THE NARRATIVE ARC
With the Vulnerability of Women’s Rights, I am Drawn to the Past
Sometimes the cruelty of the present thrusts us back to when the trouble started
The vulnerability of ignorance
I was a good 17-year-old Catholic girl, struggling against the hots for my boyfriend, with my fears of pregnancy. I saw my mother with her six children and four miscarriages. I did the math. I knew my eggs were just waiting to short circuit my education, my future. It’s probably hard to imagine now, but sex education when I was as adolescent was basically fear induction.
When I was 16, a woman walked the aisles of my class, with a large pickle jar containing an aborted fetus. When she asked if we had any questions, our arms were glued by our sides in terror. We exchanged information that was largely unreliable, gathered from older sisters or Catholic propaganda.
No one told you anything.
But your body told you plenty.
My boyfriend and I had agonizing debates about how close, exactly, we would have to get to put us in a sperm’s striking distance.
I finally made my first trip to a gynecologist. The woman who gave me the referral described him as a…
