Real Feminists Don’t Go To the Doctor.

Last night I went to a feminist comedy show called, “Smile More.” It was a line-up of 5 or 6 feminist women, making jokes about their fat bodies, lack of sex (or bad sex if they are getting it), old age (even if what they were calling old was 27), and how men suck at *giving* them orgasms (someone should really tell them that men don’t GIVE orgasms). ANYWAY.

I know it was all supposed to be funny (and it was! Truly.), but I also think it’s really telling into something deeper with many amongst this subculture. But what I wanna focus on for this piece is their use of DOCTORS. Like it’s a THING for feminists to go to the doctor and use it for content for their jokes. To make fun of their trauma and violations that our culture not only condones, but often times encourages.

I am not exaggerating that every single comedian referenced her doctor and about 3 of them mentioned their pap smears. Pap smears and exams are sooooo feminist. Which blows my mind. How they completely fail to see the paternalistic/patriarchal/white man influence of the medical model is astonishing (I love “the white man,” btw. Just using their language). In my mind it is where the misogyny is MOST PERVASIVE, and the most unchecked by women.

It’s like feminists LOVE to hate white men. UNLESS he’s got on a white coat and is gonna put some sharp metal tools in her uterus and kill her baby. Then he’s a white savior I guess…I dunno. It’s so weird to me.

Feminists to the government: “STAY OUT OF MY UTERUS!!”

Also feminists to the government: “GET IN MY UTERUS and provide my IUDs, abortions, and cervical check ups!”

Ladies. You can’t have both.

When you put your body up for political and social debate- when you make it the responsibility of this male created and dominated institution to care for your female body (which they suck at, let’s just be real), it invites the idea that women’s bodies are not their own.

“Well my doctor is a woman!”

She is likely complicit in the pervasive ideas of medical thought that are toxic to women (and all humans).

Demanding government access to abortions, birth control and the like *IS* suggesting that government and big medicine are responsible for YOUR reproductive health.

AND THEY’RE NOT. PERIOD. Nor should you want them to be, as a grown ass adult woman.

The vast majority of women are completely unaware of how much they are perpetuating an authoritative, abusive relationship between the “patriarchy” and women’s bodies. They don’t realize this co-dependent relationship they have with daddy or their beliefs about their need for him to take care of her.

She acts entitled to his resources, but then gets mad when he wants to regulate or have an opinion about how she uses those resources. Sound familiar?

Your body is not the business (for intellectual or financial gain in all forms) of anyone, but it is especially not the business of government. And when you make it the business of the government then you can’t be surprised or get mad when the government goes all government on you and tries to regulate that shit. Our bodies and what we do with them have no place in public or political discussion, on all levels.

Health belongs to women.
Birth belongs to women.
Abortion belongs to women.
Family planning belongs to women (and their families).

This is why I advocate for reproductive SOVEREIGNTY (thanks MaryLou Singleton for that term). Not reproductive rights. To be “given rights” that are inherently ours to begin with by virtue of being a living, breathing woman walking this earth that cannot actually be taken away, is infantilizing to women.

“Here is your permission. Here is what you can and cannot do, little one. Love, Daddy.” Ew.

We have all heard a pregnant woman utter, “My doctor/midwife won’t LET ME ______.”

Because they control you and call the shots, right?

NO. Sovereignty is when you are unshakable in the face of gov rules and regs, no matter what they say you can or cannot do as a woman. It slides right off your back because what you do is in your own company with your own people and how the hell would “they” ever know your life and your information unless you invited them into it and gave it to them?

For me, it means all the pills and IUDs could go away tomorrow and I could still prevent pregnancy with ease, confidence, and with greater health to my body (I am not proposing they do, btw). It means abortion could be banned next year and I would know I still had personal access to information, people, and resources to help me have a safe (and probably better) abortion at home that no dude or lady in a white coat or any of you people would need to know about (I am not proposing a ban or criminalizing abortions. I have written before about my own abortion, and also as my views have evolved it’s no longer something I would do, personally…for whatever that is worth).

The care for your health and your body should be extremely private and extremely personal. Not mass produced or in the hands of people who you don’t know from Adam. It’s a great disservice to do that to yourself.

Sovereignty means remembering that you came into this world with EVERYTHING you need as a woman to take care of yourself, and that the government and big medicine were NEVER meant to be prerequisites for healthy, thriving, embodied, powerful women.

This is the responsibility of freedom.