The Supreme Court and the desire to control women.
I had planned to write a very different post today about avoiding difficult conversations with our loved ones.
But in the light of the decision made today by the United States Supreme Court, I want to share some thoughts. So strap in darlings, it is going to be a bit of a long one.
The first is that my commentary here is not about abortion. My stance on abortion itself is really not the point although if you do want to know, I personally would not be willing to terminate a pregnancy that was viable...
But I don't believe I get to make that decision for anyone other than myself. AND I have no thoughts on other people's morality one way or another.
I once worked for a not-for-profit that supported families of children with congenital heart defects and I've seen enough of both sides of the experience that I firmly believe you don't get to make that call unless it's your own pregnancy.
But I digress.
There are MANY reasons why this decision is problematic beyond just the abortion question. And the one that I keep coming back to is this.
THE OWNERSHIP & REGULATION OF THE BODY OF A HUMAN BEING BY SOMEONE ELSE IS FUCKING UNACCEPTABLE.
(Isn't that... checks notes... slavery?)
And as women, we have been dealing with this nonsense for THOUSANDS of years in many many forms.
But all of the forms have an underlying narrative in common.
Women cannot be trusted. They cannot be allowed self-governance. Women must be under control.
There is a reason why virginity was (and in many ways still is) prized in women but generally irrelevant in men.
A woman's body has to be regulated. Controlled. She can't just be out there doing what she wants and having sex without the control of a husband.
A woman's body has to be adapted. She can't just weigh what she wants or look however she wants. She must conform to what someone else decides is acceptable. And her natural state is NEVER acceptable.
A woman's body must be covered. Her clothing choices must be dictated according to the comfort and desirability of others.
Do you realize that it was only in 1972 that laws were passed meaning a woman could no longer be REQUIRED to wear a dress at school or at work? It was once basically a declaration that you were a slut to be seen out on the street without your gloves on.
Visible skin on your hands is how the devil gets in apparently.
Women's access to money (and therefore independence) must be restricted.
Before people stopped being complete idiots, a woman's possessions (from her home right down to her clothes) were owned by her father and then her husband. Legally she had nothing that belonged to her.
And on that note, up till a few decades ago, a woman couldn't get custody of her own children if she was estranged from her husband. At one point beating your wife was legal (as long as you used a thin stick) and it was possible to have a woman committed to an asylum with no formal assessment.
A woman couldn't even get her own bank account until 1960. To put that into perspective, my grandmother couldn't get an account until after my mother was born.
It's still within average living memory.
And I'm not going to even get into the historical restriction of what women were and weren't allowed to do in terms of employment that literally prevented them from finding themselves in anything resembling the opportunity to have access to decision-making capabilities. There LITERALLY was something called a marriage bar which prevented married women from being allowed to have jobs.
That piece of nonsense was only officially removed in the early 1970's.
And what I'm also got going to do is get into the many many ways that having control over when and if she has children DRASTICALLY impacts a woman's career choices, financial reality, and mental/physical health... because that would be an even longer email and you all have google.
But the point of my exasperated ranting is this.
Every single action that is taken with the intention of dictating what a woman is or isn't allowed to do with her own life is a step BACKWARDS.
A step toward dis-empowerment and control.
And I KNOW that today's decision is about control because we have decades of evidence of how to actually effectively lower abortion rates... but none of those genuinely applicable options are on the table because they all provide us with even greater freedom!
In so much of the coaching I do with women, we bump up against deeply ingrained beliefs about what we aren't allowed to do. What being a "good" woman looks like. What the right way to be a woman is. We keep ourselves small and limit what we are capable of because we have been conditioned over thousands of years to believe that...
No. You don't get to control your own life.
You aren't capable of making choices.
You cant be trusted.
THIS is why I do what I do.
The self-empowerment of women is my ultimate goal because I 100% believe that our world needs more women's voices in the big conversations. Women need greater financial independence, and the economic power to make a difference in their communities.
Women need to have the confidence and the sheer determination to create access to decision-making seats.
Our most useful conversation isn't "how do we get access to abortions?" The conversation needs to be about
How we can empower more women to believe in themselves and actively take positions of power in our culture where they can change the narrative to...
"Women are capable of making their own decisions and have a right to ownership of their lives."
PS. If this resonates with you, do yourself and the world a favor. Figure out all the ways in which you’re holding yourself back. All the ways you silence or lower your voice. All the ways you believe you aren’t powerful and MOVE THROUGH THAT NONSENSE. The world needs you and your unique powerful leadership.
