Men, Women, Sex and Property Rights

I’ve thought about this long and hard.  I’ve thought about how to present this and offend the fewest people possible. I’ve decided that there is no possible to do that, so I’m just going to throw caution to the wind. Hang with me here, you may find yourself agreeing with me against your own will.

Here in the US, there is a very large kerfuffle about women’s rights. Should all insurance policies cover birth control? Should religious organizations be forced to “pay” for these policies? Should women have reproductive freedom? Should a woman be able to choose abortion if they are faced with an unplanned pregnancy? What about equal pay for equal work? Should a woman be able to sue if they are discriminated against in the work place? Do women deserve paid maternity leave?

For me, the answer to all of these questions is, of course, yes. Women deserve all of the rights that men enjoy. It’s a no brainer, really. The question then becomes, why, to a certain segment of the population, is the answer to all of these questions, no? Property rights.

For a long segment of human existence, women were considered the property of men. We were “owned,” first by our fathers, then by our husbands, and if we lived longer than our husbands, then to our sons. We were bargained and traded for in the marketplace, our bodies and lives given to others for land, influence, profit, and to cement treaties. It’s the way it is, folks, let’s not be squeamish about admitting it.

Now, at our point of evolution, or some semblance thereof, men find that they can’t do that anymore. We have, to a certain extent, fought, scratched, kicked, screamed, and nut crushed our way into a place in society where we have the veneer of self-determination. Mind you, it’s only the thinnest of veneers; we still have a long way to go. Our mothers fought, and we thought we could just sit back, stop fighting, and enjoy the fruits of their labors. We were wrong. Once again, the religious Reich, the fundies, those that want to own us are fighting back, and fighting dirty.

They want to take our freedoms away. The want the right to decide what we do with our bodies, without taking the responsibility for those decisions; those responsibilities are ours to bear. We decided to open our legs, or leave the abusive bastards that beat us. If we don’t like being paid less than men for the same job, well we can just find another job…. Right?? If we don’t want children, we can put an aspirin between our slutty knees. If we have sex, we shouldn’t expect the men we had sex with to pay money for the support of those children, much less stick around and do the work of raising them. Fuck no!! After all, it was our whorish ways that got us into that mess. Pregnancy is a “gift from God,” even if we got raped. Let’s make lemonade out of lemons, as it were.

The people that tell us that want to drag us into the past. They want women to be property again. I know, I know, you think I’m nuts. There is one more piece of evidence that I want to throw out there, and it’s not openly apparent. It’s about my GLBT brothers and sisters. What??? How do they fit in here??

You see, they’re facing fights on their own, and we’re natural allies. One of the reasons the Religious Reich and the haters don’t want them to marry, is the same reason that they want to shove women back into the box. Property rights.

Hang with me, here, because it really does make sense. These people can’t or won’t see a world in which two people who love each other can meet on even ground as equals. They refuse to see men and women as partners and not as conquerors and conquered. Someone has to be on top; someone has to lead. There has to be someone in charge, and that happens to be MEN. In a homosexual relationship, there is no “natural leader.” You can’t point to one partner or the other and say, “That’s the one in charge.” By nature, if both partners are of the same gender, neither has the “natural” place of control. One does not, in essence, own the other.

Social chaos ensues. If someone isn’t in charge, the whole process, in their eyes at least, breaks down. That is, I think, the “Homosexual Agenda” that they fear. They fear equality. They fear women being seen as the equals to men. They fear Gays and Lesbians being equal to Straights. They fear not being in control. They fear not owning their partners, because once ownership of another human being is destroyed, they lose power.

Fear not, my friends. Now that we know what we’re fighting, we know how to fight it.