting the abortion is a licensed physician; 

(2) in the exercise of reasonable medical judgment, the pregnant female on whom the abortion is performed, induced, or attempted has a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced; and 

(3) the person performs, induces, or attempts the abortion in a manner that, in the exercise of reasonable medical judgment, provides the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive unless, in the reasonable medical judgment, that manner would create: 

(A) a greater risk of the pregnant female's death...” 

https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/HS/htm/HS.170A.htm. 

Language designed to be this confusing gives the edge to conservative lawyers bent on saying the law means whatever they want it to mean when prosecuting a woman or her doctors in court.  

Vanity Fair's Molly Jong-Fast, a writer closely following what’s happening in post Roe v. Wade America, agrees the law's wording is so vague as to make doctors and hospitals afraid of  using it: 

“While doctors, hospitals and lawyers have asked for clarity on what ‘serious risk’ of a major bodily function entails...the Texas attorney general's office has held that the language is clear,” Fast concluded in her Dec. 18 Vanity Fair article, “Overturning Roe Has Been a Horror Show.” 

“Some may argue that the vagueness in the law is inadvertent, but my guess is that it’s intentional, a way to prevent doctors from treating these women and making sure exceptions are never implemented,” Fast said. 

The house of mirrors nature of Texas abortion law came into sharper focus just in the last few days when the Texas Medical Board refused a request by the Texas Supreme Court, the one that two weeks ago denied Cox’s request to have a life-saving medical procedure in her own state. 

Passing the buck?
After their ruling, the Texas high court called upon the Board to establish guidelines to determine what constitutes a “medical exception” in “serious risk to the life of the mother” situations.  

But as reported Dec. 28 by Dallas ABC TV news affiliate WFAA, the Board sidestepped the Court’s request, saying that it was “not the group’s role to give doctors legal clarity.”  

“I’m not sure how helpful it would be one way or another,” said Board member Dr. Sharif Zaafran. “In the past, when we issue guidance, not following that guidance didn’t necessarily mean that you (couldn’t) be prosecuted in court, still.” Only the Texas State Legislature that created the abortion law could provide that necessary clarity, he said. 

That women in Texas and other red states that have passed anti-abortion laws in the last year and a half (since the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 overturning Roe) no longer have the freedom to make their own life-saving medical decisions should disturb women even in blue states whose laws protect that right.  

According to a Feb. 1 article posted by the Associated Press titled, “GOP hopefuls must back federal limits,” anti-abortion zealots have pledged to pass Texas-like statutes on the federal level should a Republican become president and be accompanied by a GOP takeover of both houses of Congress. Such a move also might be justified by the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 opinion overturning the 50-year federal abortion protections promised under Roe. 

The mother of misogyny: Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack
Given that the world’s oldest democracy is struggling to preserve female autonomy within its own borders, the war against women in the Middle East takes on even greater importance. What happened to women on Oct. 7 and may still be happening to its hostages, signals that unbridled misogyny is still very much alive – now, dangerously, in one of the most volatile regions in the world. 

If that model of masculinity is left to act with impunity, it sends a message to men everywhere this is the way it is, and may always be. The surprise Oct. 7 Hamas attack against unarmed men, women, and children has underscored the already heavy dividing lines between democracy and autocracy, and especially between the rights of women vs. men within authoritarian states.  

As evidence, Arab countries, justifying the October attack as payback for Israeli encroachment into Palestinian areas, have not loudly condemned Hamas’s brutal rape and slaughter of Jewish women.  And celebrations in the form of dancing, passing out candies, and laudatory displays of the Hamas terrorists reportedly broke out on Arab streets and stadiums throughout the Middle East (10 oct The Times of Israel).

It’s no accident that the most authoritarian regimes on the globe – Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, etc. -- are all watching the Palestinian-Israeli conflict intently. They also, not coincidentally, feature patriarchal societies unfriendly to women’s equality, with Iran – the Middle East’s biggest player – executing and imprisoning women who dare to disagree.  Not surprisingly, Iran is one of Hamas’s biggest funders and supporters (“Hamas received weapons and training from Iran, officials say” 9 oct. 2023 washington post).

That none of these societies pays anything but lip service to free and fair elections virtually ensures women’s voices will not be heard. Keeping women down maintains cultures in which women are subordinate to men.  
 
The eventual two-slow, weak tea U.N. women’s group response
Disappointingly, the United Nations also has not spoken up strongly on behalf of brutalized Jewish women. “U.N. Women,” an organization under the United Nations umbrella that defends women and opposes gender inequality, failed to condemn the attacks for two months despite tangible evidence from eyewitnesses, phone footage, and forensic evidence accumulated by first responders within 24 hours after
the attack.  

The U.N. group finally spoke out against the attack in late November, but the effect of its statement was watered down by its two-month sluggishness (“'deafening silence’: Israel activists accuse U.N. of slow response to accounts of Hamas militants’ raping women” 4 dec 2023 nbc news). 

