Jessica Valenti | The Nation

Yesterday, Michigan Representative Lisa Brown was banned from speaking after having the audacity to use the word “vagina” in a debate over an anti-abortion bill. Apparently, it’s not enough that Republicans have made it a political priority to roll back women’s reproductive rights—they also want to ensure that we remain silent as they do it.

Representative Mike Callton, for example, was absolutely scandalized by Brown’s comments: “What she said was offensive.… It was so offensive, I don’t even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company.” (He does realize that this mixed company likely has vaginas, yes?)

I wished this latest GOP gaffe surprised me, but Republicans feeling squirmy about women’s “down-theres” while desperately trying to keep said “hoo-hoos” in check is pretty standard these days. We live in a country where it’s fine to legislate vaginas, but saying the actual word is forbidden.

Today is the third anniversary of Dr. George Tiller’s assassination. On May 31, 2009, Tiller was shot and killed by Scott Roeder while he served as an usher in his Wichita church. Tiller was one of the only abortion providers in the country to provide late-term abortions. He often wore a button that said “Trust Women.”

I wonder, if Dr. Tiller were alive today, what he would think about the unwavering attack against women’s reproductive freedom and bodily integrity—if he could ever of imagined that American women would still not just be fighting for the right to abortion but for birth control. Or that there would be a national debate on whether or not it’s appropriate to call a woman who wants contraception coverage a “prostitute.” I imagine that even for a man who had seen a lot of misogyny in his life, the current climate against women would be shocking.

Since Tiller’s murder, the legislative agenda against reproductive justice—and common-sense decency—has been staggering.

In this image made from Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012 video provided by C-SPAN, Sandra Fluke, a third-year Georgetown University law student, testifies to Congress in Washington. (AP Photo/C-SPAN)

Komen. Sandra Fluke. Transvaginal. The reason these words are instantly recognizable—the reason the “war on women” is now part of the national conversation—is largely thanks to younger women and online organizing. Behind every recent battle against the onslaught of sexism has been the energy and activism of young people—on blogs, Twitter, Tumblr and Faebook. And in a long-overdue but welcome change of message, the mainstream feminist movement that once claimed young women didn’t care about feminism is finally catching on. Some are even walking the walk.

Media coverage of the Republican “war on women” has largely focused on the attempted rollbacks of reproductive rights and the all-too-frequent sexist gaffes that are plaguing the GOP these days. (I, for one, will never tire of aspirin between the knees jokes.) While seeing so much ink spilled over feminist issues warms my heart, the focus on abortion and birth control has let Republicans off way too easily.

After all, this isn’t really a new war—the assault on women’s rights has been happening for as long as women have been demanding them. This systemic and structural hatred of women is basically politics as usual—we’re just paying better attention. While it makes sense to shine a light on the onslaught of anti-choice legislation and sentiment of late, we can’t forget that misogyny doesn’t stop there. Here are a few more battles (in no particular order) to think about, and take action on.

1. Lack of Paid Parental Leave. You would think given the Romney camp’s manufactured outrage over Hilary Rosen’s comments that Ann Romney “hasn’t worked a day in her life,” that issues of parenting and economics would be at the top of everyone’s political to-do list. Not so much. The United States is the only industrialized nation without mandated paid parental leave—leaving American parents, mothers especially, in a terrible financial bind. Parents spend tremendous portions of their income on childcare, so much that some women have found that it makes more financial sense to go on welfare and stay at home than to have a job in which the bulk of their income goes to childcare. If motherhood is a “real job” or “the most important job in the world”—let’s treat it as such.