Copyright of Nation is the property of Nation Company, L. P. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download. or email articles for individual use. THE NATION 6.13 - 20.2022 That in losing ourselves through the care of others, we find ourselves-as we ought No Offense to be by patriarchal standards. And having children is a way to justify our existence. David Bromwich Women like Fitch, and there are many, are not likely to give up their alliance with this power structure, because it has put them among the oppressors rath- er than the oppressed. But millions of women-and trans and nonbinary peo- Can Another War Save ple-suffer as a result. We have been taught to accept the forces of oppress sion rather than struggle against them, Us From Ourselves? and that if we suffer, it's our own fault The policing of public opinion over Ukraine goes to extremes for wanting more than the role afforded to us. That is the kind of "empower- unimagined during the fight against Hitler. ment" Fitch is advocating: empowerment through submission and compliance with MERICA HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN A CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE a system that benefits wealthy white men A for some time. Most of our recent political contro- above all. Empowerment that comes at versies have ended in denunciations and upheavals the expense of women's agency, autonomy, that seem off the charts by the standard of all previ- and humanity. ous American experience outside war. Consider the In our fight for abortion rights, women right-wing birther movement, which questioned the authenticity must help one another see ourselves as of President Obama's citizenship, and the left-liberal Russiagate human first. Only then can we choose scandal, which accused President Trump of being a Russian agent. The whether to become mothers. N loudest voices leveling these charges came from people with no interest in evidence. Rather, the accusations served their purpose within the factions Nicole Nebrig, PbD, is a clinical and research that constitute the "base" of the major parties. psychologist in Brooklyn. Barack Obama, a few years into his presidency, got into the habit of saying (in a tight spot when Americans seemed to support a bad cause): "It's not who we are as a people." But do we know who we are as a people? On March 3, NATION NEWS JEET HEER RETURNS the Metropolitan Opera severed its relations with the singer Anna Netrebko Homecoming! because, in speaking out against the Ukraine war, she failed to denounce Rus- sian President Vladimir Putin and said a word in defense of artistic freedom: he Nation is delighted to T announce that Jeet Heer is I am opposed to this war. I am Russian and I love my country but I rejoining the masthead as have many friends in Ukraine and the pain and suffering right now a national affairs correspon breaks my heart. I want this war to end and for people to be able to dent and bringing his weekly podcast, The Time of Monsters, in-house. live in peace.... I want to add, however: forcing artists, or any public In addition to continuing his monthly figure, to voice their political opinions in public and to denounce Nation column, "Morbid Symptoms," their homeland is not right. he will file twice-weekly dispatches on TheNation.com. Would any foreign artist in living memory have been so publicly dishon- The titles of Heer's column and podcast are a nod to the philosopher Antonio Gram- ored for not reciting the prepared script? sci's famous remark "The crisis consists According to a July 2020 Cato Institute poll, almost two out of three precisely in the fact that the old is dying Americans are afraid to voice their political opinions because they fear they and the new cannot be born; in this inter- might offend someone. They save those opinions for election time-and we regnum a great variety of morbid symp- should not be surprised that the results of elections surprise us. In 2016, the toms appear." In this political and cultural moment, Heer believes that we too are result turned into a permanent shock-a slow-rolling, everlasting panic-for living in an "interregnum," an interval of Democrats. The same happened to Republicans in 2020. Constitutional de- opportunity for the forces of good or evil to mocracy requires a peaceful transfer of power following free elections. This, prevail, where the future is very much un- in turn, depends on the custom that losers concede with grace and winners known. His essays and episodes will seek to are allowed their innings. But a great many Democrats, led by Hillary Clin diagnose the problems of our times-and 8 ton, were persuaded that the 2016 election had been stolen by Putin. Four explore their possible solutions. N years later, a majority of Republicans, led by Donald Trump, came to believe ANDY FRIEDMANPlease see the sample research report attached to this assignment, and please follow the format of the report when you turn in your research reports. You will start collecting sources from Leeward CC's library (mostly) and the Internet (sparingly) and summarizing and responding to each source in a research report (one report for each source). You must highlight the information that you think will be useful to your research paper. For each report. you will need to attach a copy of the actual source so I can see the source and the report together. Each source will need to have a separate report (don't "lump" them all together with one report, you need each individual report with a source attached). You will send me a three of these reports at a time. and six total. The due dates are firm: your research reports must be turned in on time. This will help you to stay on track with your final paper. SAMPLE RESEARCH REPORT - YOUR REPORTS SHOULD BE LAID OUT EXACTLY AS THIS ONE IS Summary of Article: Write a