Here is an excerpt from a smart young woman. Read her entire article called "Disempowerment of Women."
The thing wrong with this picture is, like the other caricatures of femininity, it's not accurate. My body is not my enemy. My body is myself. And I honor myself, not by being at war with my body, but by respecting and living according to its natural rhythms. Last month I wrote about how learning to be receptive to the natural processes of my body healed me from a traumatic past and taught me unforgettable lessons about my true worth and dignity. And so, to the hovering misogynist culture, I want to say that I don't need to be liberated from myself. I simply need liberation from your oppressive interference. I don't need to take carcinogens to plan my family size. I can practice Natural Family Planning. I don't need you to control the birth process, or for you to give me misguided breastfeeding advice, so certain I won't be able to do it; I just need your support and your belief in my amazing abilities. Trust me on this.
Added September 28, 2011: Rather than saying this culture treats fertility as a disease, I feel I should have instead said "This culture treats women's fertility as a disease." For women are only fertile approximately 100 hours a cycle, yet the majority of birth control methods affect and suppress women's natural functioning every day of her cycle, with perhaps a few days of reprieve (but not long enough to allow her body to recover). Also, as an update, legislation has now passed that mandates that insurance companies cover birth control without copays, classifying them as "preventative medicine."
The thing wrong with this picture is, like the other caricatures of femininity, it's not accurate. My body is not my enemy. My body is myself. And I honor myself, not by being at war with my body, but by respecting and living according to its natural rhythms. Last month I wrote about how learning to be receptive to the natural processes of my body healed me from a traumatic past and taught me unforgettable lessons about my true worth and dignity. And so, to the hovering misogynist culture, I want to say that I don't need to be liberated from myself. I simply need liberation from your oppressive interference. I don't need to take carcinogens to plan my family size. I can practice Natural Family Planning. I don't need you to control the birth process, or for you to give me misguided breastfeeding advice, so certain I won't be able to do it; I just need your support and your belief in my amazing abilities. Trust me on this.
Added September 28, 2011: Rather than saying this culture treats fertility as a disease, I feel I should have instead said "This culture treats women's fertility as a disease." For women are only fertile approximately 100 hours a cycle, yet the majority of birth control methods affect and suppress women's natural functioning every day of her cycle, with perhaps a few days of reprieve (but not long enough to allow her body to recover). Also, as an update, legislation has now passed that mandates that insurance companies cover birth control without copays, classifying them as "preventative medicine."
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