Anja Rubik, Alexi Lubomirski & Vogue Spain Celebrate Female Power

Anja Rubik | Alexi Lubomirski | ‘Anja y sus chicos’ | Vogue Spain March 2011 AOC Private Studio

We don’t feature that many editorials solo anymore, but this one warrants a call out. Under the onslaught of American Republicans and the Vatican against American women, we will call even louder the differences in women’s status in America versus Europe and Latin America.

South Dakota has shelved their law allowing a man to murder his wife as justifiable homicide, if she was assisting in obtaining a legal abortion for her daughter out of state. We breathe a sign of relief, but know the same bill will be introduced in Utah or Oklahoma any day now.

Utah voted to make miscarriage a felony last year, allowing a man to prosecute his wife for not properly taking care of her fetus. If she slipped on ice and had a miscarriage, she could have gone to jail for not wearing rubber-sole boots, which would be an act of negligence. Utah’s governor vetoed the bill, without enough votes to override.

When Karl Lagerfeld is quoted saying a few days ago: “We are living amid such an invasion of the flesh that we yearn for refinement, for restraint,” I wonder where he’s coming from, when the subject is women’s rights. Lagerfeld has an Aristotelian view of gender relations, and women are naturally the mothers and caretakers.

The Anja Rubik editorial, lensed by Alexi Lubomirski for Vogue Spain’s March 2011 issue reminds us of the Supermodel years, before Conservatives of both parties aligned themselves again the majority of American women.

In Europe and Latin America women’s rights and advancement have flourished while American women lose ground year by year.  These very Catholic countries have held the Vatican in check, unlike in America where bishops dictate the terms of healh care for women.

Let me be clear. Huge numbers of American women are frightened out of our wits. The lash is coming down on us with ferocity in a way we didn’t think was possible in America — the land of the free.

The fight is on for good this time, because we are inspired by the women of Egypt, even if the American press shoots images making it seem that the women are all at home. Just this morning I received a new message from Egypt via London. It reads:

Dear Anne. Women of Egypt are not only participating in the demonstrations but acting as leaders. The American press should readjust the gender lens in which they are portraying the women of Egypt, clearly editing out footage of women in Egypt in action.

I agree. America believes still that it’s a man’s world. But we celebrate Spain today, for reminding us that in some countries women aren’t as repressed as in America. Bravo Vogue Espana — where the abortion rate is lower than in America, because women have access to birth control without fighting off most Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats who also want to take her off the pill .Anne

Anja y sus chicos