Probably you’ve already heard about the “controversial” new birth control pill that prevents menstruation.
I’ve been wondering what, exactly, has so unhinged the far right about this pill. Part of it, to be sure, is that they oppose any form of birth control, because they’re all about women being the last ones to control their own bodies. If they ever succeeded in banning birth control pills and EC, they’d go after diaphragms and vaginal foam. Which just proves how far out these wingers are (emphasis added):
As Mary Alice Carr from NARAL pointed out, 98 percent of American women will use contraception at some point in their lives.
But is that enough to explain it? Is anti-birth control fervor enough to explain the sudden wingnut embrace of the glory of vaginal bleeding? I think not.
Here’s what I think. Women’s periods are one of the few “safe” excuses men have available to explain why bitches is so crazy. They’re afraid that they will lose the ability to say “she’s on the rag” while twirling a finger next to their heads. How, in all seriousness, can you be really patronizing if you can’t say “It’s that time of the month, isn’t it honey?”
And while I know I’m coming off tongue-in-cheek here (I can’t help it, I’m just naturally funny), my point is real. Menstruation is scary and mysterious to the patriarchy, but a handy tool of separation. The “red tent” may at one time have been woman-positive, but it’s mostly been used to limit and oppress women. Nowadays, we in the West are allowed to go to work even when we bleed, but we still manage to get shamed in a thousand subtle and not-so-subtle ways for having this part of our physiological makeup. And they just don’t want to lose a shaming technique.
hmmm. while that could be true, i tend to be leery of the period-less pill for more prosaic reasons:
1. you know the pill ain’t working if you get pregnant. you know you’re pregnant by *missing your period.* since they put just enough hormone in modern b.c. pills for the dang thing to work (and i’ve known women on it who have become pregnant), i’d be mighty concerned.
2. the menstrual cycle is a good bellwether for other things going on with your body. if i miss my period, i know i’m getting sick and need to take care of myself, etc.
Those are good reasons why a woman might not choose this method of birth control, but they don’t explain why someone would choose to be against it for all women.
En mass binding. Power and control struggles over anything that has to do with female sexuality or the womb is part of the uber control over females that’s so incessant and invasive that it’s considered by some to be a normative type of rapacious and socially sanctioned emotional violence.
The gravity of the situation is that power and control struggles along these lines are usually highly polarized by design, as often as possible, so that people learn to tune into their frequency and operate within mostly predetermined tight boundaries within their turf, thus extending their realm and reign of power. I would say that the sheer number of even Pagans that fell in line regarding the highly polarized abortion debate, for example, is part of the evidence that this is occurring.
These types of power and control struggles also indoctrinate people to decide minority/female rights through majoritarian tyranny, something that affects multiple issues (like gay marriage) – the domino effect.
The period you have while you are on the pill is not really indicitive of anything, health or otherwise because it’s simply a withdrawl bleed from the different hormones in the pill. The period-less pill therefore isnt really anything revolutionary since the pill is always period-less – now its just bleedless. Thats why the pill appears to “cure” so many mentrual problems such as heavy bleeding or emotional problems associated with pms, but in fact it isnt curing them – just masking them. That seems a dangerous route to go to me.
In any case, your point is one I hadnt thought of before, Deb, having heard the opposite theory – that the period-less pill is anti-feminism because it’s a conspiracy by men to make woman available for sex without interruption by their body’s biological inconveniences. Hmm.
I dont know that I subscribe to either theory, preferring the one that its a conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies to render us entirely reliant on them to control the most basic of functions 😛
Which makes sense if sex is beneficial only to men and not to women. Availability for sex, as far as I’m concerned, benefits both men and women.
I agree with you, Deb – to me it IS a two way street.
Not everyone does though, and to some its evidence that women’s health is being compromised by manipulating their hormones artificially so they can be “available sexually” in the same way that having fewer babies does using the same drug. The theory is that by not being respectful of how our bodies naturally work and what we DO biologically as women, our role is being reduced to sex toys. Not bleeding, to some, perpetuates this exploitation.
I wasnt endorsing this veiwpoint as my own, or more valid, just pointing out there are other ways to look at this. Being the devil’s advocate, so to speak 🙂