‘power comes from controlling others through conformity’

If you’re won­der­ing why this is hap­pen­ing, all you re­al­ly need to know is that in this coun­try, men are val­ued for who they are and women are val­ued for their abil­i­ty to have children.

That’s all it is. And not only is it why we are watch­ing re­pro­duc­tive rights slip away, it’s why:

·  women are paid less than men
·  women are dis­cour­aged, pre­vent­ed, or oth­er­wise de­toured away from cer­tain ca­reers and activities
·  rape cul­ture persists
·  trans­gen­der men and women are feared, dis­en­fran­chised, and hated
·  there is no fed­er­al­ly fund­ed parental leave
·  man­dat­ed con­tra­cep­tive cov­er­age is con­stant­ly challenged
·  com­pre­hen­sive, hon­est sex ed­u­ca­tion isn’t taught in schools
·  at­tempts to make clothes, toys, and oth­er tra­di­tion­al­ly seg­re­gat­ed items gen­der-neu­tral are met with resistance
·  fer­til­i­ty is pri­or­i­tized over med­ical pro­ce­dures and treat­ments that would po­ten­tial­ly jeop­ar­dize it but are proven to al­le­vi­ate chron­ic pain and suffering
·  the at­tack on gay rights is on­go­ing and never-ending
·  women who don’t have chil­dren are pitied, an­tag­o­nized, and met with suspicion
·  women who choose not to have chil­dren are vil­i­fied and thought cold, un­trust­wor­thy, and un­fit for lead­er­ship roles

 

The pill was in­tro­duced in 1961 and in 1973, Roe v. Wade made abor­tion le­gal. But, for how­ev­er much any­one might have re­al­ly be­lieved that women were fi­nal­ly start­ing to gain equal foot­ing in so­ci­ety, the cru­cial miss­ing piece was the pas­sage of the Equal Rights Amend­ment. If you don’t know what that is, or who Phyl­lis Schlafy is, look them up. I’m too an­gry right now to dis­cuss ei­ther of those things here.

I was born in 1982, the child of par­ents who both fell square­ly with­in the range of years span­ning the post WWII baby boom. I have nev­er known a Unit­ed States where birth con­trol or abor­tion are il­le­gal. I am very thank­ful I was not born in 1900, 1920, 1940, or even 1960. But I have al­ways felt – for a long as I was old enough to pay at­ten­tion and no­tice these things – that the mes­sage to Amer­i­can women has been, 

“You can do any­thing you want … as long as you also have chil­dren. Noth­ing you do mat­ters as much as hav­ing chil­dren. Your great­est ac­com­plish­ment is hav­ing chil­dren. And not hav­ing chil­dren is not okay.”

 

I am re­sent­ful of my bi­ol­o­gy. I do not con­sid­er my­self gen­der flu­id, and I iden­ti­fy as a woman. I am het­ero­sex­u­al and I am mar­ried to a man. 

But I do not feel any con­nec­tion to my re­pro­duc­tive ca­pa­bil­i­ties. Hav­ing chil­dren is not some­thing I want. The abil­i­ty to have chil­dren is not some­thing I want. I feel no dri­ve, urge, or de­sire to be­come preg­nant, give birth, or nur­ture a child, and I nev­er re­al­ly have. I wish my re­pro­duc­tive or­gans were not in­side my body, and I of­ten for­get that they ex­ist un­til I am hav­ing an is­sue or I am on my cy­cle, which then be­comes a de­press­ing, con­stant re­minder of my ca­pa­bil­i­ty to do some­thing I have ab­solute­ly no in­ter­est in do­ing. I’ve been re­mind­ed of this now for most of my life. But it is not who I am. I had no choice to be born this way. It is not me.

Just to­day, some­one made this com­ment to me on the topic:
“I think some peo­ple just don’t have nor­mal amounts of cer­tain kinds of dri­ve.”

I im­me­di­ate­ly told him (of course it was a him),
“there is no nor­mal.”

This is not the same as a prop­er­ly func­tion­ing pan­creas or thy­roid. More women feel this way than they want to ad­mit, for a whole va­ri­ety of rea­sons. This is not to say that no woman ac­tu­al­ly ever gen­uine­ly wants kids, but it is not the default. 

It is not what is
“nor­mal.”

As soon as you la­bel a choice as
“nor­mal,”

all oth­er choic­es become
“ab­nor­mal.”

This is harm­ful and dangerous.

