A Feminine Perspective on the Culture War on Women

Apparently we have returned to those glorious days of yesteryear, as old-timey radio used to say.

And we have George Carlin's riff on the War on Women, that right wing attempt to keep us barefoot, and pregnant, and in our place, the one that wants to weaken the description of rape, the one that wants to repeal equal pay for equal work laws, the one that wants to make it more difficult and costly to control our reproductive rights.

There is a great deal to be said for the push-back against right wing reactionary politics using humor.

We have the Virginia state senator, Janet Howell who tried to amend legislation that would force costly, non-medical procedures on a woman by linking a similar measure that would force men who wanted erectile dysfunction medication to get a rectal exam.  Actually, that makes sense, because of the typical age of men who actually need, rather than simply want for recreational purposes, that kind of medication and prostate cancer and other diseases.  Lets call out the hypocrisy of the pro-freedom from government intrusion crowd for what they are, liars and hypocrites for interfering with medical care and legal procedures to force their religious beliefs on the rest of us.

Now we have another female state senator who has beautifully used humor again in a similar way.  Constance Johnson, a state senator in the Oklahoma legislature, addressed the insanity of trying to give equal personhood to zygotes at the instant of conception.  As a point against the legislative attempt by the right to wrongly redefine personhood, I would point out that we don't and cannot ever determine the moment of conception.  I could write here at some length about the process known as spermatozoon activation or the acrosomal reaction, because I actually read about things like this extensively in pursuing my interest in theriogenology.  But this blog is about politics and current events (and anything else we feel like writing about) so I will save my other hobbies for a different niche.  The point is -we don't know, and with the exception of some very specific kinds of artificial insemination, NEVER know in the natural course of things, when the moment of conception occurs.  It takes us a while to be able to tell THAT it occurs, and that requires separate processes, including uterine implantation.  So on the face of it, the very premise of this legislation is poor.  But Howell does tie in to the obvious attempt to force on the rest of us, in a violation of church and state, one of the premises of the catholic church, that masturbation is a mortal sin.

I agree with my high school biology teacher, who gave us the most comprehensive sex ed classes imaginable; 95% of men admit to masturbation, and the other 5% are liars.  I would posit that the numbers for women are similar.

Good for Senators Howell and Johnson, we need more humor, we need more reason, and we certainly seem to need more women in our legislative government at all levels.