Pet and Women Safety Act

Wait … what? Sometimes you’ve just got to wonder if the news is one perpetual April Fool’s joke. Apparently, our hard(ly) working Congress has finally engaged in some bipartisanship and passed a bill.

No, not about healthcare, climate change or infrastructure or gun safety or hate crimes or living wage … but they have labored and labored and brought forth the “Pet and Women Safety Act.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a staunch womanist (meaning I love myself and have a brain -- sort of the same definition of a feminist in my book) and I have two dogs, two cats and two horses whose lives are considerably better than those of many humans on this planet. But there is something deeply wrong with this picture.

Let’s start with the title, shall we? Personally, I’m offended by the fact that the words “pet” and “women” are even in the same title of an act of Congress. Raunchy skin-mags, maybe; but what’n the hell kind of laws should Congress be mucking around with involving those two demographics?

Apparently, the law penalizes stalking and harming the pets of women in domestic violence situations -- superficially, a laudable aim. But let’s get real here for just a moment. America doesn’t give a damn about pets, otherwise we wouldn’t murder millions of them every year because we can’t be bothered with birth control.

And we know America doesn’t give a hot damn about women either. All the “me toos” and the “times up” don’t count for shit when violence against women is epidemic and on the rise, it takes 20 women to overcome 1 man’s word on sexual assault or harassment (unless you’re Brett Kavanaugh in which case you’re pretty mcuh Teflon), women comprise the majority of the desperately poor, still make 80¢ for every dollar a man makes; and still get the short end of the stick on every metric of life in this country.

So don’t clutch your breast and bemoan the fate of the women or the pets or the children or equality or justice or liberty or health or any of those other pretty lies.

I’m just not feeling the love. And neither is Fluffy.