This is my body,
there are many like it,
but this one is mine.
First, let me say that by current reigning definitions of ‘feminism’, I’m not one. Mostly because, for fear of getting stuck in history, feminist theory often demands that its adherents pretend that it didn’t happen. That, somehow, we should all stop being silly and purge ourselves of all the linguistic, social and psychological overhang as if it were as easy as flicking a switch. Yet we, both men and women, are burdened with deep rooted models of identity. I’m not saying they are good, or healthy or productive models. For the most part, they’re not. But we have them and the expectation that we should drop them at once is, in my mind, the psychological equivalent of shipping some poor grunt out of the jungle and into the library of congress in the space of five minutes. You’re bound to end up with a high rate of PTSD.
Still, there are certain things – fundamental things – that I think do require our agreement to move forward, and not look back, like Lot’s wife, lest we turn to a pillar of salt. A woman’s legal dominion over her own body is one of them.
For me this goes past politics, and given the choice of any two political ideologies, I would always choose the one that granted me absolute rights over my own flesh first, regardless of ideas about taxation, education, religion, anything else.
Because without absolute legal dominion over my body, nothing else matters.
I understand that it is not a totally black and white issue. There are cases in which I am ambivalent. What if I want to end my life by involving someone else in my demise? That is certainly an issue. What if what I do with my body harms others? If I were HIV positive and kept irresponsibly having unsafe sex with multiple partners? And there are others.
On these issues, I am willing to listen to argument, to compromise.
But not when it concerns my womb. Whether it contains life or not. Zygote, fetus, whatever. If it can’t survive outside my body, I get final say in whether it stays or goes. No one else. Just me.
I don’t understand why a huge percentage of women are willing to compromise on this issue to obtain lower taxes or a smaller government or prayer in schools. I just don’t understand it.
Moreover, I can’t begin to imagine the outrage that would ensue if someone proposed to legislate the bodily functions of men. If someone tried to legislate against masturbation, because it was wasting potential life… Or if someone could implant a tapeworm into you, and you weren’t allowed to be rid of it for 9 months. Or take away one of your kidneys because someone else needs it and in refusing to give them yours, you’re killing them?
Either my body belongs to me, or it belongs to the state. If my body belongs to the state, then so will your wife’s body, and your daughter’s body, your mother’s.
Why do so few men take this issue personally? Because they don’t have wombs? But today it’s a womb, and tomorrow it might be something else. Something that men have that someone has decided they can’t be trusted to make rational decisions about.
Oh, you say…I’m being far fetched! But 20 years ago, none of us imagined we’d ever have to have to have this fight again. Never.
And look at us now.
If I do not have control over my own body then I am no more than a slave. It appalls me how many are willing to overlook this, to ignore the rising tide of pressure to ‘put women in their proper place’ that seems to be swelling out of control, ready to burst like a tsunami and sweep us all back into the kitchen 🙁
Yes, it just stuns me, too. It’s as if people just think…oh, well, it won’t happen to me.
I too am shocked that this is something that’s considered arguable. I loved the masturbation/men analogy. I live in a country where abortion is legal, but here there is a whole new battle. Legal though it may be, abortion is frowned upon. Much like your childhood housekeeper, thousands upon thousands of women are following through with unwanted pregnancies, or having backstreet abortions rather than going to a safe clinic or hospital. This is because to most of the healthcare professionals, even the ones giving LEGAL abortions, it is simply a job. They also force their religeous or so called moral beliefs on the women they treat. They are cruel and judgemental. Convicted murderers get more compassionate and effective care. I guess my point (after the tirade) is that even though abortion is legal in South Africa, and no-one has had to fight this at a state level recently,women here are still subject to the same judgements and mistreatment on an even more personal level. Frankly, it makes me sick.By the way, in this country, you have to be 12 years old to have an abortion without parental consent. Needless to say, as a woman, I am sad and I am angry, because it seems that even education and the advocation of women’s rights on paper can’t help me or anyone else should we choose to terminate a pregnancy.
I think a lot of it does have to do with men not having wombs. For the most part, they lack the nurture gene. Whether we are pregnant with child or not, it’s in our female make-up to be protective of our bodies and therefore protective of the right to do whatever we want to with it. That may be too simplistic an approach, I don’t know. Most of the time I’m just like you, completely baffled by the way some folks think.
I think the individual integrity of a body is equally a strong concept for men. I think they’d be up in arms if someone decided to legislate over it.
Maybe the vast majority of men aren’t saying anything because maybe deep down, even a bit unconsciously, they like the idea of being able to control woman again by keeping them dependent. And taking away choices for birth control is part of that. I don’t know. Just throwing that out there.
I too wonder why there is no outrage from men in this.
I’ve been thinking this over for a couple of days, and I can’t think of any male equivalent procedure to abortion. I’m thinking of a procedure done for “social” reasons, where you request it from a professional — I’m excluding medical indications. And you’re not even ill, pregnancy is a “normal” biological function. Obviously you can equate tubal ligation and vasectomy as requested procedures, but the reasoning behind these is different to abortion. And with a bit of a stretch of the imagination, you could equate hysterectomy to prostatectomy, but these are done for disease. You might say that circumcision for social reasons is a bit like abortion, but mostly it’s done in childhood when the child can’t himself consent; or at any age for disease. I’ve never heard of teenager or twenty-something requesting a circumcision purely for social reasons.
Abortion is thus a unique procedure; by choosing it, a woman is expressing her independence of a man (of men); isn’t this why so many men have a problem with it?
No, you’re right. There isn’t any equivalent.
I wanted to add that there has been a significant, drop in the number of parents choosing to circumcise their sons and, thusly, a number of teenage and adult men requesting circumcisions because they feel socially or medically pressured to do so. (see: http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/372340/)
Personally, I think men that father unwanted pregnancies should serve 9 months of jail time on their first strike, chemical castration on the second strike, and, in the event that the mother chooses to give up the baby for adoption because she has no viable access to an abortion, these men should then have to pay child support to the state. Maybe then men (and the women that support their ideas) will start to understand how serious legislating someone’s body really is.
” men that father unwanted pregnancies should serve 9 months of jail time on their first strike, chemical castration on the second strike”
I don’t think it is any fairer to ruin a man’s life with an unwanted pregnancy than it is to ruin a woman’s. However, I do understand that this would even up the score. Chemical castration is a little harsh, though. Don’t you think?
It may be harsh, but I don’t think men that are repeatedly irresponsible without remorse over something as serious as creating another life deserve to have that opportunity available to them anymore.
Maybe an irreversible vasectomy is more appropriate and more humane, but at the time of commenting I wasn’t feeling terribly humane towards men that use women’s bodies against them. As for the jail time, I think this is the kind of legislation we should be proposing to highlight how ridiculous the laws that are already in place against women are.
I’m just tired and angry and I want it to stop.
Hugs, i don’t blame you, Lauren.
However, I would like to moderate your sentiments with the fact that, I have never in my life fucked a man who didn’t think that women have every right to have ultimate say on what happens to their bodies. Those aren’t the men who want the law to control mine.
I never fuck the enemy.
I agree with what you said…well done, I’m enjoying your site…