Collisions with Reality

Today is the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, so Friday’s announcement of nearly universal contraceptive coverage was excellent timing. The most successful way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Worldwide, the abortion rate is lower in countries where it’s more accessible, as accessibility to abortion is generally correlated with accessibility to all reproductive health services for women.

But back to the contraception coverage: women bear a disproportional financial cost of birth control, and they bear the entire physical cost of childbearing. This is not a move that is unfair to men; rather, it levels the financial playing field for women. I have good health insurance, and yet birth control has been my largest out-of-pocket medical expense over the past decade.

Finally, dare we hope that this is a true, tentative step towards universal health care in this country?

I tweeted about this earlier, but I’m still mad about the t-shirt I saw FOR TODDLERS that said, “Lock up your daughters!”

I am aware that it is supposed to be funny. The supposed humor behind the shirt rests on at least one of the following two premises:

1. There is a double standard wherein it is okay for men to be sexually active, but not for women.
2. The implied sexual contact is not consensual.

I am not about to support either of those premises, nor am I ready or able to explain any of this to MY TWO-YEAR-OLD. I kind of can’t believe this shirt exists — who really thinks that a kid needs a shirt with this kind of message? (The same people who buy the princess shirts for their daughters? But I think this is a step worse than the preponderance of princess stuff for girls.)

I’m working on another post about how hyper-gendered toys hurts boys, too, but clearly there are some pretty vile messages aimed at boys from a very young age.

(Huh, still mad. Looks like it’s time to shoot off a letter to Hybrid Tees.)

I did not keep any of my resolutions for 2011. Moving on!

My main resolution for 2012 is to call out anti-feminist concern trolling when I see it. I’m defining that as “criticizing successful women for raising the bar ‘too high’ rather than criticizing the reasons that few women reach a given achievement.”

I think that will keep me busy. Let’s give that framing language tag a workout!