Disclaimer before you read this post: I am not a feminist in the strictest sense of the word.  You will not catch me trying to do everything men can do, and in fact, I love that men have different strengths than women.  It is what makes the world go around – complementary skill-sets. I just think it is ridiculous that men can come even THIS close to having control over my body in this day and age.

Much like any woman in America these days, I am riled up about a number of idiotic bills restricting my reproductive freedom making their way to votesin some states.  (For a description of the most ridiculous of them, see the link.  It could also be tagged as, “States in which Kate will never live, and why”.)

10 Reasons the Rest of the World Thinks the U.S. Is Nuts

We all think we have advanced pretty far as a society, right?  We have freedom of religion, abolished slavery awhile ago, women can vote, and some states are beginning to recognize gay marriage.  We are so liberal and fantastic!  Go us!  Hillary is the Secretary of State, and we almost had a female Vice President there. Apparently, this has become too much for male politicians.  It seems that they are trying to push us back in time to when women had zero rights. Enforced rape, firing women for being on birth control, and putting our lives at risk to carry a stillborn baby to full term?  Excuse my French, but are you F#@&ing serious?  A dead baby’s life is now more important than a woman’s.  What is good enough for a cow is good enough for me – sign me up to bear any random dude’s children!  That is all I am good for anyway.

Female politicians are firing back with bills designed to put the focus on reproductive health and freedom by proposing similar bills focusing on male reproduction. For example, one bill proposed that any man ejaculating anywhere but into a vagina should be arrested, since the sperm are not seeking an egg.  Seems crazy, but it is not so different in theory from the insane bills that are being proposed by men to restrict women’s reproductive freedom.

It is so strange how we come full circle.  The eugenics movement of the early 1900s, which ended up being the basis of the Nazi movement, started off benign enough.  The people of the time who were considered to be mental degenerates – the mentally retarded, mentally ill, etc – were sterilized to protect themselves and their unborn babies. (As a note, the eugenics movement had some trouble staying in American society due to that pesky little phrase from the Declaration of Independence – “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”)  Without the context of how the movement ended up, it did not seem like a horrible idea back then.  The huge problems occurred when the line of “mental degenerate” was pulled inward to include only one race / cultural group and more and more drastic measures were taken to prevent pregnancy (ie. death).  If this is the crazy turn that sterilization programs took, what kind of insanity could follow this anti-female-freedom revolution?  All women get rounded up to huge brothels where men just impregnate them willy nilly? And then women are forced to birth the babies and rear them, probably while pregnant (since of course another man would come along to give you some of their precious sperm)?  We create an army with the new baby boom generation and take over the world by brute force, one continent at a time?

I find it interesting that the Hindu goddess, Shakti, the personification of the divine feminine, is the goddess of liberation.  The word “shakti” literally means “to be able”, and is taken to mean sacred force and empowerment.  Sadly, these days, some men are trying to take our liberty away from us. Stay strong my lovely ladies, and keep Shakti in your thoughts.  VOTE in the upcoming elections.  We can’t let these crazies run our country.