A cold shower awaits…
The United Nations’ response certainly did not match the level of fervor -- and depravity -- Hamas brought to its Oct. 7 invasion. Like a cold splash of freezing water that gets one’s attention whether you like it or not, it is important to understand what happened to Jewish women during Hamas’s systematic and well-planned effort to wreak submission and terror on them as the terrorists set about their work. 

The number of Hamas terrorists who overcame Israeli electronic security by parachuting, motorcycling, or driving trucks and other vehicles is not clear. But with the size of the Islamic Resistance Movement reputed to add up to 15,000 and more, it is possible that thousands of terrorists descended on Israeli towns, military installations, kibbutzes, and the music festival that day.  

Once there, the terrorists set about slaughtering families, burning them alive, castrating men, and killing babies in their cribs throughout a morning and early afternoon uninterrupted by Jewish police or military.  (The Dec. 29 edition of the New York Times extensively outlines the nature, extent, and reasons for Israel’s lack of military preparedness that day.)  

Misogyny: Netanyahu cabinet-style
That there was no faster response or preventative measures rests solely at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s feet, and ranks as still another example of misogyny. Netanyahu’s cabinet, and by inference Netanyahu himself, refused to take seriously a warning report -- authored by one of the few women high up in his administration -- describing in detail more than a year in advance what Hamas had in store. 

As horrific as their actions were toward everyone in their path, the Hamas raiders saved their greatest levels of depravity for Israeli women. Eyewitness and Hamas terrorists’ phone footage chronicles brutal gang rapes on Jewish females as young as 12, in death their bodies left in the same terrible sexual poses inflicted on them by their rapists.  

The worst you can imagine
One woman whose objections may have made it more difficult for the terrorists to rape her was nailed to the floor and slashed throughout her genitals, tearing to shreds her entire genital area. She was then shot, as many if not most of the rape victims were (“Hamas raped and mutilated women on 7 October” BBC news, 5 dec. 2023). 

The horrendous nature of the atrocities might have stopped there, but did not. One woman was found to have had her hands and feet tied to bed posts, her lower abdomen sliced open and internal organs removed...before, it may be assumed, she had been brutally raped by her Jack-the-Ripper assailants. 

Other Hamas footage shows terrorists cutting off the breasts of their victims and laughingly tossing them around like footballs before or after the women had endured their rape and execution (bbc.com). 

One young brutally raped woman was tied by her neck and hauled around at the back of a truck throughout Gaza with blood dripping down her legs, like a cruelly-treated animal being led to slaughter.

Where are the young female Israeli hostages?
Oct. 7’s brutality has made the fate of the remaining young female hostages even more frightening. In total, roughly 240 hostages were taken on Oct. 7. Only 130 have been returned, leaving more than 100 unaccounted for. Of those returned during the seven-day pause in Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza, the Palestinian area that housed the terrorists, most have been children and middle-aged or older women (“Here are the hostages released by Hamas” 14 dec. 2023 washington post).  

A December 2 Times of Israel article, “Truce fell apart after Hamas refused to release more female hostages,” reports that of that 100+ still remaining in Hamas’s hands, 17 young women and a few children are among them, even though negotiations that led up to the now-defunct cease-fire stipulated that they should be among the
first released. 

Hamas breaks the agreement
According to that publication, it was Hamas/Palestine’s refusal to release or even provide information about their whereabouts that accounted for Israel’s decision to resume the bombing of Gaza on Dec. 1, reporting: 
“The terms of the deal, brokered by Qatar, specified that Hamas would first release all women and children being held in Gaza ... 

“The temporary truce broke down after (Hamas) refused to release 10 more female hostages or propose a list of hostages set for release that would be acceptable to  
Israel...as stipulated by a deal brokered ahead of the pause in the bombing. Instead, Hamas sent a message through their Egyptian and Qatari mediators that it was  
prepared to release only male (my ital) hostages.”  

Instead of living up to the deal or offering a subsequent timeline for the female prisoners’ return, Hamas responded by firing a rocket into Israel an hour before the truce’s agreed-upon deadline, sending a deadly, not verbal, signal that a deal for the women would not be honored on their end.

Why Hamas refused to include the young women hostages is open to speculation, with the nature of that speculation suggesting nothing good.  

Walla, a Hebrew news site in Israel reported that two Israeli officials said Hamas “recognizes the importance of the remaining female hostages and was trying to exact a higher price for their release (2 dec 2023 timesofisrael.com). 

And even more disturbing explanation given to Walla speaks to what many of us fear most: that Hamas keeps the women to prevent them from leaving their captors and speaking out on what they have endured before or during their captivity, assuming they are even alive. Hamas may not want the world to witness their captives’ emotional and physical state, or learn they died at their hands.  

American misogynists have not risen to the cruelty level of the Hamas invaders. But they have created their own brand of terrorism by the real and consequential restrictions they have imposed on women’s lives.  

Stay tuned — Part II and 2024
Part II will explore the nexus between authoritarianism and cruelty toward women. And why 2024 is already emerging as the year that decides who will prevail. 

--trg 

Who I write for…