Deborah Lipp

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.

Today at Shakesville, Brynn posted about the idea of womb envy.

do you think the principle that femaleness is the default and maleness a Johnny-come-lately to the biological scene, operating on a very deeply subconscious level, fuels the fear and hatred of women that leads to brutal stonings and rape, not to mention, a near-universal inequality and subjugation of women throughout the world?

Brynn was riffing on a scientific article about the discovery of partheogenesis in sharks.

My thoughts: I don’t think it has anything to do with partheogenesis, really. I don’t think human beings have any innate subconscious fear of virgin birth. Mythologically, it’s a Johnny-come-lately, and always very benign and very blessed. Buddha, Krishna, Mithras, all virgin births, all saintly males. The stories are low-stress and the women in them are all pretty much “in their place” (under the bo tree and pregnant).

But I do think womb envy is at the deepest root of misogyny. Plus, you know, a lot of complex Oedipal stuff. The mythology about menstruation, female sexuality, and female power is considerably more fraught with anxiety and tension.

Basically women have power—biological power in the form of childbirth, lactation, and the magical blood thing—and men are dependent on them from boyhood, men are envious and terrified, men fear and hate their own dependency, therefore the only solution is to usurp power and treat women as if they have none.

It’s the run-on sentence of all human culture.

Yesterday morning I heard a commercial on the radio for a “news” show on “Women in the Military.” I actually meant to blog it yesterday, but sometimes ideas leak out of my brain and get all over the floormats in the car.

The gist of it was: Is it really okay for women to be in combat? Cuz, y’know, weak and girly and they get their stinky perfumes all over their guns. Or something. The thing is they used all these clips of soldiers saying how women are great, and professional, and in every way as good as men, and then the Ominous Voiceover comes on and asks Ominous Questions: Are women really tough enough? Should they be there at all? Do they menstruate all over their military equipment? Do they have cooties?

(I made some of that up.)

All I could think was, “Why aren’t we done with this yet?” I mean, This is a done deal, it should be old news. Fuck, women in the military is old news, and questions about their fitness doesn’t exactly “support the troops,” does it? I mean, how far back do we want to question? I half expect the Ominous Voiceover to come on and say “Women and the Vote: Is Suffrage Really a Good Idea?”

I am reminded of one of Isaac‘s favorite sayings; that dinosaurs make a lot of noise and tear down a lot of trees as they die. Because they know they’re dying out.

So then last night I see this post on Pandagon, talking about how scientific studies that bash women’s freedoms get media attention (like the so-called “dangers” of daycare) but studies demonstrating the opposite are never reported on. (She’s riffing on a piece Echidne wrote.)

It’s all of a piece. The “culture wars” are dying dinosaurs thrashing about trying to stop the changes that will make them extinct. Unfortunately, dinosaurs still have a lot of power to hurt us; to reduce reproductive freedom, to diminish opportunities, to lay some mighty fucking guilt trips. But it does help, from time to time, to remember that they’re dinosaurs.

Happy Mother’s Day. Woot. I have some thoughts on the topic.

I think I spend about twenty percent of the time thinking or fearing that I’m a bad or inadequate mother. Our culture gives us a picture of motherhood that is both sub-human and super-human. “Moms” are a thing, whether a glowing, lovely thing, or a harried, wearing mom-pants thing. What has continually thrown me about motherhood is that it’s not a thing; it’s me being a mom, other women, both ordinary and extraordinary, being themselves; we happen to be mothers, and motherhod happens to be consuming, but it isn’t an identity. It has no personality traits. It’s simply a part of the lives we have. And that utterly violates our expectations.

It started in pregnancy. Here are two things about pregnancy no one will tell you: It makes you gassy, and stretch marks itch. So here I was, thinking I was the frickin Madonna, all round and soft-focus, and instead I was belching and scratching my belly.

And then I had a baby. I’m a very distractable person, I need lots of things to focus on or I get bored. Yet somehow I thought I’d enjoy focusing on a baby. Which can’t talk or do a little dance or really do anything interesting except glow and pee. I used to prop books on his little head when I breastfed. Because breastfeeding? Wonderful but not really occupying.

What I ended up bringing to motherhood was me. All my good and bad qualities; not “mother” good and bad qualities. So I’m impatient, easily bored, I say inappropriate things, I’m short-tempered, and a shoddy manager. (Mothers need management skills. There’s like, paperwork.) I’m also smart and funny and blunt and I get people. I get Arthur. I have the knack for seeing inside someone and knowing a lot of what’s in there, and Arthur’s a person who needed that, even more than most kids. So that worked out for us. That’s maybe the best part of us as a family.

Sure, motherhood changes you. Like, utterly. Reaches in and rips you open with a love bigger and more demanding than anything you’ve ever known. The thing to me that motherhood is, at its heart, is that love. The other stuff, that yes I’m more short-tempered than I was before, and have more gray hair, and am a much better cook, well no matter who and what you are, you adapt and change in response to your own lifestyle and the people in it. In my case, one of those people happens to be my son. Motherhood didn’t give me cooking skills, a life in which they were useful and needed did.

What motherhood is for me is simply this: How much I love him. Not that he loves me. Not what I do right or what I do wrong. Not any social accoutrements of parenthood. Just love. And the longing to be and do more to fulfill that love.

Today I heard another Jeopardy College Championship commercial. I wonder, did they plan a female version all along, or did someone notice how offensive it was?

This one was…
Typical College Student: “Guys, manicure, guys, cell phones, guys, new handbag.”
Jeopardy College Champtionship Contestant: “Guys, manicure, guys, cell phones, guys, Quadratic Equation.”

Current commercial for Jeopardy‘s College Championship tournament.

Paraphrasing…
Announcer: “Inside the mind of the average college student:”
Student: “Girls, girls, girls, pizza, girls.”
Announcer: “Inside the mind of a Jeopardy College Championship contestant:”
Student: “Nuclear fission, history of Europe, girls, girls, girls.”
Announcer: “College Championship contestants are just like any college student, only smarter.”

My question: College students are all male? Are, on average, male?

The picture of Alex Trebek with the contestants shows nine girls and seven boys. So I’m not faulting the show itself. But whoever does the advertising apparently thinks “students” equals “male students.”

One of the things that sexism is about is making the male the normative, the default, person. People=men. Women=other. It’s the Kanga syndrome. It’s always disheartening, always offensive, and pretty much always present.