It’s hard to be a woman these days. By ‘these days’ I mean most of human history. Maybe there was true equality and respect in the pre-civilisation days, and every so often a Matriarchal society will crop up, but for the most part, women get the short end of the stick so often, we can build the entire short end of a forest.
I’m not sure where the inequality set in. Something happened before we started recording history, so we will likely never know. It just became ‘the way things are’ and it became amplified over the years. Each generation learns it anew. The twin pillars of Dominance and Ignorance.
Prime example of this is the new Texas Abortion law, which bans abortion after 6 weeks. In his defence of the law, Governor Abbott displays a staggering ignorance of how a woman’s body, and how people in general, work. He claims a woman has six weeks to get an abortion. Does he believe an alarm goes off at conception? Or does he think of it like a football game, with the announcers shouting “The sperm has made it to the egg! Touchdown!!!” FYI, this does not happen. Pregnancy is measured from the date of your last period, so you can be 4 weeks in before you even suspect. And women are busy people, it can easily be another 4 weeks before you realise you’re late.
If any men are reading this, I suspect they got a bit squeamish as soon as I mentioned a woman’s period. They usually do. As any woman with a male boss knows, if you call in sick with menstrual cramps, they won’t ask any probing questions and will end the call as quickly as possible. (If you have a female boss, you get told to pop some painkillers and get to work.)
There are other frightening aspects to the Texas abortion law. There is no exemption in cases of rape or incest. Abbott says they don’t need a rape exemption because Texas is going to eliminate rape. They are going to round up all the rapists and get them off the streets. Hurrah, the day is saved.
Except….
A man isn’t a rapist until he rapes a someone, at which point it’s too late to protect the victim. Are they just going to round up all men as potential rapists? Unlikely. And the rapist is rarely just a stranger in the street, he’s much more likely to be someone the victim knows. I expect what Texas will actually do is stop prosecuting rape as a crime. Given only a small fraction of rapes are currently reported, even fewer prosecuted, I doubt we’ll even notice the difference.
Education is, as always, the key to everything. When I was in school, when health class got to the section on reproduction, boys and girls were separated. The girls got a bit of education on what happens before during and after you period; pregnancy, how it happens and how to prevent it. The lessons gave a lot of emphasis to Consequences, as the consequences of sex tend to fall heavier on the woman.
Girls and boys need to be educated together. To demystify each others biology. To make the consequences clear to both men and women. In addition to the clinical biology lessons, there need to be many lessons on Consent and respect.
I don’t know what they talked about in the boys class. Based on recent trends, I assume they have a section on how and when to send a dick pic. (FYI again, the answer to when to send an unsolicited dick pic is NEVER).
There are so many things that make it harder to be a woman. It’s more expensive. A man can have one suit to see him through every occasion in his life from marriage funeral. Women are subjected to the whims and vagaries of fashion, plus the fact that our more ‘delicate’ clothing doesn’t last as long. Make-up, Hairstyles, fashion all cost money and if she chooses not to participate in these things, not wearing make-up or wearing outdated clothes, she is judged for ‘Letting herself go.’ Of course, she can just as easily be judged for ‘Trying too hard.’ It’s a lovely conundrum to spin on.
Here’s another; a woman who speaks up is too aggressive, a nag, a Bitch. A woman who doesn’t speak up is letting people walk all over her. If there’s a middle ground, I’ve yet to find it.
Add to that the fact that women don’t make as much money as men; don’t advance in careers as quickly or as far as men. So we make less and have higher expenses. We have magazines and movies and social media telling us how to look and how to behave and now, apparently, governments comprised old, white men telling us what to do with our bodies.
Women will do what we always have; we will deal with it, because we don’t have a lot of choices. To the women of Texas, whose choices have just gotten even more limited, and to the women of other places facing similar laws, I advise this. Get a vibrator, and a Taser. Your Body, your choice.
So That Happened 