A Break from the Usual Program

I was sent a grand total of once to the Dean’s office when I was in High School.

My transgression? I wore a tank top to school.

The dean explained to me that I didn’t have to dress “like that” to prove that I was an attractive person. I pointed out dozens of other girls in the school were also wearing tank tops at that very moment, so it wasn’t exactly fair that I was the only one getting a lecture. I went as far to suggest that the only reason I was in his office—as opposed to any of the others—was because I had been a solid C cup girl since the age of fourteen.

And then I discovered the crux of the issue.

The dean explained that my tank top was distracting to the boys in my classes, and they didn’t learn when they were distracted. And that was why I was being written up. Because boys can’t learn when they’re confronted with the possibility that they might-maybe-possibly get a glimpse of my cleavage when I reach over to search through my backpack.

ADVERT YOUR EYES, THE END OF ORDER IS BUT A CLEAVAGE SHOT AWAY.

Needless to say, I did not buy into this tremendous injustice. I could concede that in the hormone filled haze that is highschool, less concealing clothes could be distracting. But you know what distracted me from my studies? Boys trying to throw things down my cleavage and boys making lewd comments to me in the halls—outright harassment I found far more distracting. Yet not a single one was sent to the Dean’s office.

That was the first time I had been castigated for being a woman, but it has not been the last.

Doubtlessly, many of you are already aware of the current assault on women’s reproductive rights. For those of you that don’t, here’s the gist of it. Some members of the US government hope to compromise women’s physical autonomy through oppressive and unfair legislature. But as Soraya Chemaly observes, reproductive rights are human rights, and denying one denies the other.

While it’s easy to attribute this backlash against women to the current political landscape, these debates are shockingly archaic. Chemaly notes that granting zygotes “personhood” rights would deny women their own rights, and I can’t help but recall a passage from Simon de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex addressing the same issue: “It must be pointed out that the same society so determined to defend the rights of the fetus shows no interest in children after they are born…while it refuses to accept that the fetus belongs to the mother carrying it, it nevertheless agrees that the child is his parents’ thing” (525). At a time when massive cuts hinder social programs and public education, why are we so determined to force women and their families to care for children that they cannot or do not want to care for?

The Second Sex was published in 1949. Sixty three years later, and we're still debating the same thing.

Compromising women’s reproductive rights compromises the well-being of their existing children and potential children. Children are the foundation of our future as society. When women are attacked, the well being of society as a whole is attacked. I fail to understand how anyone—prochoice or prolife—can see this differently.

If you’re a woman, if you care about a woman, or if you want to make our country a better place, support women’s reproductive rights and pass the message on before it's too late.