Carolyn Gage
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The Most Oppressed Group in the World

6/20/2011

8 Comments

 
PictureKinda like they still won...
It's too late for a women's party. That was the great dream of some of our Suffrage foremothers-- that after women got the vote we would organize ourselves into a separate political party that would seriously rearrange the business-as-usual agenda. Opponents of Suffrage, for all the rhetoric about "a woman's place" and protecting our pure minds from the dirty work of politics, were terrified that this would be the outcome. Frankly, I think it's sad that a women's party did not emerge. In the ninety-one years since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, there have been a few "gender gaps" in the poll numbers between the Democrats and the Republicans, but the Equal Rights Amendment never passed, we are still needing to fight for our reproductive rights,  the majority of folks living in poverty in the US are women and children, and violence against us continues to rise. Women adn children comprise 80% of the casualties in war these days...  up 400% since the days of Suffrage. Needless to say, we are wildly underrepresented in Congress.

Picture
And it's too late for that women's party now. The evil is too big, too pervasive.  What we need is something more radical. Something like a children's party.  Political, that is.

Children are the most globally disenfranchised, helpless, dependent, and historically victimized population on the planet. They are raped, beaten, trafficked, starved, forced into slave labor, held as captives, tortured, pimped out in marriages, and forced to give birth... with near impunity. Their abuse is legal in many situations. They are colonized by adults everywhere

Children, as an exploited and colonized population are in a unique situation. They have never had a voice politically, and they never will. Why? Because they don't earn wages and those who are fortunate enough to have money in their name will have no control over that money until they become adults. In other words, they lack leverage; they have no clout. Oh, and they're children. Their brains are still developing. They are naive about the world, they lack language skills. The conditions for their ongoing exploitation are near ideal: They are ubiquitous, financially dependent, easy to discredit because of their youth, without representation, unable to organize themselves, naive and gullible, physically diminutive and relatively frail, and treated as the property of adults.

Picture
Children can't even organize a protest. How could they be expected to organize a national political party? Well, they can't. But adults, acting as proxies, could.

And, of course, this immediately calls to mind the absolutely abysmal historical record of adults attempting to protect children via legislation and agencies. How would this be any different?

Because it would be visionary. It would not be about advocacy and lobbying of existing adultist institutions. It would be a political party that prioritized the needs of children, not as planks in a platform, but as the sole agenda.

And what are those needs?
  • The right to their bodily integrity. (no corporal punishment, trafficking, prostitution, exploitation in pornography, rape, molestation)
  • The right to their childhood. (no slave labor)
  • The right to clean air and clean water.
  • The right to education.
  • The right to safe homes.
  • The right to a radiation-free, pollution-free environment.
  • The right to access nature.
  • The right to health, dental, and optical care.
  • The right to spiritual autonomy. (no indoctrination)
  • The right to food that is pesticide-free and not genetically-modified.
  • The right to a future.

Picture
I read this week that the Japanese government will be issuing radiation-monitoring badges to 34,000 children in northern Japan.  This is in lieu of evacuation and will take three radiation-accumulating months to accomplish.

This year, there have been a spate of lawsuits filed in several states and in federal court by an Oregon-based nonprofit called Our Children's Trust. The lawsuits, filed on behalf of children and young adults,  are based on "common law" theories about "public trusts." The goal is to have the atmosphere declared for the first time as a public trust, warranting government protection.  In the past, this "public trust" concept has been effectively used to clean up polluted rivers and coastlines. Applying it to global warming and climate change may be somewhat trickier. The organization uses the phrase "intergenerational justice."

And... child trafficking. This is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world. Trafficking is the world’s second largest criminal enterprise, after drugs. The global market of child trafficking at over $12 billion a year with over 1.2 million child victims. Baby-farming, pornography, child brides, child soldiers... 

A children's party. An act of penance on the part of all of us adults. A children's party NOW.

8 Comments
Jessica Ruby Radcliffe
6/20/2011 02:17:55 am

I would like all those things too, please. As an adult. But as an adult who voluntarily left [ran away from]a middle class home at the age of 13 to live in poverty on the streets rather than be subjected to severe emotional and unidentifiable physical abuse, i wonder who will be the arbiter of 'safe' at home for these children. Who have all these things we as adults dont have, like dental care.And trees. Perhaps if humans were nicer to each other across the board...

