Policing Women's Bodies

The bearing of a child is a biological procedure exclusive to women.  It is an act in which the woman shares her body with another human being.  Roxane Gay describes it as a "private experience" shared by two human beings, the fetus and the mother.  It is not to say that the male participant should not be involved in the act, but for a reason this miracle is only possible inside a woman's body.  Sadly, contrary to this there are people who  make it their lives mission to get involved in such a sacred, private matter.  Legislations, policies and barriers are in existence to police women's bodies enforcing control.  Behind these legislation debates, men are in the frontier.  Time and time again we see how politician use "reproductive freedom as a "campaign issue", "negotiable", "a talking point"" as Roxane expresses.  The are two general ways in which the government is involved in the matter. One extreme wants restrictions to birth control while the other extreme believes in sterilization to decrease the growth of population of low income families .  The first extreme "works to shape and control the abortion experience" in order to make it more difficult for the woman to go through the procedure.  They resort to tactics such as
- Introducing and or passing legislation mandating for women to receive an ultrasound before the abortion
 - Requiring women to get a trans vaginal ultrasound, forced to listen to the narration of the ultrasound with or without their consent.
- Punishment by forcing women to receive several ultrasounds meanwhile offering and explaining different services available to encourage them to keep the child.


The other extreme is in favor of sterilization for whoever they seem deemed of.  Women of color, black and Latino communities were constantly persecuted.  During the 1930's southern states "publicly founded birth control clinics to lower the black birth rate" as Jennifer Nelson explained.  The Johnson administration also tackled the dilemma of birth control, expanding it further.  Doctors during this time acted like gods, choosing who was worthy to procreate or who was punished with sterilization.  Nelson pointed out a story of a Latino female, Guadalupe Acosta, who was sterilized after giving birth to an encephalitic child who later died.  The doctor insisted that the husband had signed the consent but he didn't have recollection of it.  Stories like this one unfolded through out the United States.  There was a time in which 194 hospitals rooted therapeutic abortion committees to regulate the number of abortions performed.  Sterilization abuse was a repeated story among black, Latina and Native American women who "experienced sterilization without their will and often without their knowledge"       

There has been several incidents in which high government officials who more then often are conservative politicians have tried to intervene and solve the "female problem".  Politician Tom Cobett, a Pennsylvania governor, suggested something as absurd as women should "simply close their eyes during the ultrasound" to not witness the baby. This occurs nationwide, an outstanding statistic is that "55 % in the United Stated live in hostile to abortion".  In another occasion, Arizona politicians introduced a legislation in which female employees where fired if it became known that they were practicing safe sex and using contraceptives.  Georgia State representative Terry England passed a law which banned abortion after 20 weeks.  He was quoted by saying "women should carry stillborn fetuses to term because cows and pigs do it".  Parallel to this the Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam also believed that "black women could best support black men by staying healthy for childbearing and raising militants".  Overall it is obvious that who is behind these legislation's and laws that restrict and pose control over a woman's reproductive system are "white supremacist capitalist patriarchal" individuals, the least educated with the subject.  "Conversations in a congressional hearing do not include women" the more informed with first hand experience.  

Media impacts the way we view these issues and how they are legislated.  Rush Limbaugh  an American entertainer, radio talk show host, writer, and conservative political commentator publicly shunned Sandra Fluke for advocating for subsidized birth control.  Limbaugh called her a "slut and a prostitute".  This is just one example on how media has its claw on this subject.  Mass Media including advocacy advertising "attempts to influence public opinion on important social, political, or environmental issues of concern to the sponsoring organization" as explained in Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads.  Sexism in Advertising by Cortese.  The following are Pro choice vs Pro life ads:

 Although this ads are very compelling it is not the only way in which mass media influences our view on women's reproductive freedom.  The simple fact that mass media continuous to assign gender roles, degrade and un-humanize the female body makes it acceptable for the male figure to continue to think that they have right over our bodies.  If the media continuous to portray us as just objects that can be manipulated and molded to their favor we will continue to be manipulated over every single element of our existence.  It is redundant but the key point as argued by John Berger  is "the surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female.  Thus she turns herself into an object- and most particularly and object of vision: a sight."  As long as we continue to view ourselves as objects the "white patriarchal supremacist" will continue to make decisions over our rights.

Media can influence a nation positively and negatively.  It is possible that with the turn of eras media can be utilized to change close mindedness.  It can be a weapon targeted to helping combat negative views of women's bodies/sexuality.  Over the years several organizations have worked hard to enforce reproductive freedom.  Organizations such as CARASA have taken on the task to demand "affordable and legal abortion and contraception, and end to sterilization abuse, and affordable access to prenatal care, child care, and health care for both women and children."  Campaigns to unmask phony anti choice crisis pregnancy such as the following   http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/get-involved/issue-campaigns/crisis-pregnancy-center-campaign.html 
 serve to continue the fight for the right of reproductive freedom without harassment.  On the other instance media can be harmful to women's body image/sexuality.  We are witnesses of oversexualized female characters in movies, tv shows, ads, etc.    An article by PBS alerts us of the increasing sexualization of images in magazines. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/social_issues-july-dec13-sexualization_12-21/.  Women who take charge of their sexuality are viewed as being indecent and are marginalized.  In the public "women must justify why they are taking birth control" for nervousness that people might classify them as " whores" for taking care of their sexual health.  Birth control, by many close minded individuals is seemed as the " whore medicine".
 The following are a few examples of how media influences positively and negatively women's body image/sexuality:  

                                   This image illustrate a woman carrying a purse and the quote says "should it be a woman's right to choose if she is the one carrying it?" - Kenneth Cole 

 

 

 

In this image a Manhattan storage company humors on the fact that the right to choose is "shrinking".

 

 

 

                    In this image Burger King uses symbolism to represent male sexual body part as a burger and a model who is overtly sexually consuming it

Work Cited

- Cortese, Anthony. “Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads Sexism in Advertising.” Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising. United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. 45-76. Print
-Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Britain: British Broadcasting Company and Penguin Books, 1972. 
-Hooks, Bell "Understanding Patriarchy" The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press, Dec 21, 2004.
 - Gay, Roxane. Bad Feminist: Essays. New York: Harper Perennial, 2014. Print.

- Nelson, Jennifer. Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement. New York: New York University Press, 2003. Print.