brief (one short paragraph) summary of the source that you read. This will help you to remember this information later when you need to use this in your research paper. Response After Reading: What did you learn from this source? Do you think this will be useful for you in your research paper? If so. how? Put any further thoughts you had on the source here. Facts and Details: What facts or details or quotes did you find that you think might be useful to you to use in your research paper? Put notes to yourself here since this will. again, help you to remember where you found the information and make it easier when you're actually writing the essay. There must be something written in this area, whether it s notes or as below, a mention of highlighted sections of the original text)THE NATION 6.13-20.2022 The residue of these messages plagues me even af- Mic ter significant efforts to educate myself about where Drop they come from and to disentangle them from my sense of self-worth. NICOLE NEHRIG As a psychologist and parent of two young children, I spend the bulk of my day caring for oth- ers. These are meaningful activities and certainly A Right to Be Human challenge me to grow in valuable ways. But what challenges me the most is not doing for others but allowing myself to just be. Trusting that I am The anti-abortion movement's justification for overturning enough as I am to have value and rights. Roe is rooted in the dehumanization of women. My struggles are mirrored by so many of the women I see in therapy, who feel they must meet HERE ARE STAGGERING NUMBERS OF WOMEN others' needs before voicing their own, shrink themselves to make room for others, and not bur- T helping to drive the anti-abortion fight. Cur- rently at the center of the action is Mississippi den anyone by their existence. They wonder why Attorney General Lynn Fitch. She petitioned they lack confidence, and they blame themselves. These challenges often get worse with mother- the Supreme Court to review Dobbs v. jack- hood; many women feel that they lose themselves as son Women's Health Organization, which, according to the their needs are subsumed by those of their children. recently leaked court opinion, will result in Roe v. Wade Women who become mothers show declines in psy- being overturned. Fitch uses her own story of raising three children chological health compared with women of the same as a divorced, single working mother to justify her anti-abortion age who are not mothers. They have higher rates of position: that overturning Roe will "empower" women, giving them depression, and those rates increase with added life a chance to "redirect their lives." Fitch disregards the fact that the adversities (poverty, divorce, underemployment), majority of women who seek abortions are already mothers and that which are more prevalent among women of color. working parents in the United States are disadvantaged by the lack Women with children are also at higher risk of in- of government-mandated parental leave and subsidized child care. timate partner violence and are less likely to leave As a result, motherhood is more likely to empower women who have abusive partners than women without children. the financial and social means to succeed in this role. For many wom- The messages that lead women to internal- en, having children, or having more children, increases their financial ize a sense of inferiority come from all the usu- needs and makes regular employment more difficult, pushing them al sources-the underrepresentation of women in into poverty, which the child welfare system often conflates with leadership positions (particularly mothers), wage neglect. Far from being empowered, these women experience the gaps (which widen substantially when women have humiliating intrusion of investigations to determine their parental children), and fights over women's rights to govern fitness and custodial rights. their bodies-but also directly from other women. Beyond Fitch's blindness to the actual experience of many mothers Our society weaponizes women against women. in this country, what is so insidious about her position is that it rests For Fitch to ascend the ladder of the conservative on the assumption that only motherhood truly empowers women. It political structure, she had to make herself useful in extends the traditional conception of motherhood as the only natural a way that members of the male majority can't: As a position for women and the only acceptable realm within which to woman on their side, she lends them credibility in assert power, leaving power in all other realms primarily to men. the fight to take away women's rights. Worse, Fitch The notion that we must have children to fully realize ourselves transforms their intentions to assert dominance reflects a view of women as fundamentally incomplete. We are not and control into a message that, through submis- sufficient on our own but can gain value as an extension of a man or sion to authority and acceptance of the position by becoming a mother. Through self-sacrifice conferred on us by men, wom- and care of others, we can be made whole. Our en can be empowered. role as subservient caregivers determines not just our identity but our humanity. For anti-abortion The notion that we Like our worth, our power has traditionally been deter- activists, an embryo or fetus is more important must have children to mined by our relationships to than the woman whose body it resides in, and her fully realize ourselves men and our roles as mothers. life should be sacrificed for it. This clump of cells reflects a view of women This is how women perpetu- is more human than she is. ate the idea that our Women and girls have long been taught that as fundamentally lives are about defer- 7 we are only as good as what we provide to others. incomplete. ence and self-sacrifice