How Oklahoma Women Are Represented Compared to Men

 Females make up 50.45% of the Oklahoma population while males comprise 49.55%. The Oklahoma House of Representatives consists of 101 members and is the larger chamber of the bicameral Oklahoma Legislature. Women currently constitute approximately 21% of Oklahoma's legislature, a very low proportion compared to other U.S. states. (Apr 19, 2022). There are 48 seats in the Oklahoma state senate, 9 are held by women making up 19% of the Oklahoma State Senate. Females make up 50% of the population and are only 20% represented in the state legislature. Men make up 80% of the representation held in the oklahoma legislature. These are facts I have collected from Google and Wikipedia. Oklahoma is listed as a state with some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the United States. When the legislature was deciding these laws, how many women were called as witnesses to talk about women's health? How many women were interviewed who had experienced an ectopic pregnancy? How many were interviewed who lost a child during pregnancy and the dead fetus had to be surgically removed to save the woman's life? There are a combined 149 members in the Oklahoma state legislature, 30 of them, 20%, are all that ever had a uterus. Twenty percent of the Oklahoma State legislature made draconian laws that directly affect only women. Men are affected only indirectly. A male with rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, IBS, etc can be prescribed methotrexate to control these diseases. A female can not be prescribed this medication, which is also used in higher dosages in cancer treatment because it may contribute to a spontaneous abortion.

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 Stevie Joe Payne.

The Secret

 My first wife Connie was raised as a catholic and her mother railed against abortion. When we lost what would have been our second child, Connie's mother decided to come clean and tell her the truth. I have been promised to secrecy but everybody's dead now anyway except for a few in my generation. About 1943, Connie's mother became pregnant by her boyfriend, Bill Walling. Mary was a pregnant, unmarried catholic girl and desperate so she had an abortion. Then she became pregnant by Bill Walling a second time and they married and Mike Walling was born in 1944, a few days before my birthday. Mike and I were friends. For 35 years Mary kept that secret from everyone while preaching all the evils of abortion to her daughters. It is possible one of the sisters had an abortion but I don't know that. But Mary poisoned the minds of her daughters with religious rules that she had not followed herself and she never told the other sisters. I tell that story for one reason only. I wanted to point out the huge hypocrisy of many religious zealots who say one life while living another. Did Connie's mother's mother know about the abortion? I suspect she did because Mary and Bill didn't have the resources to accomplish it. But many war girlfriends became pregnant and were forced to have dangerous abortions because of the attitudes of society then and because a lot of these young fathers were shipped overseas and killed before they could get married.

Bettie Louise Harris

 

My mother was born out of wedlock in 1922 and adopted by Jew Max Harris and his Kaw-Osage wife Louisa Victoria Hardy. Mom was raised as a Jew until she was about 11 when Max and Louisa divorced. I never understood my mother's religious feelings until I finally understood some of her Jewish childhood in Oklahoma City. With DNA and records search I have learned that my birth grandfather was George Dewey Dye Sr. and my birth grandmother was 14 year old Nettie Rutherford. I have since been in contact with both sides of my birth grandparents' families. I began using Dye in my name, only on Facebook. I wish I could incorporate my Rutherford name too but that's impractical. I favor and support adoption because I wouldn't be here without it but it's not the only path open. Over my lifetime I've had friends who were adopted and had a miserable experience because the parents who adopted them had no business having children. So everything is ultimately a gamble. My mother had a reasonably good life but with a lot of craziness in it. A man in Pawhuska once told my brother that at one time my mother was struggling so badly that he had to buy food for us. But my mom was a great mom and hung on through all the struggles of a single mother. Remember that a single woman couldn't even get a credit card in her own name until 1974? I wish my mother were here for this mother's day because there is much left unsaid. I wish you a happy mother's day.

Letter to Ronnie

 Sometimes I listen to, or pull up and read the lyrics, of Janis Ian's great song "At Seventeen," and I regret how some kids were treated and I participated. Even if I didn't participate actively,  I stood aside and said nothing. I think of Peggy Candreia and the friendship I had with her in high school. I knew about her and it didn't bother me because I knew her, not the image of I thought a person was, or is. Sometimes I mourn over how some kids were treated, sometimes I've even cried over it. I was so marginalized myself for my eccentric life that I didn't have energy, or courage, left over to defend anyone else. But I regret not being stronger. There are few things in life that  I regret, but that is one. I think about white privilege and how it just fell upon us and how we accepted it. Never one time did we have to fight for places at the movies, in a restaurant, in a store. Never once were we told to leave because we were white. "At Seventeen" is an anthem for girls who weren't as pretty and I think about girls I didn't ask out because they weren't as pretty as Carol, Pam, Janis, Sue Nan. I also think about the girls whom I didn't feel equal to and I was afraid to ask out because I was sure they wouldn't go with me. After my divorce from Connie, I dated many women. My sales training had taught me that a rejection allowed me to move on to the next customer so I never let "no" stop me from asking women out. I began to use dating services because I wanted to avoid smokers and drinkers, so in the eight years between marriages I dated around 80 women. I actually got really tired of dating and I stopped. Charlotte and I were just friends and we expected nothing more. But I have that shallow value that I did tend to like pretty to beautiful women. So, I regret that I may have hurt a girl in school by my selfishness and every time I hear Janis Ian sing "At Seventeen" I am reminded of it, and I am punished for it.