This is My Body, Not Yours

    Basic human rights, not to mention social and civil, have ne known to been easily taken from people all around the world all throughout history. It is hard to imagine though, that in the Unites States, after civil rights movement, a revolution in women’s rights and progress in equal rights for the LGBT community, women, who consist half of the population, are still restricted when it comes to control over their own bodies, here in the U.S. in 2015. In our supposedly progressed in developed country it is sad to acknowledge the fact that struggles with authority for basic rights such as education and public health are still actively ongoing. Legislation occurs in order to protect citizens from poverty, violence, discrimination and abuse, however in our country it seems legislation seems to contribute to these elements rather than prevent them. Where rules are strict about women’s rights on their own body when it comes to violence and sexual abuse, why is it the opposite when it comes to reproduction choices and health preferences? Roxane Gay said “there is no freedom in any circumstance where the body is legislated, none at all. Too many politicians and cultural moralists are trying to define the shape and boundaries of the female body when women should be defining these things for ourselves. We should have that freedom, and that freedom should be sacrosanct” (274). It’s as if politicians finding women’s reproductive rights to be a great topic to lay their political agenda on because they will always find supporters and attention for that. Because it is scary to admit but, what else besides public health, discrimination, education and reproduction rights will they talk about? Foreign policy? politicians-in-us-house-holding-womens-health-hostage:

It is no secret the battle over women’s reproductive rights is solely political, why else will male legislators and politicians will consume their political debates over the issue. They can’t say it is a personal battle after all; it is something that happened to their wife, or mother, sister or friend and they are looking to control our society in order to make it more restricted to natural activities such as sex related acts that will occur anyway. Did they stop and think that if a wide sex education programs in schools will benefit teenagers’ knowledge of safe sex, or funding contraceptives will teach more responsibility to these ‘kids’? It was interesting to find out that “in the mid- 1950 through the 1960s, many white male professionals, particularly psychiatrists, doctors, lawyers, and clergy, recognized the disastrous circumstances that the abortion statutes had created for women of reproductive age” (Nelson, 10). Even though it is heartening to realize they were fighting for rights that were not personally affecting them, but professionally, the argument must work on this side as well; why should they fight and decide on basic rights of the body that belong to women? 

When it comes to educating teenagers, the one word they will not listen to and learn from is ‘NO,’ but if officials will share and tell them ‘HOW’ perhaps there will be room for questions that will save long hours of pain, tears and struggle they might face ahead. When they sit to watch television and see shows with adults who are sexually active, in a stage of life when hormones are storming in their bodies, who are the adults to tell them “no, do not listen to your body that is raging for experience, feelings and actions”? If these same adults will teach teenagers that it is ok to be sexually active but to do it in a smart and more responsible ways will be a mature thing to do, perhaps our society will not have to say ‘NO’ all the time but will have reasonable solutions to unwanted pregnancies and STDs. As a woman, it is my reasonability I got pregnant or an STD due to unprotected sex, but how come my government officials will not give me the right and resources to help me fix what I wrongly did? Why will they punish me for life, for a mistake I made as a teenager? Will they help me taking care of my baby once it is born? The National Conference of State Legislatures states that “all states are somehow involved in sex education for public schoolchildren,” however the true implementation is concerning; only 22 states (and the District of Columbia) “require public schools teach sex education” in which only 20 of these also require HIV education; “19 states that if provided, sex education must be medically, factually or technically accurate;” and 37 states “allow parental involvement in sexual education programs” where “35 states (and D.C.) allow parents to opt-out on behalf of their children,” which means that the freedom of these teenagers for education on their own body can be legally taken away by their parents!

It all starts from education...

Even between women there are ones that are less privileged than others, when it comes to control over their own bodies, such as in restrictive religious countries or less privileged neighborhoods. Them too, are bound to powerful leaders and politicians. Self respect comes from our values and the ones who value us, but when we lack that, when we follow the media that teaches us that our body is a spectacle, and leaders who take our bodies away from us, what do we have left? Peggy McIntosh explains that “to redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these taboo subjects. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist” (5). After watching naked bodies on television and magazines, and not receiving the proper explanation/education on what sex and its precautions mean, how can our country can grow and become a pleasant and safe place to live in? If women can legally have control on their own bodies when it comes to rape, abuse or violence, how can it be justified to leave the control over reproductive rights to someone else but them? There is no law against being skinny, anorexic, bulimic or overweight yet women incline to it everyday by our media. If this is the case, why would contraceptives and abortion be any different? Wykes and Gunter write that “women feature in culture more often than not because of how they look and the preferred look is young, slender, sexual and white. The female body is spectacle, both something to be looked at, whether real or mediated, and to be looked through in the search for feminine identity” (206). But how can this identity built if it is only half given and half controlled by laws and regulations?...

Watch “This is my body” Campaign to understand how WE feel.

Gay, Roxane. "The Alienable Rights of Women." Bad Feminist: Essays. London: Corsair, 2014. 267-79. Print.

Nelson, Jennifer. "From Abortion to Reproductive Rights." Introduction. Women of Color and the Reproductive  Rights Movement. New York: New York UP, 2003. 1-20. Print.

McIntosh, Peggy. "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack." White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women's Studies (1988): 1+. Wellesley Center for Women. Web.

Wykes, Maggie, and Barrie Gunter. "Conclusion: Body Messages and Body Meanings." Afterword. The Media and Body Image: If Looks Could Kill. London: SAGE, 2005. 204-21. Print.