The Women of Generation X

The women of Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980) were going to be the first women in history to truly be free. Their grandmothers fought in the first wave of the feminist struggle and their mothers fought in the second wave to open up access to higher education and careers. For the first time in history women could control how many kids they would have and they could choose whether they wanted to stay home or work. The women of Generation X were not entering a completely level playing field but the goal of equality of opportunity was tantalizingly close and worth pursuing.

But the gain of new rights happened amidst a general nationwide economic stagnation that began around 1970. Furthermore, corporate power was ascendant. Gains for women in the workplace were not matched by more enlightened corporate practices or government paternal leave policies or more men staying home to look after the kids. Instead, if families were ever going to get ahead or even just keep from slipping farther behind on their mortgage, car loans, and student loans, both parents would have to work — and work longer and harder than they ever had before. What this meant in practice is that no one was allowed to be sad anymore and no one was allowed to get sick anymore, something that was formerly just a normal part of life.

Pharmaceutical companies took advantage by pushing antidepressant pills on an ever-growing proportion of the population, including 1 in 6 women. Pharma did not and could not outright claim that they were happy pills, but the images they used in ubiquitous advertising campaigns suggested as much and we all knew what they were selling. Starting in 1987 with the release of Prozac, doctors wrote script after script for a drug that did not outperform a placebo for 90% of its users but generated billions of dollars in profits. And people kept swallowing the pills because we wanted to believe the story they were telling.

Workers were not allowed to get sick anymore because that was depriving an employer of profits. Forbes literally ran a story saying that workers who got the flu stole $9 billion each year from their employers because of the lost productivity that these companies were entitled to.

And children were not allowed to get sick anymore either because that would pull a parent out of his or her workplace and deprive parents of earnings and deprive companies of profits. So unpleasant rashes like measles and chickenpox, that formerly were rites of passage, had to be turned into threats to civilization.

In the early 1980s vaccine makers were on the verge of bankruptcy because they kept losing in court as a result of the fact that their products killed and disabled so many customers. So they came up with the novel strategy of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in 1986 to give themselves liability protection from the injuries and deaths that have always gone along with vaccines. After the law passed, vaccines were pure profit and drug companies rushed to buy off regulatory bodies so that they could add as many vaccines as possible to the schedule. The schedule quickly doubled and then tripled as regulatory bodies did as they were told and drug companies moved to cash in. So starting in 1987, common sense and scientific standards went out the window as vaccines that were never tested against a true placebo were required for all children and absurdities like the birth dose of Hep B vaccine, that was originally developed only for drug addicts and prostitutes, were passed off as best practices and enlightened parenting.  

So these intertwined dynamics — a stagnant economy, rising corporate power, massive deregulation, rising levels of debt, more people working, more kids in childcare, a logic that forbids illness, opportunistic pharmaceutical companies, and forty years of accumulating toxins in the environment, in our bodies, and in our food — including mercury, lead, DDT, Roundup, pesticides, PCBs, fire retardants, phthalates, BPA, and now antidepressants and vaccine adjuvants — created a perfect storm. The result is a tsunami of developmental disabilities and chronic illness — an entire generation of kids who will have worse health outcomes than their parents.

And many of the women of Generation X who were going to be the first generation who were going to be truly free are now stuck at home with chronically ill children many of whom are socially impaired and some of whom are violent.

Of course, only a few people can hear this because the LOGIC of our era tells us that we’re making progress, that things can only get better, that this is the best of all possible worlds, that science and medicine and government and the internet and our favorite TV channel, are good for us and here for our protection.

The logic of our era tells us to play our part, to focus on self-interest, to achieve, and that when we do everything will work out for the best. We are taught that we live in a meritocracy and that the best people and ideas always rise to the top. The logic of our era tells us that we chose this, that we were the ones who didn’t want to get sick, we were the ones with a genetic defect that could only be cured by a pill, and that it’s working.

But if you take a step back you see that the logic that drives our society is the logic of the matrix, the logic of the calf in the veal pen, the logic of genocide that formerly was directed outward (toward people of color in the “periphery”) that now is being directed inward at our own societies and our own kids and our own bodies.

In every era, truth tellers are lynched: Jesus, Joan of Arc, religious minorities, midwives, natural healers, peasants after the Reformation, gypsies, queers, communists, Jews, Gandhi, Cheney Goodman & Schwerner, JFK, RFK, MLK, and Malcolm X. Truth tellers shame mainstream society because they show us an image of ourselves as patsies participating in a system that enslaves us with our (willing?) participation. And people would rather commit a capital crime than admit this. And now a new generation of truth tellers are being lynched: Andy Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy, RFK Jr., Jeff Bradstreet… sadly many more will be added to this list in the coming years.

But what if? What if this moment is different? What if this revolution is the turning point? What if our breakthrough is the breakthrough? What if we not only suffer and die and our movement ultimately wins, but what if we usher in the sea change that transforms everything, that transforms the human condition? Things are ever-so-dark right now as Pharma’s shock troops in government, media, and medicine move to take over the world. But what if this is the darkness before the dawn. That’s what we’re playing for. This is for all the marbles.