Woman = Flowerpot

[morgan_dhu]

Notice to all persons who have uteri.

It doesn't matter if you're Mary Magdalen or Mary Jones from around the corner, you are a flowerpot.

You may be a flowerpot that doesn't have any earth in it yet and can't grow anything until you get some, a flowerpot containing lots of earth but no precious seed - yet, a flowerpot just about to bring forth its bounty of blossoms, or an old cracked pot that can't hold water, earth or seed any more, but never forget that you are a flowerpot.

Has nothing changed since I was ten years old and being taught by some idiot what to expect now that I was "becoming a woman"? Are women to be forever assessed in terms of the content of their wombs, and not the content of their characters?

Comments

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

If the wingnuts have their way, we will.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the scary bit. You folks appear to have a full-out war on women's autonomy going on down there, and now that we have a Prime Minister who can hardly wait to cuddle up happily forever beside the leaders of the US Republican party, well, I'm just waiting to see what happens here.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Can I kick this one (http://community.livejournal.com/feminist/2528879.html?thread=72137583#t72137583) in a way to make him consider his reproductive choices? Pleeease?

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Go right ahead, you'll get no argument from me.

Seriously, what part of "the language and thought processes behind this set of guidelines are based on the assumptions that the most improtant facet of a woman's identity is her pregnancy status, that all women will at some time be pregnant, and that the most important reason, if not the only reason, for providing health care to women is so they can have good babies for the patriarchy" does this idiot not understand.

Note that there's not much consideration given to the idea of health care for women who can't be pre-pregnant or pregnant for some reason.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is a willful idiot. He revels in his idiocy and inflicting it on others.

Well, that's the whole idea, isn't it?

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Wilful idiocy really makes me want to break out the bazookas. And me a pacifist.

Don't know if you're familiar with Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn, but there's this song he wrote - despite his own pacifist beliefs - called "If I had a rocket launcher." He wrote it after a visit to Nicaragua during the brief attempt of the Sandinistas to defy the almighty USA, but it's really applicable to all kinds of righteous anger against an oppressive and murderous regime. Final verse:

I want to raise every voice -- at least I've got to try
Every time I think about it water rises to my eyes.
Situation desperate, echoes of the victims cry
If I had a rocket launcher...Some son of a bitch would die.

Not that I'm advocating murder of a wilful idiot - just that I'm saying, righteous anger must speak. Loudly.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Once I know I'm speaking with a privilged idiot, I'm usually not willing to give them my time, even for the purposes of primarily addressing onlooker's--so I'm not much for chewing them out loudly--maybe I should for the onlookers. If they were standing on a trapdoor, I would definitely pull the lever. I may, however, bat them with my paw for my own snarkish amusement.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know it's no use in speaking to them - speaking about them and their idiocy and especially their wilfulness is more what I had in mind.

Batting about with a paw (claws not necessarily sheathed) is also an appropriate response.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

They've really come out of the woodwork on this one.

Actually, I have reached the yelling stage on this one. Fuck education, I want the blood of the next complacent misogynistic moron who crosses my path.

Not in a good mood at all today.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

I just went back and looked at that thread again, and I cannot believe that he was allowed to continue in that way. The only mod note in the entire convo asked *everyone* to calm down. WTF?

So what if his girlfriend has been mindwashed by the medical system she's heavily invested in? He's in a feminist space and the vast majority of feminists who chose to speak to that issue in that space are deeply concerned about the implications of the mindset behind the guidelines and the potential consequences to women. And he thinks it's his right to assure everyone that they're over-reacting and the patriarchal medical institution would never really want to hurt us.

Fuck.

Hope your mood improves in some fashion. The world is not made up entirely of complacent misogynistic morons, although it does often seem that way.

