Vagina Vagina Vagina

I never thought I would be sorry not to be in Michigan, but I was sorry not to have been there yesterday.

Eve Ensler, the author of the amazing Vagina Monologues came to the Michigan State Capitol and put on a performance of her play, performed by Michigan's women legislators.  This was, of course, in response to the Speaker of the house declaring Rep. Lisa Brown out of order for uttering the word "vagina" in the House chambers in expressing her opposition to a proposed abortion bill.  Funny that the guys who have NO problem saying "trans-vaginal ultrasound" find uttering the medically appropriate term "vagina" so offensive it's a word they say they would not use in mixed company.

From the report, the Vagina Monologue event was a rousing success.

At its conclusion, Ensler gave a powerful, empowering speech, which I just had to incorporate as part of this journal, since this is a record of my life and the things that move me.  So here it is:

Thanks for coming out and standing up for vaginas!

I am over you being afraid of vaginas! I am over trans-vaginal wands and dudes who want to control my vagina but are afraid to know my vagina, respect my vagina. Who can’t even SAY vagina!

I am over the over-regulation of women’s health clinics and women’s bodies and vaginas when those same over-regulators do nothing to protect those same women when they get pregnant, when they get raped, unemployed and sick and need more financial support.

I am over dudes who pretend to care about personhood and cut Planned Parenthood which makes the health of my personhood possible.

I am over forces who wanna call victims of rape “accusers” and not “victims”.
I am over you having the chutzpah to redefine rape so that a drugged woman or a date-raped woman wouldn’t even be considered a raped woman.

And, by the way, I’m over RAPE!

I’m over rape culture, rape mentality, and rape jokes.

I’m over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I’m REALLY over being told I don’t have a sense of humor and women don’t have a sense of humor when most women I know (and I know a LOT of women) are really fucking funny.

We just don’t think an uninvited penis up our anus or up our vagina is a laugh riot.

I am over one in three women getting raped in the US military by their comrades.

I am over women still being silent about rape because they’re made to believe it’s their fault and they did something to make it happen.

I am over dudes voting against the Violence Against Women Act when one in every three women on this planet will be raped or beaten in their lifetimes.

The destruction and the muting of women is the destruction of life itself. No women: no future. Duh!

I am really over some powerful men pretending this deep love of fetuses and babies and life when we know it’s all about your terror of our sexuality and power. If you, if you really cared about life, you would never, ever consider letting a woman die rather than performing an abortion.

You would ask the life-givers, the women, what they need and want and you would listen to them. You would honor their vaginas, maybe even worship their vaginas. You would cherish the word “vagina” and know there is nothing dirty or disgusting about the place where all life comes from.

I am over the Michigan state legislature, and any legislature, censoring, rebuking and removing Lisa Brown because they find the word “vagina” contemptible or out of bounds or lacking decorum. My vagina’s got decorum!

And I am over all those other legislators that went along with it and didn’t stand up.

I want to say something to all the good men here: I’m a little over you. You are brave and wonderful. But where are you? You live with us. You make love with us. You father us. You befriend us. You brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us. So why aren’t you standing with us? Why aren’t you driven to the point of madness and action when you see us being raped and humiliated and censored? Why don’t you care about this as much as you do about sports?

I am over brilliant remarks being called “tantrums” and outspoken women being called “crazy” and lacking decorum when they are just smart.

I’m over it! We are over it! This the moment. This is the moment. This is where it all turns around. This is the moment when we talk back and speak back. This is where we rise up.This is where we say “yes” to Lisa Brown. “Yes” to Barbara Byrum. “Yes” to every brave woman who is standing with us today. Gretchen Whitmer. Barbara Byrum. Stacy Erwin-Oakes. Dian Slavens. Rashida Tlaib. Vicki Barnett. Joan Bauer. Ellen Cogen Lipton. Maureen Stapleton. And all the amazing actors and activists up on this stage.

This is where we say: “VAGINA!” Say it!

CROWD: VAGINA!

Say it!

CROWD: VAGINA!

Not ’cause we’re provocative. Not ’cause we’re dirty. Not ’cause we’re trying to make you uncomfortable. Not ’cause we’re immoral or inappropriate.

VAGINA!

CROWD: VAGINA!

‘Cause they’re beautiful and real and mystical and alive and powerful and SO ARE WE!

And I wanna say to all these Republicans: when we are free, YOU are free!

