NFL
By: Brock Vierra
We don’t like women. We don’t. Why should we? We all live in a male-dominated society that seems to go backward daily aided by the rapid swing witnessed in the Supreme Court nominations made since 2016. Now who are we? As a society and we sure don’t care about women. Last week, Olympic Sprinter Tori Bowie died as a result of complications from childbirth. In this country, because we don’t have time to go over the abhorrent treatment of women across the known world, women of color are much more likely to die from childbirth than their white counterparts due to biases built on a healthcare system that breathes racism.
However, this is about something that affects all women and that is childbirth. Childbirth is a small picture of the society those expected children are expected to enter. You’re treated poorly, tempted to get hopped up on drugs, endure physical pain, and no matter what, some childbirths have the privilege of being easy but most do not. Oh, and if your mother is a person of color…well good luck.
Now what does this have to do with Bowie? Easy, everything. I have watched the nation I grew up in and supported descend into a wasteland that promotes the rancid ideas of a disturbed few instead of what is right. Child labor, abortion, and lack of an affordable health plan are just a few things that plague modern America. Why? Because we do not care about the ones who don’t hold the power in society. When it comes to the forced births of 13 and 14-year-old mothers, I’ve heard morons say that women’s bodies are built for childbirth and I call b.s. Now of course women have baby-making parts but we choose not to dive into and ignore the traumatic experience that is childbirth.
Let’s Be Honest About Women
Now I have a deeper appreciation for childbirth because of my history. My Grandma had a “dry” birth when it came to my mom. My mom had to give birth to me two weeks early and I was nine pounds. I watched my cousin go through recovery and I saw the bloated feeling, nausea, and pain associated with labor for a close family member’s baby momma. It ain’t pretty and it sure ain’t beautiful. The product is but the process isn’t and we need to talk about that.
Yet we force women to experience it. Whether it was an accident, rape, incest, or some other form of insemination, women get pregnant before they are ready to give birth. It happens. Accidents happen, and evil occurs. We as a society identified this and found the solution. Abortion. The thing everyone hates until they need it. We got rid of it because “it kills babies.” So does America’s policy when it comes to poor people but we sure love to take random stands while looking the other way while living, breathing, out of the womb people die every day. We got rid of abortions because “it kills babies” while we strap people to a gurney and fill them with poison until they die. It’s a hallmark of our justice system. Great logic. Whether or not you support abortion, one thing is clear. It ain’t about you. It’s about an individual’s consensual choice to continue with a pregnancy.
And Bowie made a consensual, conscientious choice to continue with her pregnancy and despite being one of the best in the world in terms of athletic performance and health, she died. She died. She could not have checked off any box that didn’t state she was the perfect candidate for motherhood and her body still failed her. Do you know why? It’s because childbirth is traumatic and scary.
Childbirth is like a racecar. Racecar drivers know the risk and still perform. Sure racing has gotten safer and drivers don’t die every week like they used to back in the day but it sure is dangerous. However, unlike childbirth, the drivers choose to race. Every racecar driver ever chose to be on that track. Not every woman chooses to go through childbirth but modern times say it is the right thing to take away a person’s ability to make a consensual choice about what they do with their bodies.
Do you know why? Because we don’t like women. For a long time and even today, a vast majority of society doesn’t support women’s sports. Women’s efforts in research, education, or other pursuits that takes them outside the home. Women are often times overtly sexualized in the arts and in the media but if women capitalize on their own sexuality, they’re called “whores” and other slurs that shouldn’t be repeated.
The government has tried to curtail the rights of women for far too long. Look at the legal history when it comes to divorce, Title X, and abortion. In fact, the only area of law that favors women is cases regarding custody or children. Once again favoring the one thing that keeps women in the house. Tori Bowie died because she failed to receive the adequate care a woman who went through childbirth should be entitled to. Bowie suffered and died. Her baby was stillborn because we don’t care about women. In The West Wing, Allison Janney’s character C.J. Craig talks about the made-up middle eastern country of Qumar when she says “the only reason they keep Qumari women alive was to make more Qumari men.” From what I’ve seen, I’m not so sure Aaron Sorkin was that far off.
