Ladies, we need to talk about this. I call a general strike. Beginning September 21, 2012.
No cooking. No cleaning. No work. No sex. We will not nurse our babies. Let the men deal with warming a bottle of breast-milk from the freezer. We will not change nappies, or go to the grocery store, or give a BJ, or take the kids to school, or wake up early to get them ready, or go to our respective jobs because the majority of us work full time while being the primary parent… No. It’s all on them. Let them know the balance of work and family for once. Obviously, working, full-time dads, this does not apply to you.
Ladies, why must we force their hand? Because complacency is the Devil, and we’re about to see everything we’ve worked for in the four decades where we’ve had a basic understanding of civil rights ruined because of a hand-full of male boomers pandering to the religious right who’ve had the advantage their whole sexual lives of the rights that liberal women fought for stridently during the 60’s and 70’s. And no one seems to give a rats ass except for those who will be directly affected by the legislation. We must make this an issue that every hour of every day of every minute because we will be marginalized otherwise. And we must make this an issue for every Conservative woman who holds a job and who has used birth control. This is her fight, too. We must make this an issue that our soft liberal husbands can take back to their Red State holiday suppers. We must make this a universal point of contention.
I have a lot of liberal male friends who, sure “support” our right to birth control (not to mention take advantage of it), but who shy away from a more vocal stance. Silence is the same as agreement as far as I’m concerned. I’m done with you all sitting idly by as we fight the fight for ownership of our uterus. I’m done with you all shutting your mouths about the HPV vaccine, and allowing your conservative peers to take control of the argument. Grow some balls, and fight with us. If they try and take our birth control away, you’re not getting laid.
Your “man-card”, Dogs? How about a punch on the card for a young guy who gets the HPV vaccine? Or a boyfriend who splits the cost of birth control with his girlfriend. Or punch-outs all around for a guy willing to protest and fight for his girlfriend’s right to birth control and abortion.
You know what- you don’t think this shit is going away but it is. In droves. The ability to find affordable women’s healthcare- especially for those who need it the most- is being legislated away. You all have gotten complacent, because you figure, “She’s got it covered.” No we don’t. I don’t have health insurance. I’m currently looking into a subsidized plan (thanks Mo3), but in the past I couldn’t find affordable insurance thanks to other health issues and being freelance, which means I have no company plan option. TMI ALERT– I had a yeast infection, recently. You want to know what my full pap/bac/vir panel cost? (Two swabs)- $2500.00. For a fucking pap+ STI panel. I couldn’t go to Planned Parenthood, because my local PP had been shut down. Oh, Planned Parenthood will never be shut down in one of the poorest markets in the country?
Well, it did.
“It’ll never happen in our state.”
Yes it will.
Birth control is such a basic issue. Much of that issue has nothing to do with sex at all. Because when you take away the option of birth control, you take away an universally accepted means of controlling a woman’s cycle and preventing (or reducing the effects of) menstrual discomfort, and therefore improving quality of life while ensuring employment.
Oh, I know that last one is a doozy. But if birth control is available, and properly employed, one generally doesn’t have to worry about the former, right? I’m dead serious about that. I don’t know if you have a spouse or SO with fibroids, or ovarian cysts, or endometriosis, but there are times when BC or complete ablation (which would be illegal in these asshole’s wet dreams) is necessary. I went on the pill at 14. Not because I was sexually active or wanted to be, but because from the age of 12, I would wake up at 4 in the morning, every morning of my TEN DAY CYCLE with my bed looking like a murder scene. Oh, did that make you uncomfortable? Was that gross? Tough shit.
My responsible parents took me to an OB-GYN, and put me on the pill. Getting the pill stopped much of that- doubling over in pain every day for almost two weeks while I passed a fibroid. Not having periods for months until I passed a whopper. Ask every girl you know about her cycle and I bet a significant portion of them will say they had the same problems. Birth control helped. I was able to sleep through the night. I didn’t have to wake up at some ungodly hour and do laundry and bleach the shit out of my mattress. I didn’t have to spend any more undue time in the nurses’ office. I was able to get a lot more out of my day, without having to worry about embarrassment or pain due to my cycle.
Not having access to this will make some of our lives far less tolerable, and they know it. These douches in congress know very well why birth control is so important to us. It has given us an advantage in the workplace. It has given us more control over our lives- not just with regards to reproduction. And that’s what this boils down to, is the loss of marketplace power. If they want to take this away from us, we will take something away from them.
September 21’s is the feast day- The Birthday- of the Blessed Virgin Mother, Mary- on the Orthodox Calendar. Not coincidentally, it’s also the feast day of Athena. Regardless of the holiday’s pagan roots, we march with her, why? Because she would be appalled. She would weep bitter tears as her name suggests (Mariam means bitterness in Aramaic) at the thought of her sisters suffering the kind of societal setback we now face. She may have been coerced by the Angel Gabriel to take God’s seed, but that doesn’t mean we have to be coerced back into the bedroom, or the kitchen- or the bathroom.
A big thanks to Marmalade Teardrops for bringing the aforementioned article to my attention in the OT, and endorsing my rage.
