Ayesha Hazarika
(Picture: Daniel Hambury)When I was younger, I was obsessed with America. Like so many, I grew up on a television diet rich with American treats from Roseanne and The Cosby Show to The West Wing. Roseanne became a racist, “America’s Dad” was accused by dozens of women of sexual assault and Donald Trump became president. The American dream turned into a nightmare. Certainly for us liberals. I was never in any doubt that America was at its heart a gun-slinging, tough-talking, law and order obsessed, religious yet macho country. You only had to experience the queue for passport control at JFK in the early Noughties. It gave you a glimpse into what Guantanamo Bay must feel like.
But the fact that in amongst all this structural conservatism came shoots of change made them all the more powerful and full of promise. Much of this was of course cultural and was projected on our screens in an aspirational way — like The Cosby Show. When I saw this attractive, successful, middle class black family on screen, my mind was blown. That was the America I naively wanted to believe in. I felt that way when Barack Obama became president. I wept with joy at how far America had come and how this would change the world.
When I look back on that moment, I want to weep again but for what would lie ahead. Now America is a horrible mess. The US was always a divided country, but it has never looked so angry, inflamed and at war with its own citizens. So much of this war is around culture and identity — race, LGBTQ+ rights and, of course, women’s reproductive rights. This is Trump’s proudest achievement. He may be out of office (for now), but his ability to make people turn against each other and turn back the clock on what we thought were established human rights casts a hulking shadow over America and beyond.
I was pleased when Joe Biden won the 2020 election, but it feels like the culture wars are lost — especially when the Supreme Court may overturn Roe v Wade, which will make abortion illegal for millions of women and those who help them. If this happens, anyone performing a termination in Texas would face a life sentence for murder — even if the pregnancy was a result of incest or rape. I cannot get my head around how backwards a step this would be.
At the weekend, I interviewed the International Planned Parenthood Federation which is sending contraceptive, morning after and abortion pills to Ukraine because cases of rape have risen so dramatically that their own supplies were running out. A woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body surely is the absolute baseline of a modern civilised society? Especially in the land of the free.America is trying hard to re-establish itself on the world stage in a post-Trump, America-First era and after Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, but right now it feels like it has lost all moral authority. And it’s not just women in America who will be feeling frightened — this could have devastating consequences all around the world.
In other news...
I recently bought drugs off the street for the first time in my life. It was all a bit edgy but I needed my fix so bad.
I say “street”, it was a nice restaurant in Borough Market. But getting my hands on a spare bottle of HRT gel from my mate felt like winning the lottery. Like many women “going down the path of life”, I’m on HRT and have been hit by the national shortage.
But the very last person I would blame is Davina McCall, or any other menopause campaigner — they’ve done more to educate and inform women than the entire medical profession. McCall has made some great documentaries (the most recent aired on Monday) explaining the debilitating effects the menopause can have on women and how HRT can really help. Don’t blame women for wanting to make their lives better. The Government needs to sort out supply asap. If it were men, you can bet the Army would be involved and Trafalgar Square would be squirting fountains of the stuff for free.
