It has often been remarked that Republican lawmakers who make decisions regarding every woman’s reproductive system are inevitably old, white, and male.
For example, the House Freedom Caucus that was intent on removing the requirement that insurance companies offer maternity care while making rape a preexisting condition.
Look in vain for a woman in this crowd making decisions on women’s reproductive rights:
Appreciated joining @POTUS for meeting with the Freedom Caucus again today. This is it. #PassTheBill pic.twitter.com/XG6lQIy5a6
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— Vice President Pence (@VP) March 23, 2017
It has never been done, however, with such aplomb as that of actress/activist Alyssa Milano, who tweeted,
These are the lawmakers making the decisions for my vagina. Looks like none of them have made contact with one in a while. pic.twitter.com/VSiDujca6b
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) May 5, 2017
Republicans are intent on controlling women’s sexuality. This is an ancient battle and patriarchy’s current crowd of old white men are not willing to surrender so easily to newfangled ideas about equality and treating women like more than breeding stock.
There is more than a little irony in HHS Secretary Tom Price’s claim yesterday that “Patients and families and doctors ought to be making medical decisions, not Washington, DC” when it was Washington, DC that just made those decisions for 24 million of those patients and families.
Women’s control of their own vaginas is a threat to old white men because if women can decide what to do with their own, where are old white men going to get access to one?
Women can’t be allowed to simply offer theirs to whoever they wish without male guidance, let alone decide on a course of action after a man decides to place his seed inside.
The shocking thing is generally the complete lack of response from media types when showing photos of film of these Republican cabals. I don’t know if that speaks worse of the media or of a society so inured to this sort of thing that it hardly earns a response anymore.
Things have to change. We are past the point where old white men can celebrate stealing from women, children, and minorities without a level of public condemnation and outrage that should send them fleeing in shame rather than celebrating on stage.
Photo: Twitter
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