[mishaslair.livejournal.com]

I suddenly feel like taking up drinking and smoking.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Hey, you're already doing you bit every time you clean out the cat litter. ;-)

Seriously, this fits right in with the movement to ban pregnant women from making decisions about the risks they chose to take. Sure, I'm all for making sure people know that drinking, smoking, taking certain drugs, etc, are thinga that can affect both your own health and the health of a fetus you have chosen to carry, but the law has to stop at forcing women into detox centres or jails or addiction programs becasue they are pregnant - or, given this new direction in public health thinking, might become pregnant.

I am just getting so frustrated...

Rant, rant, rant.

[ladydaera.livejournal.com]

And clearly basic guidelines for health need only apply to women capable of producing babies for the propagation of humankind. Girls and post-menopausal women need not mind their health. Hahah. All of those things are what people should be doing anyway - regardless of whether they're male or female. Sticking them as requirements specifically for menstruating women is just... insulting. On so many levels. For everyone. (Refraining from using any other adjectives)

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

And clearly basic guidelines for health need only apply to women capable of producing babies for the propagation of humankind.

Well, of course. That goes without saying. Women are only good for making healthy babies for the fatherland, everyone knows that. If there's no chance they might be pregnant, then to hell with them, let them take care of themselves.

Welcome to the Republic of Gilead, as many of my friends have been saying.

[guyindkny.livejournal.com]

OMG. So...women can't be trusted to take care of their own bodies, so we need to scare them into it? Oh, and you can pretty much add eating fish to the list of "Thou Shalt Not"s for women of childbearing years, as you wouldn't want to inadvertantly expose any potential foetuses to mercury... *shakes head*

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

I see this as part of the same movement that would invade the privacy of women who are pregnant by forcing them into drug rehab programs or even putting them in jail if they don't voluntarily stop taking drugs/drinking alcohol/etc.

Yes, pregnant women are likely to be healthier themselves and to have healthier children if they follow medical advice on a lot of issues, but you cannot force people to care for themselves in certain ways, you can only educate. And create social conditions in which all people, not just women, are more inclined to feel that they have an equal share in the benefits of society - create conditions that promote engagement rather than marginalization.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

If infants are dying in large numbers in the US because of low birth-weight, as the report says, then the obvious reason is that their mothers are malnourished - either because they can't afford to eat properly or because they are living on 'fast food' and similar crap.

As for the large number of birth defects - would the lack of a decent free universal medical system bear any responsibility for those? I bet it does. Then there are environmental issues.

All this is classic 'blame the poor for the trap they are in' stuff.

And it is cheaper to order doctors to nag their patients than to fix the real problems.

I also think this is probably intended to help advance the agenda of the anti-abortionists. Who also want to see women primarily as receptacles for foetuses.

I hope US women, collectively, tell their doctors and the federal authorities to get lost. But they probably won't, because of the power doctors wield.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I believe this expression of the basic partriarchal mindset of woman=fertile womb is definitely being exacerbated by the fact that huge numbers of women in the US have little or no access to health care, either for themselves or for prenatal care.

The men at the top look these women having unhealthy babies and reason that it can't be the fault of the glorious free enterprise system of medicine, it must be becasue these stupid women don't realise they could get pregnant at any time. and of course, becasue of the lack of effective sex education and the assorted limitations on contraception and abortion, many US women have less control over whether they get pregnant or not.

There's certainly a very strong reaction to this among the US women I know, but then... there is some question as to whether the US women I know are representative of the "average" US woman. ;-)

[sauscony.livejournal.com]

This makes me feel like throwing up. I guess this shouldn't surprise me considering all of the reproductive rights that are already being taken away, but it's all so ridiculous.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

It seems as though every week there's something new and hateful that's being done to try and eliminate any progress our society has made toward social justice over the last, say, 50 years. Women's rights, civil rights for people of colour, gay rights... so much resistance to the ideas of freedom and equality.

After all this time, men (especially men in power) still think that the main purpose of women is to reproduce - and not even in their own interests, but in the interests of the men who still think they own women.

I'm getting very discouraged.