Via Amanda at Pandagon, I find that apparently, a fairly sizeable proportion of the feminist blogosphere has been expressing discomfort at the news of a new no-period birth control pill. You see, periods are natural, and so we shouldn’t suppress them. Furthermore, doing so would be giving in to the patriarchy’s definition of female=gross. Amanda’s takedown is good. (My quick and dirty summary: what’s “natural” anyway? A way of dodging actual arguments, is what. And I don’t need a man to tell me that blood-soaked clothing is, yeah, kinda yucky.)
Reading comments at Pandagon and some of the linked blogs, I find that several people took the position that if a woman has really painful periods, it’s OK to stop them, but if she just wants convenience or thinks blood is gross, that’s not a good enough reason. Um, isn’t feminism supposed to be all about not judging women’s choices and giving them control over their own bodies?
May 26th, 2006 at 8:37 am
I’m no expert on feminism, but when has it ever been about “not judging women’s choices”? I hasten to add that I think it “should” include some amount of judging, as every other moral system does. I suppose feminism could be a purely political program in the libertarian sense, but this would make it difficult or impossible to achieve the additional desired social change. One small example: I submit that we should all ridicule parents who choose to expose their daughters to this horrible movie.
Otherwise, I completely agree with your post.