My Blue Uterus: The Bluterus!

I am deeply distressed by the fact men are once again attempting to lay down laws about women's bodies.  No one but the woman herself has any right to decide what goes into her body, what comes out of it, or when and how these things occur.  I know it should be a "duh" that women are not chattel, nor are they children, incapable of making choices for themselves, but somehow it isn't.  This troubledness I feel is the same kind of troubled I feel around the idea of a bunch of men who are (supposed to be) celibate making decisions about sex in general. And don't EVEN get me started about how religion is used in creating misogynistic biases & their resulting stupidities.  The whole thing is so ludicrous that I often can't decide whether to laugh or cry.

I won't point at any more of the political, religious and medical hypocrisies that are practiced on the female body.  I'll get sick to my stomach again some more.  Instead, I offer you some art.

One of the core principles of social justice is that the people for whom decisions are made must have a say in the creation of policy and practices that involve them. As the meme says, 82% of women's health policy decisions are made by men.  100% of them will never get pregnant.

When choices are made for folx in which they have no say, oppression results.  As a poignant example for this, I offer you this brief video of a poem written by one of my new heroes, Lauren Zuniga.  It inspired me, and crying seemed like the right choice of response.  Have a look--it's well worth the 3 minutes.

   

I won't point at any more of the political, religious and medical hypocrisies that are practiced on the female body.  I'll get sick to my stomach again some more.  Instead, I offer you some art.

I don't believe in complaining about something without taking action to try and correct the thing being complained about.  When I saw this article on Jezebel, taken from this website about crafting uteri  & vulvae to send to male politicians so they'd have their own ladybits, I fell in love.  Laughing was definitely the right response to this, and I was happy to have a laugh in the midst of all my grrrrr and arrgggghhhh. Right after the big squee I went straight for my yarn stash.  Many of the example uteri I'd seen were in shades of pinks, roses, reds.  I decided that, since this uterus was going to go live with a male, it should be blue.  After all, in a pink/blue color binary, blue is for boys, right? 

Hence, the Bluterus was born!

It's modeled after how my own uterus feels in my body.  It may not be to scale, but it is 'correct'.

I have a pronounced os (I love that word--great for Scrabble, and it's the opening of the cervix--two little letters and such an important thing!), so I mad the os on the Bluterus pronounced as well.  The jewel as a drop of blood should be self explanatory, but just in case: it represents menstrual blood, and all the other things that can come out of a uterus.

Mind you, just because I'm going to send this to a politico doesn't mean it's a permission slip.  This uterus will not qualify a male to make decisions about women's health care.  What I hope it will do is highlight the notion that those who are being made decisions for should have a say in those decisions.

I'm not sure which politician I'm going to send it to.  I think Rick Santorum could use one, but I also suspect it might be lost on him.  I'm also thinking about sending it to the Oklahoma representative that Lauren Zuniga addresses in her poem, but I wonder how much affect that would have, since I'm not one of their constituents.  My 3 most direct representatives are women, so they already have a uterus; that leaves Governor Brown as my nearest male political relative.  I'd love to hear your thoughts--who do you think needs the Bluterus?
And just in case you want one for yourself, I'd be happy to make you one, to your specifications for $25.00.  Just drop me an email.

Whether this whole situation makes you laugh, cry, or both, I hope you'll keep in mind that a woman's body belongs to her and no one else.  Any legislation which counters that principle is, in my opinion. wrong.  Long live the uterus!