In protesting a new political establishment, plenty of women brought memorable signs (and some red flags) to nationwide marches this weekend. Diverse groups gathered across the country, in part to protest the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and its protections for women’s health. Yet last week The Atlantic reported that “New Wave Feminists,” a radical organization that disavows contraceptives, had been quietly dropped by march organizers.
While many will protest that contraceptives and abortion rights are crucial elements of public policy regarding women’s health, I often worry that feminists, myself included, have disproportionately elevated these issues. If you search the internet for the phrase “women’s health united states,” nearly every news article focuses on one of these topics. Most are full of harsh, divisive rhetoric.
Borne along on the embittered battle cry of “My body, my choice,” feminists have forgotten that our choices affect bodies other than our own, and that private choices have public consequences. We’re quick to protest that female bodies aren’t sex objects and to argue that we’re “more than a (insert reproductive organ here),” but fill our Internet spaces with articles about our right to have whatever kind of sex we prefer. And we’re quick to slap a derogatory label on anyone who raises an objection. No uterus? No opinion.
This makes some sense. Humans have an appetite for the salacious, and if we can reduce an issue to sex, then we will. But when we choose to frame the women’s health issue exclusively in terms of contraception and abortion rights and deny the other side’s right to any opinion, we ensure that our advocacy for women’s healthcare will never progress beyond those two incredibly volatile topics.
Did you know that the Affordable Care Act requires insurers to cover domestic violence counseling and cervical cancer screenings? That it prohibits insurers from denying coverage based on preexisting mental health problems like depression, which disproportionately affect women? That it provides prenatal care to low-income mothers? These issues need as much publicity as their more provocative counterparts.
Defaulting to anger over perceived bigotry or promiscuousness is a familiar, enjoyable conflict in which everyone knows their place. But finding civil common ground about the value of the non-sexualized female body is essential for helping the minimum-wage salaried moms whose insurance policies don’t cover breast pumps and the elderly women who can’t afford mammograms. Our grandstanding perpetuates a circuitous modern irony: the argument becomes its own end, and one side’s victory becomes the defeat of both.
Solving the complex issue of women’s health access will require discussions with people who disagree widely. In the past few years I’ve had some thought-provoking dialogues with people whose opinions are not my own, and whose questions have forced me to examine my own convictions about culture and consent. As we enter an uncharted political scene, let’s resolve to prioritize these kinds of conversations, to value the whole female body, and to never prioritize vindication over advocacy.