Should Women’s Healthcare Address the Needs of Men?
Should women’s healthcare address the needs of men? Well, on January 3rd members of the House of Representatives said it should – with Resolution 7 which in the 5th line states exactly this…
“Whereas health care for women should also address the needs of men, families, and communities as they relate to women’s health care;”
Since when does the health of our lady parts have anything to do with the needs of men? Whose men? Whose families? Whose communities? I kept reading and found this…
“Whereas Pro Women’s Healthcare Centers is a consortium of centers that serves as an example of the high-quality, comprehensive, life-affirming care that women deserve;”
There it is. The anti-abortion agenda I knew I would find embedded in an idea that our vaginas are anyone else’s business besides our own. Pro Women’s Healthcare Centers are not only anti-abortion, but also anti-contraception, anti-IVF and anti-HRT. They spread all kinds of disinformation about the medical uses of any of these treatments/procedures – all in the name of “affirming life”. Whose life? Not the woman who has the vagina, but the ones that could potentially come out of that vagina if women had less control over their own reproductive health.
And this resolution is saying these standards are “worth implementing nationwide” and “for women of all ages”. It is now in committee to be reviewed. Not the committee on Health Care and Financial Services, but the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
What the actual f*ck???? Why are women’s bodies being considered a part of energy and commerce????!!!
I read this to my husband and shared my concerns. His response was, “That’s awful.” And he’s right. It is awful. He’s a wonderful husband, extremely emotionally stable and stays calm in a crisis, I love this about him. He’s fantastic at navigating difficult situations with ease. But at this moment, that phrase, “that’s awful”, just didn’t cut it for me. I needed him to understand what this means for me, for our daughter, and for 50% of the population. So…I had me a little emotional breakdown.
We sat together and through my tears I shared the horror that was going through my mind. Would I be able to stay on birth control? Get HRT when I need it? Our daughter was born from IVF, will she have that choice when she’s older? Will she have any say in her healthcare, or will she become part of US Energy and Commerce because of her sex? I was in a panic to say the least.
He told me just because he didn’t express his emotions in the same way I did, didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling the same way. I believe him. Men are conditioned to remain stoic. Women are conditioned to self-sacrifice for the needs of men. Maybe both of these patriarchal norms aren’t working out for either of us. Which was why, though we have an equitable marriage, I still felt the need to ball my eyes out.
Why does our government get to tell us that family and community must come at the expense of our needs? Our wants? Our desires? And in some cases our right to exist???!! And, what if men everywhere who might feel angry about this remain stoic and it is construed as complicity? And, what if by burying this conversation into a committee like Energy and Commerce women become a commodity – further dehumanizing us?
He stayed calm, held my hands and listened. Which is what I actually needed because then I found the words I was really looking for, “I know you think this is awful, but I need you to go deeper.”
At this time in America, I argue all men need to go deeper…and not into our vaginas, but into themselves. What would it be like if their bodies were part of “Energy and Commerce”? What if they didn’t have choices in what kind of healthcare they could get? What if their social value was tied almost completely to their ability to reproduce but they lost the control to decide if, when, where, why, and with whom this would happen?
This is not about Left versus Right or religion versus secularism. This is about a woman’s need to be seen as a human being and not a man’s commodity. We need men to address our need to have the same rights they have always enjoyed. Before our wellbeing becomes overshadowed by a government’s need to build a “community” they can exploit for energy and commerce.
Join us at our next AMONG OTHER THINGS event where we see all mamas as human, address each one of our needs, and figure out how we can get more men to go deeper on gender inequities. For more information about our writer, click here.
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