I saw Jessica Valenti speak at an event last Spring. She is one of the co-founders of feministing.org. This video made me a bit teary-eyed so I figured I'd share. The transcript to part of her speech is below, the link to her full video is at the end.
So I wanted to show you this picture because its funny, but I also wanted to share it because there’s a story behind it.
I had posted a picture of this sign and a few others (and maybe they had a few more curses on them)—and I got an e-mail from a young man who asked me a question that I get asked a lot: Why are you so angry?
I imagine a lot of us in the room have been asked some iteration of this question. It’s a common one when you’re a feminist. Calm down, why are you so worked up? You seem so pissed off. And it’s a stereotype, really, of feminists—that we’re all angry.
So I was thinking of how I could respond this young man…and this is what I came up with, and I wanted to share it with you.
It’s not that I’m angry. I’m exhausted. The war on reproductive health and autonomy feels absolutely never-ending. In 2011, there was a record number of anti-choice laws enacted across the states and in 2012, we saw more than forty new state laws restricting women’s access to abortion.
The restrictions ranged from TRAP laws and ultrasound mandates to waiting periods and mandatory counseling—all of which end up hurting the most marginalized women in the US by making legal medical care more costly and harder to get. So while I’m thrilled that we’re celebrating Roe’s fortieth anniversary—if women can’t access abortion, then it’s not really legal for all of us.
If the Hyde Amendment still exists, then Roe doesn’t mean anything for the woman who can’t afford care. And if one woman in Texas can’t get the care she needs, then Roe isn’t fulfilling its promise.
I’m exhausted thinking about the fact that I’m still fighting a battle that my mother marched for. That so many years later, we’re working so hard to hold onto the rights we already have, that creating a proactive—rather than defensive—agenda seems like a pie-in-the-sky dream.
So it’s not that I’m angry. It’s that I’m shocked. Shocked at the extreme lengths some legislators will go to to limit women’s reproductive freedom.
One provision in Arizona allows doctors to withhold medical information from a woman about her pregnancy if they think it might compel her to get an abortion. So if your pregnancy is in danger, if your fetus has an abnormality—a doctor could keep you in the dark and that would be absolutely legal.
I’m shocked that given all of the ridiculous things said about rape recently, that a New Mexico law-maker thought it made absolute sense to propose a bill that would make it a third-degree felony to have an abortion if you were raped. A rape victim who had an abortion could go to prison for three years for “tampering with evidence.”
I’m shocked that when Ohio tried to pass their anti-choice heartbeat bill that would outlaw abortions as early as six weeks, they had a fetus “testify” by giving pregnant woman an ultrasound in front of the House. The pregnant woman didn’t speak, appropriately enough—only her fetus was allowed to make an appearance.
I’m shocked that in 2012, that there could actually be a controversy over birth control—something that we thought was a done deal decades ago. I’m shocked that in one county in North Carolina, the county board of commissioners unanimously voted to turn down a state grant that would cover birth control. The Chairman said, “If these young women are being responsible and didn’t have the sex to begin with, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
It’s not that I’m angry. I’m incredibly sad. Sad knowing that the people these laws will affect the most are the ones that need care the most—they’re the most marginalized among us: young people, women of color, low-income women, those that can’t afford to travel across the state or to take days off of work to access care.
I’m sad that women’s health and lives have become secondary to their ability to conceive. I don’t think any of us can forget HR358, the ironically named “Protect Life Act” that would have allowed hospitals and healthcare providers to deny sick women life-saving abortions.
I’m sad—heartbroken, really—that a woman here in Texas who found out that her wanted pregnancy was doomed was not only made to carry her sick fetus for twenty-four more hours because of a waiting period, but was actually forced to have another sonogram—her third of the day—and listen to a doctor describe her fetus in detail. When she wrote about her experience in the Texas Observer, she called it a “superfluous layer of torment” and recalled sobbing throughout the entire procedure as the doctors and nurses apologized for what they were being forced to do.
They call these laws a “Woman’s Right to Know.” As if we don’t understand exactly what is happening to us. As if we don’t already know that our well-being and health have nothing to do with laws that are created to make difficult days as awful as possible.
So yes, I’m exhausted and I’m shocked and I’m sad—and you know what? I am angry. I am furious. And I think I have a right to be.
I’m angry that if we use birth control or want our healthcare covered, we’re called sluts.
I’m angry that if we’re worried about attacks on contraception, we’re told to just put an aspirin between our knees.
I’m angry that the government can mandate that women have unnecessary invasive medical procedures, and that if we don’t like it we should just “close our eyes” or “look away.”
I’m angry that forty years after Roe, women are still fighting for recognition of our basic humanity.
So what I told this young man is—the real question is not why am I angry; the real question is, why aren’t you?