Vagina-gate

(Whatever would we have done in this country if the activities that set off the Nixon scandal had taken place at a Hilton or Holiday Inn?)

So.  Sigh.  Have y'all heard about the little dust-up in the House of Representatives in Michigan?  If you have, feel free to talk among yourselves while I bring the rest up to speed.

The House was discussing yet another abortion bill (I'm starting to think that the only issue worthy of discussion in any state in this country, or in Washington, D.C. is abortion).  This bill would require, among other things, putting even stricter regulations on insurance.  It makes it illegal to force a woman to have an abortion, and requires that a funeral home be contacted and funeral arrangements be made for the fetus, it does not say at whose expense, but I'm sure that this cost, too, would be passed along to the woman.  

The photo may be difficult to look at, but this is the size fetus that would require contacting a funeral home and arrangements to be made for a funeral.

The legislation, which passed 70-39 has been described as the most hardline of the recent attempts at passing anti-abortion legislation in the United States.

Two women who spoke out against the bill have been punished for "violating the decorum of the House." 

Representative Lisa Brown said that she is Jewish and that abortion is not against her religion.  She said that she didn't understand why the House was forcing its religious beliefs on her.  But it was the manner in which she concluded her speech on Wednesday that infuriated Republicans.

"Mr Speaker, I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but 'no' means 'no,'" she said.

Her use of the word "vagina" led the House Republican Speaker to prohibit her from later speaking on school employee retirement bill.

According to the Detroit News, the majority floor leader, Jim Stamas, ruled that Brown's comments had violated the decorum of the house.

Another Republican, Nashville, MI, representative Mike Callton, added: "What she said was offensive. It was so offensive I don't even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company."

Really?  Vagina??  The anatomically correct name for the part of the female anatomy that the entire country wants to regulate and stick things into against the woman's will is offensive?

Does this guy know there is a whole play dedicated to the discussion of the vagina?  Part of The Vagina Monologues includes a very long list of euphemisms for this body part.  Maybe Representative Brown should have used my personal favorite (which I had not heard until I saw The Vagina Monologues for the first time) -- "cootchie-snorcher."

As for the other representative, Barb Byum, she attempted to introduce legislation which would ban a man from having a vasectomy unless the procedure was necessary to save his life.  "If we want to insure that babies are born, we should regulate vasectomies," she said.  She was ruled out of order.

Both women were banned from speaking in the House during its closing session because of their "offensive behavior" the day before.   "Their comments and actions," he said, had "failed to maintain the decorum of the house of representatives," said a spokesperson for the Speaker of the House, who said that Byum had run around the hall shrieking like a mad woman.  Byum has an injury to her leg and is not able to run and the video of her appearance in the hall shows that she was nothing but respectful.

When is this ridiculous war on women going to stop???  At the very least there needs to be shared responsibility for the conception of a child.  I have not heard of one. single. bill. anywhere in the United States which speaks even remotely to the responsibility of the man who created all of these babies everyone is so eager to save. The rapists, the family members who molest the girls in the family, the boyfriend who refuses to use a condom.  None of them is to be held accountable for the conception of a child, none of them is called a whore or slut for wanting to behave responsibly.  None shares the physical violation or the cost for unnecessary invasive and unwanted medical procedures...and if bills are introduced which attempt to hold men responsible, those who introduce the bills are gaveled down and refused the right to speak.

Look, I don't like the idea of abortion.  Nobody does, not even the doctors who perform them.  But do we want to force 11 year old girls to carry babies to term?  Are we to force a woman whose child has severe physical or mental problems (or who has no brain)? Should a woman whose life is in danger from a pregnancy be forced to face death in order to bring a pregnancy to its conclusion? Should a mother of 10 children, living in poverty, be forced to carry an 11th after her husband refuses to wear a condom?

 

Yeah, yeah, most of the abortions are not performed for such extreme reasons, but you just know that if Republican congresses are successful in banning abortions, the abortions won't stop.  Women will go back to those coathanger abortions that killed and injured so many of them before Roe v. Wade was enacted.

At the very least there should be legislation which puts penalties on the man as well, which makes him financially responsible, which makes Viagra more difficult (and waaay more expensive) to get.  Rohypnol should be an illegal drug.

This idea that women are totally responsible for every pregnancy is insane.  There hasn't been a child without a responsible man involved since Jesus was conceived.  

And, my God, to call the use of the medically appropriate word "vagina" offensive is just....stupid!