The year in patriarchy: a dancing PM, an 'inclusive' M&M, and lots of protests
The year in patriarchy: a dancing PM, an ‘inclusive’ M&M, and lots of protests
Arwa Mahdawi
2022 saw a stunning reverse on reproductive rights in the US but there were also victories for women – and the plain bizarre
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Pregnant Mia Knighton, right, and her fiance Elijah Rudd, left, protest against the US supreme court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade, in Atlanta in June. Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPA
Sat 31 Dec 2022 09.00 EST
Last modified on Thu 5 Jan 2023 01.37 EST
The year in patriarchy 2022
Let’s start on a positive note, eh? Because there were a few victories. 2022 was a crummy year in many respects for women but it wasn’t all bad. In terms of reproductive rights, for example, Colombia decriminalized abortion and India’s supreme court extended access to abortion to unmarried women.
A lot of women also became heads of states which would have been a great thing had those women not had very regressive politics. In Hungary, Katalin Novák, a close ally of the truly terrible prime minister, Viktor Orbán, became the country’s first female president – not so much feminist pioneer as fascist puppet. Meanwhile, in Italy, far-right Giorgia Meloni was sworn in as the country’s first female prime minister. In terms of somewhat more positive “firsts”, Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first black woman to sit on the US supreme court.
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1 The US supreme court ended the constitutional right to abortion
In June six un-elected supreme court justices issued a decision that ended nearly 50 years of abortion rights in the US. Numerous Republican-led states had been preparing for Roe v Wade to be overturned with trigger laws immediately banning abortions in these states. Horror stories quickly followed. One of the worst: a 10-year-old rape victim had to travel to a different state to get a safe abortion. First, the right denied the story and then the Indiana state attorney general investigated the doctor who performed an abortion on the little girl. Among all the horror, however, there was some hope. Kansas put abortion rights to a vote and people in the conservative state overwhelmingly voted to protect abortion. A few months later voters came out to support reproductive rights in the midterm elections. The supreme court’s views on abortion, it became clear, do not match the average American’s.
2 Finland’s prime minister was made to apologize for dancing
Sanna Marin was also forced to take a drug test (she passed) by a bunch of people who were outraged that a young woman was having fun. As we all know the world’s male leaders are a pious lot who are completely scandal-free.
3 The Taliban drastically restricted women’s rights in Afghanistan
Women’s rights were a major justification for the US war in Afghanistan. It was pretty obvious that was all spin at the time but it’s still maddening to see how women in Afghanistan have been abandoned by their supposed saviours. What on earth were those two decades of war for? The Taliban spent 2022 doing their best to erase women from public life and keep them captive in their homes. Afghan women have been banned from higher education and most teenage girls have been banned from secondary school education.
4 Andrew Tate was publicly humiliated by Greta Thunberg
Dubbed the “king of toxic masculinity”, Tate is a violent misogynist with millions of followers. The kickboxer turned influencer’s TikTok videos have been watched billions of times and he has reportedly helped to radicalize a lot of young, resentful men. Just as 2022 was about to end, Tate, 35, was catapulted to new heights of fame when he tried to troll Thunberg, 19, about his enormous emissions. She very succinctly put him in his place. The Romanian police then added to his humiliation by raiding Tate’s villa in Romania and detaining him on organised crime and rape charges.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/31/the-year-in-patriarchy-a-dancing-pm-an-inclusive-mm-and-lots-of-protests