 

I do not want to speak for the trans­gen­der com­mu­ni­ty, and I do not pre­tend to un­der­stand what their ex­pe­ri­ences have been like for them. 

But I can sym­pa­thize with them. I think that their right to ex­ist and be an equal part of so­ci­ety is met with ex­treme an­i­mos­i­ty and re­sis­tance, in part, be­cause they are seen as a re­jec­tion of tra­di­tion­al gen­der norms, which are al­most al­ways built upon re­pro­duc­tive biology.

When some­one has the free­dom to be who they know they re­al­ly are, in­stead of what they are told they must be, that’s power. 

And that threat­ens the peo­ple whose pow­er comes from con­trol­ling oth­ers through conformity.

 

The root of the pro-life move­ment is not
“to pre­vent the killing of babies.”

Ab­solute­ly no one gives a fuck about
“ba­bies.”

No one – not even the most painful­ly ig­no­rant fun­da­men­tal­ist Chris­t­ian who 100% be­lieves in a lit­er­al in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Bible and who will go to their grave swear­ing up and down that it’s about the babies. 

It’s not. It’s about women mak­ing the choice to not be a moth­er, to not have more chil­dren, to not have any chil­dren, to not to be preg­nant or conceive. 

If it wasn’t, then every sin­gle pro-life per­son would be in full sup­port of com­pre­hen­sive sex ed­u­ca­tion and all forms of con­tra­cep­tion would be free with­out any out of pock­et ex­pens­es, the costs of which pale in com­par­i­son to ob­stet­rics and pre­na­tal care.

 

When women don’t have chil­dren, they are un­bur­dened from a life of Amer­i­can style child rear­ing, and are tru­ly free to do what­ev­er they wish. They are the witch­es of the 21st century. 

And, when women who DO have chil­dren have strong sup­port sys­tems avail­able to them in the form of paid parental leave, sub­si­dized child care, com­pre­hen­sive re­pro­duc­tive and ma­ter­nal health, and le­gal pro­tec­tions and equal rights (not the Unit­ed States), they can re­al­ize their po­ten­tial as au­tonomous, in­de­pen­dent peo­ple and con­tin­ue to live their lives just as eas­i­ly as their child free peers. 

In oth­er words, they sim­ply be­come seen, and are able to live, as people.

 

To para­phrase the late Christo­pher Hitchens,
the only known cure for pover­ty is the em­pow­er­ment of women and the eman­ci­pa­tion of them from a live­stock ver­sion of com­pul­so­ry reproduction.

I am not my bi­ol­o­gy, and my worth does not lie in my re­pro­duc­tive ca­pa­bil­i­ties or lack there­of. It is a sad fact that the coun­try we live in does not agree, but it didn’t just start with what’s go­ing on today. 

This is an in­sid­i­ous mes­sage that has been com­mu­ni­cat­ed to women, and men, in some form or an­oth­er for a very long time. 

The only dif­fer­ence now is that no­body is re­al­ly both­er­ing to sug­ar coat it or pre­tend anymore.
 

—emi­ly duchaine

Flom­mist Emi­ly Duchaine lives in the Pa­cif­ic North­west. She likes to drink mead, learn about sharks, and lis­ten to the Talk­ing Heads. She pre­tends to be a pro­fes­sion­al busi­ness­woman most days. Copy­right © 2019 Emi­ly Duchaine.

PLEASE   SUPPORT   FLOMM
TIPS  +  DONATIONS  DISCREETLY  ACCEPTED

FLOMM
promotes learning  +  education worldwide
drawing attention to works by nü  +  upcoming artists,
designers, writers, musicians  +  MOR

OUR INVOLVEMENT
– however –
is mostly paid for out of pocket or in trade

IF YOU ENJOY
wat  FLOMM  is doing here, please consider


1.   LEAVE US A TIP  :
use our tip jar whenever the mood hits



2.   BUY OUR SWAG  :
our approach is semi-green —
                all our  FLOMMHAUS  merch is made to order



3.   HELP US OUT  :
use our hashtags  #flomm  #flommus  #whereisflomm  #nüflommart  #flommist
when posting on ur socials —
or drop us a note and offer to help in some way
everything we do is on a volunteer basis —
             when we say  YOU CAN BE A FLOMMIST TOO  this is wat we mean

THANK YOU
your support helps our continued efforts
to create content across numerous platforms

clic 「 HIER   」 to return to the DER TUNG front page