Rules for Female Teachers and the Real Meaning of Unions

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 Note:  This is a guest post by Pam Grundy,  a native of the American Heartland who leans left and talks straight.  Her work is found  in a variety of places online, including her personal blog Diary of An Alien Life Form.  She is a firm supporter of working people and is passionate about the importance of what is happening right now in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio

.The Real Meaning of Unions

The following “Rules for Female Teachers” were posted by the school board of a small Massachusetts town around the year 1900, just before the first “Teachers League” (an early union) was formed to prevent the automatic firing of women who became pregnant:

Do not get married.

Do not leave town at any time without permission of the school board.

Do not keep company with men.

Be at home between the hours of 8 PM and 6 AM.

Do not loiter downtown in ice cream stores.

Do not smoke.

Do not get into a carriage with any man except your father or brother.

Do not dress in bright colors.

Do not dye your hair.

Do not wear any dress more than two inches above the ankle.

                         --Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, page 338.

OK, that was fun! (But not for the female teachers!) Now see if you can place a name and a date on the following quotation:

“Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street…There are thirty men in the United States whose aggregate wealth is over one and a half billion dollars. There are half a million looking for work. We want the abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out…We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary, and we will not pay out debts to the loan shark companies until our government pays its debts to us.”

Was that Bernie Sanders talking? Matt Taibbi? Michael Moore? Rachel Maddow?

Actually in was Mary Elizabeth Lease, keynote speaker at the first national convention of the People’s Party (which later became known as the Populist Party) in 1890—back before unions existed, back in the days of the great Robber Barons and children working 12-hour days, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.

We can get rid of unions. And it will indeed save corporations a lot of money.

Just keep in mind that that moment will represent over one hundred years of hard won protections for working people, all flushed down the toilet in an instant.

If you think the loss of unions won’t be so bad, maybe it’s time to crack a history book—while it’s still legal.

Marriage as Child Abuse in Yemen

Marriage customs in Yemen seem to be rather unusual. Evidently, marriage is not a union between man and woman in this poorest of the world's nations. Instead, it is a business transaction between men-- a form of slavery and child abuse where perverted potential husbands with a preference for sex with very young girls buy them from their fathers, like sheep or goats and then proceed to rape, beat and torture them.

According to a study done by the University of Saana in Yemen, over half of Yemeni brides are under fifteen years old. Many are no more than eleven or twelve years old.

If I sound angry about this, it is because I am. My stomach churns at the idea of a mature man raping a child and I do not understand how this can possibly be acceptable in any civilized society. but evidently it is the norm in some places, including Yemen.

According to Voice of America's News Service, legislation setting a minimum age for marriage at seventeen has been languishing in the country's parliament for over a year, blocked by several influential sheiks who contend that the proposed legislation violates Islamic law. Huh? Islamic law protects child molesters? What kind of law is that? Certainly such exploitation cannot be the will of God.

To sexualize such a young girl is to emotionally and spiritually cripple a young human being and destroy her potential forever. In addition, when girls become pregnant at eleven or twelve, their chances of dying in childbirth or delivering a stillborn are double those of a woman in her twenties. Moreover, it is next to impossible for a girl who is still a child herself to be an effective mother.

Click here to read a heart rending account of a Yemini child bride who sought and was granted a divorce from her 30 year old husband. You'll see why I am so angry.

I have a message for Yemeni men who want to buy themselves a ten year old girl. Buy a sheep or a camel instead. Leave the little girls alone and let them grow up to be real women and good wives for real men, not perverted jerks like you.