Blog Post #3

"From the mouth of power. Redefining rape in our living rooms. Wondering why I still feel violated. As I see choice bound. And gagged. In the corner. Choking. Suffocating" (Arellano 1). This was one of the strongest phrases within any reading I have done at all this semester. It comes from Amy Arellano's Word Wielding Womb: Using the Body to fight the War on Women. The power within this entire piece is unbelievable, yet screams help within a society that won't listen to the truth it entails.  We live in a society that relies strongly on the values of false perceptions. As Carlos Andres Gomez explains, men must be men and gender roles exist, but only because we as a society give them the power of existence. The War with Gender is real for both sides, but with the reading by Arellano, we get a sense of a higher patriarchy within the excuse of life, religion, and using legislation as an excuse to strip women of not only independence, but humanity. For centuries women have been treated unfairly, but finally when women rose above societies imprisonment of gender roles, they were stripped of the rights of their own bodies. By religion and government. Two things that should always be separated yet rely within each other for support and corruption. Government officials using Religion as excuses to strip women of rights and LGBT people of theirs. Religion using Government for a greed of wealth. Since the beginning of religion, the Christian faith believed that a child was not a child until it received its first breath outside of the mother. Things only changed when women began to receive rights for themselves. The government used religion to split the people on the issue, giving themselves the excuse to ban the rights women making their bodies property to not even themselves. Against domestic violence, and within choice and readiness. We are living in a world where society relies solely on the values of false perceptions and unproven beliefs. A culture living within an indecent time, continuing to push the storm harder against the ones fighting to survive through it.