My Body has Her Story and Her Rules
When I was younger, I learned a lesson in what people believed my body should do. In light of the heightened scandalization surrounding the female form at this moment, it is revealing.
Today we stand in a frame of history that is horrifying. Humankind is turning on itself. Women turn against their fellow women. Women and men of the United States are standing in the middle of a story that is being written that threatens some of us more than others. There is a divide within humankind when witnessing injustice. There are people who battle with their challenges head on and do not hide their bravery to the public. There are people who are learning to be honest with themselves to the world and therefore are still building their bravery not just for themselves, but also for those who are waiting for that spark of encouragement. Then there are people who have accepted their position in the world and ignore that fact that they are living in a land where unheard people are under attack.
Who are the unheard? Through her powerful essay, Can the Subaltern Speak?, Gayatri Spivak highlights the subaltern class. Spivak hits her readers with how “the people of the subaltern class” is not even a phrase that would be considered real. The category of “people” and “subaltern class” would not be crossed over. This is the severity of how marginalized the subaltern class is. The people of the subaltern class would be viewed as so low and they were not allowed a voice. The would not get to be heard in anyway. Unless they forced their way into the world’s view, refusing to leave. The culture of the subaltern class needed shifting, shifting this giant group to active resistance as a means to implement change. So yes. When an audience is presented with the idea of an unheard people, it is easy to conjure up the image people who are living in a rural area, people who are living poverty. But here is the thing: have you ever been dismissed by another person about an issue concerning your body? Have you ever felt as if there is a pain in your heart when someone tells you that you are poorly controlling your body? Has someone ever dictated to you how you should be controlling your body in their proper way? Have you been unheard? Are you not being heard? Are you a part of the unheard?
Today, eyes are focused on the unheard marginalized majority of women, people of color, people who do not identify as heterosexual nor cisgender. There were people who were lobbying for a governmental bill that would strip healthcare benefits from the marginalized majority. The American Health Care Act of 2017 is the epitome of a direct hit to physical bodies. The bodies of people who do not restrict themselves to “normal” and do not hide their gender fluidity or sexual orientation. The bodies of marginalized people are the bodies that need protecting. In the past few months alone, the women of the United States in particular have found themselves in the center of politics and debate and protest because their bodies and their power have been treated as if they have a certain monetary value that is getting devalued. After weeks of nail biting - months of sheer stress - we are witnesses to what happens when the unheard are finally heard. That bill - the bill that would indeed harm the bodies of the unheard marginalized majority - it has been withdrawn. It has been withdrawn and there are people celebrating in the streets, through social media, with their families. All because there is now a glimmer of hope for them. There is a resurgent hope in protest. We are reminded that protest, through action and words, can still work. What needs to happen is that we need to keep working together to make our strides for protest, for ourselves. Protesting is about unity and people. Protesting is still about the people, the bodies that are fighting for more.
Now, I have my personal issues with the AHCA. It really started when I was seventeen. I found out one of my ovaries engulfed a one pound tumor. Tada! I had cancer. Dysgerminoma, A tumor originating from a germ cell, that is — according to every oncologist I had to see — “not uncommon for young women in adolescence”. I had an ovary taken out. Just one. At the time, I did not think much about my body, let alone about my reproductive system.It was not til about nine months later that I found myself walking into the Planned Parenthood I volunteered at the previous year. I talked about it with people there. I chose a method that would control my ovulation. Three years later, I went back to change out the Nexplanon in my arm for a new one. You see my problem?
Reproductive rights are being attacked. My reproductive rights are being attacked. This is a prime example of the magnifying glass government put on the female form. The government has blinded itself from the fact that they should not be creating the rules for what a woman can do with her body. The underlying mentality of how there even needs to be rules for absolutely any person’s body is ridiculous. It is the twenty first century. I love talking about my body now. I love praising my body now. But we need to move on. I control my body. My body has rules. My body is for nobody else. My body wants to move on from a spotlight.
