I didn’t hear her literally. (When I did, initially, it sounded overblown and excessive.). But figuratively ... how often are we free of our culture’s refusal to leave our bodies alone, to accept our complete control over them? Elements of our culture want to control contraception, abortion, the definition of “legitimate rape,” the rights of husbands/fathers over their wives and children - I could go on. What would it be like to walk down the street dressed for a hot summer day and know that nobody was judging or ogling your body? I’m not freed from that knowledge. It does bother me, and sometimes scares me.
I appreciate the stance you’ve taken on this. A stance I strive for, in a way, but I’m not sure I’d ever quite feel the same. Might have something to do with age. I came of age as the second wave of feminism was getting underway. Already acculturated in the 50s and 60s. We have come a long way.
This is my job, I'm steeped in this every day. I still remember the first time I offered to tie the tubes on a woman who asked what about her husband. I got a stupid look on my face because I had no idea why I should care about what he wanted (still don't care but now I understand the issue and can quickly explain the workarounds-"oops had to take a look inside, we were a little worried").
Fast forward 18 years and I've been doing these gymnastics the whole time. I play the game where I strategically place my students or residents to distract husbands so I can talk to wives or use translator phones instead of live translators to ensure conversations with the woman. Up through the early 70's it was illegal to do a mastectomy on a woman for breast CA without the husbands consent. The other day someone didn't get an epidural because the husband threatened the anesthesiologist. It's all around every day. Doesn't make it right.
To me the biggest challenge is not the reality, but that we believe we deserve better and we believe we're worth it, and that we believe we define ourselves, because truly though we've given lip service to these things I find that modern American women often value themselves the same way as oppressed women from third world countries. And even when we want to be treated better we ask someone else to fix the problem for us.
Do you know a man is much more likely to survive a heart attack long term than a woman because when a man has a heart attack he goes home and his wife changes his diet and makes him exercise, whereas a woman goes home and keeps taking care of everyone else but herself and therefore dies earlier.
In obstetrics there are a few conditions where bedrest and hospitalization are better than going home but when you look at the data it's because hospitalization forces women to stop being the caretakers to the world. If they go home, despite potentially lethal consequences they keep taking care of everyone but themselves.
We allow ourselves to be last on the list and most of the time (IMHO) we don't even consider it a problem. That's the problem.
I know this probably makes many uncomfortable because the things I say don't jibe with what we've been told all our lives about our place and our worth, but to me that means I just need to keep at it.
