I read the article about Woody Allen’s teenage lover. This is about patriarchy. Remember: the majority of U.S. states do not lay out a minimum age for marriage if statutory exceptions are met, such as parental or judicial consent or in case of pregnancy. google.com/amp/s/mobile.r…
Place it in that framework because it must not be about the “artist” - Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, etc - and how we don’t understand blah blah. There is also Doug Moore & Donald Trump (and the teen beauty contestants).It is about patriarchy & power over a young, compliant girl
Whenever I read those articles I always think of outrage of Fox commentators, white supremacists & Islamophobes who always go on about Muslim men & girl brides. Do they know: Ohio law lets 16yo girls marry but w/an array of exceptions allowing younger children to marry as well.
Did you know: “Child marriage, more commonly associated with developing countries, was permitted in every U.S. state until this year when the Atlantic coast states of New Jersey and Delaware enacted blanket prohibitions of marriage before age 18.”
“U.S. laws permit the legal rape of 1000s of teenage girls every year, survivors of child marriage say.” That’s where Polanski, Allen, Moore, Trump etc come in. Patriarchy is a social construct that privileges male dominance. It’s about power. What is less powerful than a girl?
So, yes, condemn Woody Allen. And also recognize that US laws allow legal sexual assault of girls every day by refusing to set an age of marriage. Recognize that as an expression of the power that patriarchy gives men. And push to end it.
I hate the phrase “child marriage.” It should be child rape as the survivor 👆🏽describes it. When you hear anyone going on about “child marriage” in Muslim countries, know that we are fighting it. I wrote about it in my book. Are you fighting it here? Most have no idea it exits.
Between 2000 and 2010, an estimated 248,000 children were married, most of whom were girls, some as young as 12, wedding men. washingtonpost.com/news/national/…
“Child marriage is not a thing of the past in the US: almost 250,000 children were married there between 2000 and 2010, some of them as young as 10. “Almost all were girls married to adult men,” says Fraidy Reiss. google.com/amp/s/amp.theg…
“People thought: this can’t happen in Florida. The minimum marriage age is 18; what’s the problem? But they didn’t know about the loopholes. Between 2001 and 2015, 16,000 children were married in Florida alone. A 40-year-old man can legally marry a five-year-old girl here.”
“we...worked to bring this to the attention of legislators...many have said, 'No, thank you' to ending this human rights abuse that destroys girls' lives. We've introduced legislation...legislators have rejected or watered down the legislation." wbur.org/hereandnow/201…
“it's usually a girl, almost all the children who marry in the U.S. are girls — that girl who is being married off is effectively disempowered throughout this process, because it's a judge and her parents who are making these decisions for her.”
“not a single one ever felt safe enough to tell the judge what was happening. Every single one lied & forever felt somehow complicit in her own forced marriage. Which means rape on her wedding night, rape repeatedly thereafter, pulled out of high school, her hopes & dreams gone."
Why Chris Christie opposed legislation vs “child marriage” in New Jersey “was because he was lobbied by an anti-choice group that was concerned that ending child marriage would somehow increase abortion rates, which is absurd. There's no study that has ever shown that." 
In July, Florida enacted for anyone under the age of 17 to get married. Anyone marrying a 17-year-old couldn't be more than two years older and minors would need parental consent. usnews.com/news/best-stat…
Rates of underage marriage are high in southern, rural states with a high prevalence of poverty and religious conservatism, as well as among Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Sikhs and Hmongs, says campaign group Unchained At Last. google.com/amp/s/mobile.r…
Raised in a strict evangelical family, Sonora Fairbanks was groomed to marry young and at 16 wed a man 10 years her senior.
"That was the only choice presented to me," she said.
"That was the only choice presented to me," she said.
She gave birth to 8 children as her efforts to leave were stumped by having no money & nowhere to go. "Your husband can report you as a runaway because you're under 18. You'll be brought back to his house,"
“Another former child bride, Dawn Tyree, was pregnant by a family friend whom she was forced to marry at age 13. He was 32.” (I call that rape)
"I feel like I was a throw-away child. I was tossed around from home to home and, at the quickest opportunity, married off," said Tyree
"I feel like I was a throw-away child. I was tossed around from home to home and, at the quickest opportunity, married off," said Tyree
Unchained at Last said three-quarters of some 167,000 child marriage licenses it examined, dating back to 2000, involved underage girls - some as young as 10 - marrying adult men.
This must end. This is about patriarchy and the ways it enables and protects misogyny.
(This has been super long thread. Thank you for reading.)
(This has been super long thread. Thank you for reading.)
