Your Sacred Duty: A Feminist Manifesto

By Kaleb Colosimo

I have been, like many others, trying to process the Supreme Court’s majority opinion to strike down the precedent of abortion rights established in the landmark case of Roe vs. Wade. This leaves many women in the position of not receiving safe, local options for terminating a pregnancy. While I am still trying to find all the words to capture the emotions that this news elicited, I believe I have finally come up with some of them.

The following is a short collection of poems about these current events. The first is a general statement about the gravity of this situation and an attempt to capture the emotions of the gradual, insidious erosion of rights that seems to be happening. The other two poems are satirical in nature and written in the voice of a politician who is anti-abortion. They attempt to speak to the hypocrisy and callousness that I see happening surrounding these events.

I drew upon the theoretical frameworks in crafting these poems: radical libertarian feminism and feminist disability theory. Radical libertarian feminist, Shulamith Firestone, called for a revolution to overturn the gendered oppression in reproduction. Because of this, I chose to introduce my poems on the next page with a quote from The Dialectic of Sex about bodily autonomy and reproductive rights (Firestone, 1970).

In considering feminist disability theory, I looked at the work of Rosemarie Garland-Thomson. Garland-Thomson challenged the notion that disability meant less desirable and rejected able-bodiedism as the norm. She states: “People with disabilities are described as having aplasia, meaning absence or failure of formation, hypoplasia, meaning underdevelopment. All Terms police variation and reference a hidden from which the bodies of people with disabilities and women are imagined to depart …” (Garland-Thomson, 2001, as cited in Kolmar & Borkowski, 2010, p. 533).

“…to assure the elimination of sexual classes requires the revolt of the underclass (women) and the seizure of control of reproduction: the restoration to women of ownership of their own bodies, as well as feminine control of human fertility, including both the new technology and all the social institutions of childbearing and childrearing.” — Shulamith Firestone

The Dam About to Burst

A leak is worry that may seem quite small,
Something to ignore, not recognize at all.
But a leak is a symptom of something more serious –
A structural problem that won’t just clear up.
Untreated, a leak will continue to flow –
water spreading, influence continuing to grow.
Until it demands to be acknowledged.

Your Sacred Duty

How could you turn from a calling so clear?
You’ve lost your way, but I’ll guide you, my dear.
Your job is to breed, be fruitful, increase
No need to worry what your baby will eat.
You are a vessel, no more, no less
A holy calling with which you’ve been blessed.
If you’re life you’re asked to give,
Don’t worry!
I’m sure we’ll find something to do with your kid.

All Lives Matter

Life is precious
(If it looks like me)
Life is precious
(If it’s of my species)
Life is precious
(If it needs nothing from me)
Life is precious
(If it votes for my party)
Life is precious
(If it’s subordinate to me)
Life is precious
(If it has no disability)
I truly believe
All life is precious.

References

Firestone, S. (1971). The dialectic of sex: The case for feminist revolution. Bantam Books.

Kolmar, W. K., & Bartkowski, F. (2010). Feminist theory: A reader (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill Higher Education.