Reply
Carolyn Gage link
6/20/2011 03:09:48 am

Hi, Jessica... I'm so sorry that you had such a miserable experience. A tall order since so many folks in this culture are dissociated from their experiences as children, identified with the perpetrators, internalizing of their oppression... It would be a challenge, not to fall back into adultist patterns. Being child-centered (pedocentric?) is difficult, because there is no constituency and no system of rewards. It would require deeply moral thinking and stunning autonomy of thought...and a lot of discipline to face to constant social sanctioning/censuring/shunning. I have some taste of it with the plays I have written which advocate radically for children.

Reply
Ethel Spiliotes link
6/20/2011 10:27:36 am

I agree and I am currently writing a manifesto for the children's civil rights movement (I don't want to say human, because I'm not very impressed with the species and don't think its supposedly "inherent" rights are obvious or widespread.)

Reply
Jessica Ruby Radcliffe
6/21/2011 07:05:38 am

While I like the idea of 'children's rights', it can only be a side door to the reality of the lives of adults. Until women are treated with respect across the board, and men are treated with respect as well; until society values even its weakest members simply for existing we can not expect people to grow up to be able to compassionately care for children . Or elders.It has to start in individual conciousness and strong heart centered mentoring.And there are still cultural religious and personal ways of raising kids that might not sit well with other cultural norms etc...who will be the judge?Real support, love and respect cannot be legislated. [Unless we can make socialism really really work.]

Reply
joy link
6/22/2011 11:26:12 am

When are men not "treated with respect"?

I agree that I do still want a radical women's party. But I read this article both literally and metaphorically: the ultimate point that I took is that the "professional wrestling match" of politics serves the best interest of no one except men. Women won't be fairly treated any more than children will be, or vice versa. The only option is outright revolt, destruction of status quo.

Reply
Alice
2/14/2012 09:15:06 pm

I agree with Joy. And I, too, still want a radical womyn's party. Feminist womyn should keep pursuing it. And not some N.O.W.-style sell-out. We need to hold out for a party OF womyn, not a sold-out party FOR womyn. I don't care if it's small. That's fine. I'd rather have a party that is small, and builds membership based on the wisdom and integrity of its ideas, than to aim for a large party based on unprincipled compromises.

**

In the list of children's rights, please include children's right to not be given hormone or other physical treatments to begin a process of "transitioning" to look like the other sex.

Adults should not be interfering with kids' bodies that way and effectively making them sterile for life (and unfortunately, some adults are, because of their own issues about gender roles, homophobia, or influence from trans activists.) Kids are too young to make such decisions; they should be made as adults, for themselves, not by their caregivers.

The hormones are to prevent the kids from maturing sexually, as is the goal of the trans movement for children who are "sex-role non-conforming" (whatever that means. Sex roles are patriarchal social constructs that are highly variable, subjective, and no one fits entirely. We should all be working to rid ourselves and society of these harmful, limiting, dehumanizing, and oppressive sex roles, not altering our own or children's bodies to try to fit them!)

Plenty of children at some point think or wish they were the other sex, and some may get fixated on that and have a hard time accepting their biological reality. Yet even *brief* counseling, according to some UK researchers who work with kids with gender dysphoria, is highly effective at helping many youth with body dysphoria accept and feel comfortable with their biological sex. We need to help people come to terms with their physical reality. And certainly not allow or impose such physical treatments on children. That is child abuse. Kids should be protected and supported until they reach adulthood, and may have well grown out of, or talked through, their dysphoria.

Reply
tim
9/26/2014 02:06:06 pm

Divorce causes children to suffer much. Make divorce more difficult to obtain if you have children. I have witnessed it first hand going from a stay at home dad to 4 children all under 11 years of age 24 hrs 7 days a week, to every other weekend and 6 hour ms per month individually with each child.

Reply
Lewis
7/8/2017 11:17:36 pm

There is a bigger picture we all need to look at. Children do not matter if there is no planet for them to live on.

Reply



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