Women's Bodies Remain Battlegrounds in the Culture Wars

By Sarah Seltzer, RH Reality Check. Posted June 15, 2009.

Read more from Kathryn Joyce on the Quiverfull movement.  

The Means of Reproduction (Penguin Press)  

In The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg's takes the domestic ideological tussle Valenti and Joyce describe and reveals how it affects policy abroad. This phenomenon is most obvious in the flip-flopping reversals and reinstatements of the Global Gag Rule, leading to dramatic shifts in care options for millions of women.

But The Means of Reproduction offers us a detailed and much-needed history lesson as well. Goldberg opens by describing the population control/family planning craze of the mid-century, a drive to get birth control to developing nations that was nonpartisan and, unfortunately, had a strong whiff of paternalism to it. Goldberg shows us the feminist awakening led by women in the population movement who felt that it simply wasn't enough to provide women birth control -- giving them social equality had to be part of the deal.  

And then of course, Goldberg takes us through Reagan revolution, and rise of the religious right as we now know it, an anti-abortion, anti-family planning juggernaut which made the intra-arguments within the population movement pale in comparison to the "culture wars." Suddenly, politicians like George Bush Senior (once nicknamed "rubbers" due to his enthusiasm for prophylactics, as Goldberg points out) forgot their eagerness for population control in an effort to kowtow to the reactionary bible-waving crowd.  

Goldberg also details the seminal victories in this battle, including the famous 1994 Cairo and Beijing conferences, at which family planning and women's rights victories were won on paper. But the reality on the ground failed to catch up, and some of the book's most heartbreaking passages describe the trials of women in countries like Nicauragua where religious influence has curtailed abortion rights - and the brave women activists fighting those restrictions.  

Finally, Goldberg concisely and clearly delineates the battle lines between "rights" and "rites." Is exporting gender equality, particularly in terms of rituals like female genital mutilation, a form of cultural imperialism? Or is it a matter of basic human dignity? Goldberg argues the latter, but she believes it's crucial to stand in solidarity with women all over the world waging local and internal struggles for bodily self-determination.  

Read an interview with Michelle Goldberg.  

My Little Red Book (Twelve Press)

On a lighter note, Rachel Kauder Nalebuff brings a universal female bodily experience out into the open with My Little Red Book, an exploration of menstruation - particularly that exciting, and/or traumatizing, first period. Her book takes the form of a collection of short- to medium-length memories, poems, essays and narratives. Julie at feministe has offered some legitimate criticisms of the book, particularly the overabundance of typically white, suburban and young stories in its  pages.

However, there are some amazing variations on the theme from remote places and long-ago times that are just fascinating - from Kenya, China, Turkey and Ghana to the Comanche nation. There's a Holocaust story and a Cultural Revolution one. Despite such huge differences, common themes do emerge within the stories: shame, shock, fear that people will notice, and either intense bonding between women or longing for such bonding. Women may talk about periods with each other, but women's bodies are still shameful, and menstruation particularly so. This book aims to break the taboo, and it's an admirable effort.  

While the stories could have been culled more selectively in order pack more of a punch, there is immense value in this kind of exercise. As did "The Vagina Monologues," collections of first-person stories can go miles in de-stigmatizing women's bodies. This book works well as a gift for pubescent girls who can learn that their feelings of relief, sadness, alienation or horror are not abnormal. And I'd love to see it lying around coffee tables in the direct view of men, who might be alienated or icked out by this basic part of every woman's life.  

See more stories tagged with: sex, religion, feminism, culture wars

Sarah Seltzer is an RH Reality Check staff writer and resident pop culture expert. Sarah is a freelance writer based in New York City. Her work has been published in Bitch, Venus Zine, Womens eNews, and Publishers Weekly among other places. She formerly taught English in a Bronx public school.

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