There is No Place For a Woman’s Body in Politics

I am reading a book right now on Warrior Queens in which the author celebrates the most powerful female warriors in our history who also were in positions of great power or royalty.  There is a point that keeps getting repeated throughout the book, and that is the dichotomy that each female warrior is playing with, specifically that of her sexuality.  On the one hand the majority of historians describe these woman with an insatiable sexual appetite, however, in order for them to maintain power which was commonly achieved through church connections the woman must have the virtue of chastity. To quote Andrew Lloyd Webbers’ Evita, “A fantasy of the bedroom and a saint” (a common quote for me I know). 

This duality of female sexuality has been written about in hundreds of books, and achieved by thousands of woman throughout our history.  The dynamics are constantly changing as the societies we are a part of constantly try and change the rules to suit their own means.  The sexuality of the female is a political bargaining chip.  Woman’s bodies become a player in a massive political game for control, which is obviously a big problem.  The issues of birth control and abortion are political platforms, whereas I am not aware of any platform that has been created around a vasectomy. 

I recently wrote a post called Something About  Ducks, where I shared my knowledge of how female ducks were able to evolve to prevent fertilization due to male duck rape.  Imagine my surprise to hear that in the US a politician named Akin actually believed that human females could not get pregnant if they were raped.  I can honestly say that up until a few years ago I knew very little about my body and the hormonal wonders it goes through each month.  I now use an ovulation calendar to really stay in tune with my ever changing hormones (of course a little skewed due to the pill).  I say this with humility, in that I barely know my body, how can politicians have any say in what we can or cannot do with something that they too obviously know so little about.  Why are woman allowing any sort of conversation or platform to be developed around our bodies?

I guess I bring this up, not necessarily to try and sway people’s opinions one way or the other regarding what should and should not be allowed when it comes to woman’s bodies.  But more so to question why woman have not united together to find a way to just end all discussion on the matter.  Vasectomies do not make the news, so why should birth control pills?  What is constantly fuelling debates of this objectifying nature?  Ultimately individuals are going to find a way to do what they want or need to do, and woman need to stop rising to the challenge by not even discussing or debate these ‘issues’. 

We need to take a lesson from our history books, where there are many woman who had the skills to be damn near sexual deviants and still be virgins in the church’s eyes, and they never discussed a thing either way, rather they just lived.  Many have skillfully pulled off this dichotomy in the past, and it is time to look there for the education to overcome the obstacles we face now.  Instead of forcing our vaginas onto the faces of politics, I think we would be a lot better off by just shutting down any more nonsense about even debating this.  Life will find a way, and if we want to make a choice about whether or not to live our lives a certain way, no amount of government intervention is going to hold us down, at least not for any length of time.  By taking our bodies off the platform of discussion we will take control back of our bodies.