This week The Lancet eternally humiliated itself by the cover of its September 25, 2021 issue:
Ironically, this was the cover for an issue on the global neglect of women's health. As many pointed out, The Lancet had no problem saying the word "men" when it discussed how many men have undiagnosed prostate cancer. No, men still exist; we women do not. We are expected to lie still and remain silent while we are systemically erased, and replaced with the parts of our body that are of interest.
I've been thinking and pondering on this surreal turn of events for several years now. What I see is an almost demonic insistence that women disappear. And if they cannot physically disappear, they must conceptually disappear. Once they do, then "women" cannot speak, for there are none.
And the word "woman" is not the only term that this is happening with. The other, equally troubling erasure is that of the word "mother," ostensibly to be replaced by "birthing parent." Of course, there are still "fathers." It's "mother" who must be cloaked, put under a conceptual burqa, never to show her face again. But again, it isn't so much about her face; I'd argue it's about her voice.
At one level, one could simply assert that this is just run-of-the-mill misogyny in action, of a piece with all the misogyny that has come before in human history. I'm not sure that is correct. Even in the worst days for women in human history, we admitted there were women and there were mothers, and that they were not the same as men and were not simply "non-men." By admitting the existence of women and mothers, we opened the possibility that they might one day speak, and that their speech might have a legitimate claim on the community.
So I cannot help but ask, Cui bono? Who benefits when there are no longer women and mothers to speak as women and mothers? To answer that question, my thoughts turn to the question, What do women and mothers do that is so inconvenient that they must be conceptually erased?
Women and mothers safeguard children.
I've begun to believe that the male-written scriptures have gotten it seriously wrong when they say our adversary on earth is Bablyon, a female whore. Nope. Our adversary here on earth is much better represented as a Harvey Weinstein-type male, willing to snuff all innocence for his personal gratification. Even beyond coercing young women (and/or men) into sex, every competition entered into is for the purpose of a sexually-charged dominance. This type gets off on violation thrills, and indeed I think of Nimrod as the archetype here. I have no doubt Nimrod also suffered from the mindset I can only call Phallus Uber Alles. The devotees of Phallus Uber Alles will break every boundary, violate every norm, defile everything sacred to get their kicks. They will spit at every human constraint--even those of sex and of death. They are the Super Man, and they consume all and get sexual excitement from their consumption. It is not a coincidence that the richest man on earth has a penis-shaped rocket ship and invests heavily in technologies he hopes will make him immortal. Actually, that all makes perfect sense for a first citizen of that city of Phallus Uber Alles--shall we call it Phallubal?
It is increasingly obvious that the most exquisite consumption for those in the city of Phallubal is the sexual consumption of innocent children. Of course, society has built its strongest safeguards around precisely those little children. But in our day and age, those safeguards are falling, one by one. We are told there are "minor-attracted persons" who are "born that way" and whose proclivities must be tolerated. Child porn, of course, is now absolutely ubiquitous, and not even newborn babies are exempt from sexual torture. We are also told that little children have a "right to sexual expression" and can "meaningfully consent" to sexual relations with an older person.
Phallubal is a totalitarian state, of course, and must control not only our lives through economic systems that enrich the Super Men beyond the dreams of avarice, but also to control even our very thoughts so we will be quiescent as we are consumed.
But there is a last, best defense for children: women, especially their mothers. (I say this in general terms, for there are obviously those women and mothers who will not or cannot safeguard chldren.) We women physically safeguard children from those who would prey upon them--even to the most extreme degree possible, such as the laying down of our lives for them. News stories remind us every week of mothers who tackled cougars and crocodiles to save their children, for example.
But we women and mothers do more that physically safeguard our children. We give them the possibility of liberty from the totalizing city of the Super Men. I have tried in the past to articulate that claim; in my article accompanying The AEROW Manifesto, I wrote:
"Th[e] inability to accept limits is suspect; it portends the transgressing of all limits. Rosen perceptively notes, “To be ‘born of woman’ is not merely to be born using a certain technique, a means that is suitable today but perhaps will be superseded in the future by our own ingenuity,” and then quotes Charles Krauthammer: “It [ectogenesis] may be severing the connection between the child and the mother, which is a way of protecting that child by giving him a belonginghood to someone who will care. Once you put him in an animal, which is a thing for these purposes, or a machine, which might happen in the future, you create a completely atomized and defenseless creature, and that opens the way to all kinds of tyrannies, social control, and lack of autonomy, which we would not want” (Rosen, 2003). As we have discussed, the mother-child bond is one of the most powerfully subversive forces opposing Satan’s plan for just such absolute tyranny. Erasing or severing that bond puts the adversary’s end game in view. In a very real way, you are free because you were born to a mother who loved you more than she loved the state or an ideology or a social system, and who would thus fight to the death to protect you from the predations of all these. Even knowing such love can exist, even in cases where your mother has already passed on to her eternal reward, gives you the courage to resist the large and impersonal forces that would squash you. Take her away, erase her, replace her, and the individual is truly defenseless. Motherhood lays the foundation stones of all freedom."
To return then to our central thesis, there is rhyme and reason to the erasure of the terms "woman" and "mother"--as versus "men" and "fathers." For it is we women and mothers who stand between the Super Men and their most sought-after prey. We women and mothers are the last, best sanctuary of the human spirit. If our safeguarding fails on a massive scale, the world is literally doomed. There can be no innocence and there can be no freedom in such a world. The well of souls will be polluted at its very fountain, and there will no longer be any purpose in our creation. We are the last sentinels, the last defenders. And so we must be silenced, even so by erasure.
Candice Holdsworth of the UK penned a recent essay for Spiked which engages these very issues. She asserts "Children suffer when adults can't speak out. Fear of offense is getting in the way of safeguarding childre . . . As long as adults are more concerned with policing speech than protecting kids’ welfare, children will continue to be let down." It's well worth a read, for she gives several recent and very troubling examples.
Pray for the women and mothers to stand up and refuse to be silenced, no matter the mighty forces of Phallubal arrayed against them. And the next time you see the word "woman" or the word "mother" erased, ask yourself--Cui bono? It certainly is not those whom women and mothers safeguard. So, I ask, cui bono, Lancet editors? For shame!