I’ve seen it stated that “As the US goes, so goes the world.”
While anyone who travels knows this definitely applies to Converse All Stars, baseball caps and hip hop culture, since the Putin-assisted election of Trump (and the close first, hinterland-pushed Brexit movement… and the actual first, the 2014 Modi election in India which we always forget as out of sight out of mind… ) everywhere you look there is this no-longer-needing-to-be-insidious surge of socially conservative (read that, pseudo religious) politics.
As I sit on the trains looking around at those feigning ignorance of English, I’ve wanted to strike up a conversation to ask how the real people feel about that Nazi-in-nationalist’s-clothing Marine Le Pen. But a train is close quarters, and French Low Talkers are, by nature, Low Listeners, and I just don’t want to start an educated-city-dweller vs religious-village-nutter riot on a day when the trains are running. So I’ve held ma langue (which I think is a serendipitous double entendre on my part! Yay me!).
Yet today, walking down the street I saw this call to arms pour les femmes, which suggested unequivocally that those with similar beliefs to me are watching, preparing, and fearing.
As seen in Marseille
It says:
Never again! Before the legalization of abortion, women had abortions with the help of knitting needles and coat hangers. Today the cancellation of the law allowing access to abortion in the US shows us that the right (to have an abortion) will never be (safe). Women, let us remain vigilant! Abortion is my right: it's my body, it's my choice, no one has the right to tell me what to do with my belly.
So, the ripple effect has indeed been noted by people outside of the US, our struggles are indeed serving as harbingers, and women (at least in France) are gearing up for a fight. Good to know! I wish you luck! Bonne chance!
(I’ve had the conversation of abortion rights with my Spanish women students, who laugh at the idea that this clamping of control on female rights could spread to Spain. While there are those in Spain who long, dewy-eyed, for the days of Franco-esque Catholic Fascism (where the loss of female autonomy falls succinctly under the category of pero por supuesto / mais bien sûr), they are only a tiny minority, usually old-moneyed, titular males comparable to angry limp-dicked old white men in the States. But the very nature of the Socialist government and society in Spain ensures extreme knee jerk reactions against any movement toward power by these Franco Fascists. Spanish women are safe - at least for now.)
Not sure I agree with the use of Plus jamais ça as the rallying cry for Pro Choice, as this seems to have been long used as the French slogan for remembering The Holocaust. Too often minor inconveniences are compared as equal to The Holocaust, by marketers with poor understanding of history, statistics, and language.
I found this article interesting, and can only attribute this to the idea that conservative Catholics are often better educated and more traveled than their Evangelical brethern.