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I Am A Woman...But Don't Stop Reading!

Dear Men I Know,

            It’s not you.  It really isn’t.  I love you.  You need to read on though, to completely understand the frustration that many women—me included—share at the moment.

            It would be fair to say, “I am a woman, and I am tired.”  I am.  But so was my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother…all the way back to the beginning of patriarchy.  Please don’t stop reading now—don’t let the “P” word scare you—it’s just getting to the good part.

            From what I understand about the few matriarchal societies that have ever existed, for the most part they encouraged a true partnership between men and women.  Women had voting rights, men had voting rights.  They jointly made decisions about the society.  Women took care of themselves, made decisions about their bodies, as did the men.  Those who were skilled in the medicinal arts took care of everyone equally. 

            Those things did not happen in patriarchal societies—in every patriarchy that has ever existed, there is an innate inequality between men and women.

            No, I will not cover the history of the world in this blog.  I have a point to make, so I’ll get to it. 

            I’m asking the men I know—and the women too—to think about this:  when was the last time men, collectively, ever had to ask for anything?  When? 

            I am tired.  I come from a long line of tired women.  We women are tired of having to ask.

            We had to ask for permission to vote.  Really?  We had ASK to be ALLOWED to vote?  Why?  Why hasn’t there always, everywhere, been equal representation of men and women?  There are two sexes (actually, not, but I have to save that for another time), so why aren’t there always an equal number of men and women in government, in decision-making, in our power structure?  Why?

            After women were allowed to vote, why didn’t we just make it a rule that Congress would be divided equally between men and women?  Isn’t that fair? 

            So, we’ve got the vote, and now we have to ask for control of our own bodies!  I’m going to wait while you reflect on that. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

            In 1973, women had to ASK the Supreme Court—made up entirely of men—for permission to make decisions about their own reproductive health.  Women had to ask.  Fortunately, the men of the Supreme Court gave them that right, in the landmark case Roe v Wade. 

            End of story, right?  Logic would say yes, women now can control what happens to their own bodies. Every day, forever. 

            But no.  Men who didn’t agree with the decision, men who had all the power (see unequal representation above)—they found ways to prevent women from exercising the rights they had been given. 

            Talk about frustrating!   

            So now, even though our mothers were given the rights they had asked for, this generation finds it has to ask again.  To ask men to stop enacting laws that take away our rights.  To ask men to stop taking our power over our own bodies away, yet again. 

            AND WE’RE TIRED OF IT!!!  Very tired of having to ask.  It’s the 21^st century for goodness sakes—why is there not complete equality everywhere?  Why?  Why do women have to keep asking men to allow them to do things? 

            Men, I ask you to put yourself in our shoes.  Think about how it sounds when you say, even very nicely and sympathetically, “I support you when you have to fight for….”  Because we shouldn’t have to be fighting.  We appreciate your support, don’t get me wrong, but we are ½ of the population; this shouldn’t even be an issue.  Think how you would feel if a woman were to say to you, “I support your fight for the right to pee whenever and wherever you want to.  I think government should fund men’s toilets.  You should never have to use back alleys and home remedies.”

            If women were equal partners in this big ol’ world, I’m pretty sure:

·        Reproductive issues would not have to be discussed.  Women would have complete, fully-funded control over their bodies.

·        Detection of breast cancer would not involve mammograms—there would never, ever be a machine that cruelly smashes women’s breasts, causing bruising and pain.  Case in point—prostate cancer is detected by a blood test. 

·        Breast cancer research would be fully funded—scratch that, there would be a cure.  No more having to have “bake sales” to pay for that research.  Women would not have to ask for funding for cervical or uterine cancer either.  All cancers would be equal. 

To close, I would just have to say to men:  yes, sometimes we women are short-tempered, are not as gracious as you think we should be.  That’s because we’re tired. 

Very tired.  Very tired of having to ask.  If you understand that, apologies will never be needed.