I mean, seriously! I had a good gripe about this yesterday with my best gal pal and we decided “Religion hates women”.
According to the various mainstream religions: we can’t use birth control, we can’t have abortions, we can’t masturbate, we are “unclean” and must be avoided during our period. We must keep our hair long, we must not wear makeup so as to “provoke” men, we must not adorn ourselves with decorations or jewelry (unless a man is claiming us via a wedding ring), we must not be vain about our clothing, we can’t wear pants, we must cover our heads in church, we must cover our arms and “bosom”, we must cover everything but our eyes. We should not expose ourselves to too much sun or train to make our bodies healthy and strong. We must not be taller than the men we are with or larger/fatter/stronger. We must aim to look pleasing to the eye but not too pleasing so as to incite interest from other men. We can’t experience love with other women.
That is just the physical body itself. Don’t get me started on how we are supposed to act and think!
All of which are reasons I left religion. On my car I have the bumper sticker “WWXD: What Would Xena Do?” I hope that gets a chuckle and a point across to any people who see my vehicle out and about. Jesus himself, as an idea, is a good thing generally, but Xena with her girl-power is a fictional character I can really get behind!
All to say, the continued repression of women’s bodies by religion ticks me off as it should you. This is for religion:
The big, obvious area that religion is attempting to keep women’s bodies under its control is reproductive rights. Somehow while we as women are equated the importance and rights of an insulated baby pressure cooker, the embryo (and sometimes even the unfertilized egg) is given the rights of a full-fledged human and must be protected. Protected that is until it is born, and after that the conservatives don’t care about providing food, shelter, health care, education or parenting for the kid.
I’m not arguing for or against the decision to have an abortion. I just think every women should have the right to decide what she does with her body. It is HER body. Not the government’s, not the Vatican’s, not religion’s, not her husband’s, not society’s.
What really cheeses me off is the religious women who are trying to restrict other females from having autonomy! I’m not letting the men who follow religious jargon off the hook, but why would you, a female with the same reproductive system and troubles, want to block me, another female, from personal choice? Please read the awesome post at http://martinspribble.com/archives/2281 which correctly labels this as the ultimate “Stockholm Syndrome”.
All this is why the video below is so important. Per Kelsey Rowland, who brought this to my attention:
This Is My Body is a short film project that is a passionate, full-throated expression of the fundamental, inalienable, universal rights of women. The project is a response to the attacks on women’s health and reproductive rights, and general bodily autonomy, that have occurred throughout this year.
Please share with your social circles. I hope the truths within it may be heard by ears that have until now been deaf to anything besides the prejudices found in the “Holy Bible”.
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