The attack on womanhood

I don’t think it’s a big surprise that traditional marriage and family values are under attack in the culture. But what is surprising, in this post-feminist, woman-power culture, is the way the women and womanhood is being degraded. A few things happened in the culture over the past few weeks that have been bothering me about the way womanhood is being portrayed.

1. Chastity/Chaz Bono. I remember Chaz as the adorable blond daughter of Sonny and Cher and her cute appearances on her program. She seemed to go through her awkward teen years, as we all did, before settling into adulthood. C. Bono has body issues. I think the extreme obesity was a testament to that. But other than that, Chaz was a healthy individual. So it boggles my mind that the powers that be would allow her to undergo painful surgical procedures to change that healthy feminine body into something more masculine. I watched SLO go through a double mastectomy and I’ve had abdominal surgeries myself. I can’t imagine someone suggesting that it was good, normal, and healthy to go through those types of procedures electively.

But here’s the thing – if you suggest that it wasn’t good, normal or healthy (physically or mentally) to allow someone to go through that – you’re “a hater” according to the popular culture. But wasn’t the real hater Chaz and the professionals that changed a feminine body into a male one? and wouldn’t it have been more prudent to treat the mental and spiritual issues that have caused Chaz to hate his/her body to begin with? I think it’s worth noting that despite the surgeries, Chaz is still severely overweight – the body acceptance problems seem to still be there. I have yet to read one prominent pro-woman writer speak to this.

2. Bristol Palin. Did you catch the video last week? Bristol is shooting a scene for her reality show at a country western bar and she gets verbally assaulted by a guy at the bar.

Overall I think Bristol handled herself pretty well and I think it took a lot of guts for her to stand up to this guy, who clearly didn’t have a well formed argument in his head about why he hates Bristol and her mother – at least not one that he could clearly articulate. Yet despite Bristol being called a f*(&ing whore and a few other choice words without provocation, she is being attacked for asking him if he was a homosexual. (verbatim she said, “Is it because you’re a homosexual?”) For that she is being ripped as a homophobe and a hater – the heckler is pretty much given a pass. Message received, I guess, is that it is okay to be verbally abusive of women, especially conservative women.

The other side of that here and here.

3. The natural birthers and not-so natural birthers are still going after each other – no big news there. My take on it is that after the extreme medical interventions of the 60s and 70s, there was a big swing towards the all natural birth. That’s for another blog post – but I have read this opinion expressed on more than one occasion:

“It doesn’t freaking matter how a baby is born” It is the getting a baby here alive and healthy that matters!!!”

I get what the mom is saying here, but is it really true that it doesn’t matter how the baby gets born? My mom gave birth to my sister, knocked out and tied to a gurney in a hospital hallway. Sis is alive and well many decades later – but isn’t it sad that mom missed the delivery? are women just vessels. Is the act of actually birthing our children without any merit or value?

Along that line, Carolyn Savage, the “Catholic” mom who was accidentally implanted with someone else’s embryo, courageously carried it to term and then went through the heart breaking separation of giving the baby to his biological parents, had no problem hiring a surrogate mother in another state to carry and bear twins for her and apparently had no qualms about separating those babies from the woman that bore them.

It’s getting to the point in out culture that it does NOT matter how the babies are born, or even who bears them. It’s the womb that is the prize here – not the person with the womb.

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