i think that there are lot of women out there like me and i don't just think that because it makes me feel less guilty for not being more active as a feminist. i think there is a fair amount of taking for granted what great things are in front of us. to this point, i find myself completely and entirely pissed off right now. why? i am so glad you asked. let's have a little chat about this, about why i'm pissed off right now. before i get started, let's remember a couple things. 1. this is 2012. 2. it is still 2012.
all around the country, legislators, legislatures, activists, people with big mouths and a venue and candidates alike are taking a stand...against contraception. because apparently, women shouldn't be allowed to have such vile pills or devices covered by their employer provided health insurance. everyone knows that if there is more birth control, there are more children being born out of wedlock. and in the special case of being rush limbaugh, a woman who wants access to birth control pills is actually a slut who should make and put sex tapes on the internet so that pervy tax payers can feel like they got what they paid for. you know, the pills. come on, get your mind out of the gutter. there were many pundits who took a stab at discussing why this was wrong, that mr. limbaugh's basic understanding of birth control pills and the way that they work was flawed so i'm not going to go there. sure, 98% of women say that they have used some kind of birth control at some time in their lives but come on. this is something that needs to be outlawed. am i right? stop the contraception use quick. this is getting out of control. wait. 98% of women. 98% of the majority of the population is not against contraceptives. interesting.
ok maybe that's not enough. preventing access to contraceptives is pretty terrible. calling a twenty something woman a slut on the radio three days in a row is pretty terrible too. but both i think pale in comparison to the massive lengths that state legislatures around the country are going to to prevent women from having abortions. you remember abortions? that worst case scenario solution? used in the event of unmentionable things happen, like rape or the mother could die if she was to carry the fetus into humanhood? you know, not something that people are going out every saturday night hoping for. you don't go to work on monday and chit chat with your colleagues over coffee discussing how awesome it was that you had an abortion on saturday. abortion is not something that people make glib decisions about. it is deeply personal and a horrible decision to have to make. and it certainly should never be fodder for politics, for men to use to legislate their morality. however, around the country, in an attempt to discourage abortions and basically make them illegal, legislatures are presenting legislation that like in pennsylvania, that will require women to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound to determine the fetal age of the fetus before an abortion can be performed and the screen must be left in the woman's line of vision. don't worry, the state won't require you to look at it. you can just close your eyes or something. what the hell? this is real legislation. this is a real idea. and there are plenty of men, including the governor of pennsylvania who don't see a problem with this legislation.
look, it's not my goal to man bash. i love men. i do, really. i love them more when they aren't trying to tell me what i can and cannot do with my body. i love them more when they don't think that their morality is the be all and end all. those men, i think deserve a slap across the mouth. this kind of legislation and this kind of popular (most often GOP) opinion about women's health is just absurd and offensive. i read recently that georgia is considering legislation that would require a woman to carry a still born to full term and one representative discussed his empathy for cows and pigs in a similar situation. excuse me? what kind of back woods moron do you have to defend this legislation but to also compare women to pregnant barnyard animals?? i'm a vegetarian but i am aware that those animals that you feel empathy for are the ones that end up as bacon cheeseburgers. i'm confident that you are the kind of guy who eats such things and accordingly, your empathy does little to absolutely nothing for me.
i'm not entirely sure what year these men think they are living in or what delusion they hold that if they just wish hard enough, believe hard enough and legislate stupidly enough we can go back in time to the good ole days. you know, the days when women were property of their husbands and it was still acceptable to hit them. back in the days when women were lesser. true story here: you have a better chance of getting an entire room to clap and bring tinkerbell back to life than to wish hard enough to move women back into the dark ages. there are a few things that i think that these men are forgetting. first, women are 51% of the population and that makes us 51% of the voting body in this country. scared for your jobs yet, horrible, bigoted legislators? second and maybe even more importantly, the most effective way to bring women together is to give them a common enemy. i never thought in my life that i would see a day where i agreed with meghan mccain on anything and yet, here we stand, agreeing that trans-vaginal ultrasounds are over the top. this kind of legislation is going to bring women together in a very real way that should make these bigoted men very, very scared. i am a woman and i'm afraid of the gravity of what would happen with all of us together, angry about the same thing and at the same group of people.
there is a state senator in ohio who has presented legislation for men in her state to get a prescription for viagra. ah ha! this is the kind of stuff that i'm talking about. this is the kind of thing that makes me sad that i can't present legislation. senator nina turner has done an awesome thing with this bill that she's serious about, she says that she wants men to see a sex therapist, pass a stress test and have a signed affidavit from their sexual partner before they can get viagra. i would like to take this one step further. if there are men who think they can dictate what goes in a woman's body, i would like to offer this. i know that on all the commercials for ED medication they say "ask your doctor if you are healthy enough for sexual activity." if the government can tell women's doctors how to determine what they can do, i would like for men's doctors to do the same thing. here is what i propose. let's get men up in one of those horrible chairs with the stirrups and require a rectal exam (you know, to determine the health of a man's prostate) before viagra or any other ED medication can be prescribed. i have a sneaking suspicion that if men were told they had to stomach a probing with a six to eight inch device like what they are suggesting for women, they might back down a little bit. and if not, well then either ED sales go down or men endure that which they think is fair to their female counterparts. i'm talking about equality. someone better make sure that the screen is in the line of vision for these men. they need to know more about their bodies before they can make basic health decisions.
anyway, besides how personally troubling this is to me as a young woman in america, i am curious about something that i can't seem to figure out. what is the point of all this? what is the point of trans-vaginal ultrasounds and denying access to birth control? is it to distract us from the fact that all of the GOP candidates for president are duds? is it to distract us so we don't notice that these extreme republican controlled legislatures around the country aren't doing anything to fix their states? is it to distract us from the fact that the economy is rebounding while president obama still occupies the white house and that he will probably get another four years? is this like what they did in 2004 and made the election about god, guns and gays so george bush could get his last four years? i think it might be. listen men who are writing this kind of nonsense. it would serve you best to remember that it is 2012 and women are sick of you and this shit. get to work on what needs to actually be achieved and maybe you'll be able to keep your job. deal?
from the girl who needs to take a cool down lap around her office.
until next time...
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