Women's Dreams May Come

With the whole hullabaloo about Sarah Palin, I find myself compelled to throw in my oar. There has been a flurry of discussion about Palin’s daughter, Bristol, and Palin’s views on abortion. Frankly the whole conversation has become quite predictable. There is the one side that says that women should have the right to choose, reproductive education should be frank and birth control products widespread. This side looks at Palin’s daughter and scoffs…this is the fruits of so-called “abstinence only” initiatives, pipe dreams at best, and at worst, social pollutants just as potent as greenhouse gases. The other side says that there is no choice at all – to be or not to be, that is the question – and that is a question that can only be answered by the Almighty. Abortion is just a portion – the most murderous portion – of a culture of death of which condoms, birth control pills and permissive educational programs are an integral part. Bristol should be lauded for keeping her unborn child and planning to marry the father.

But at the heart of both arguments lies the question – how can what makes women different fit seamlessly into a society designed for men? In the recent Domestic Disturbances column in the New York Times, “The Mirrored Ceiling," Judith Warner laments that, to some women Palin “seems as fake as they can come, with her delicate infant son hauled out night after night under the klieg lights and her pregnant teenage daughter shamelessly instrumentalized for political purposes.” Why does Palin, Warner writes, “deserve, to a unique extent among political women, to rank as so 'real'?"

Warner further questions, “Shouldn’t a woman who is prepared to be commander in chief be intimidating?”

And why is that?

Let’s imagine another world, governed by the cycles of womanhood. One where at the turn of the nineteenth century men slowly abandoned military schools in order to pursue midwifery. In 1920, the first male midwife was accepted into the most prominent circle of female midwives. In 1960, the first male hormone pill came on the market, which mimicked PMS symptoms in males, allowing them to partially participate in what had long been a girls only club – monthly hormonal cycles. This innovation allowed men to more easily incorporate into the overarching female world. In 1973, medical procedures which gave men full control over their physical reproductive capacities were legalized, so that men could now shorten or completely curtail the amount of time they were virile each month, a province long enjoyed by women who, since the dawn of humanity were only fertile for a short window of time in the middle of their cycles. The twentieth century witnessed droves of men starting to pour into housework, midwifery and child care, even though they were still not held in equal esteem with women in these same fields. After the recent nomination to public office of a man with a military background and limited care-giving experience, a male rights advocate protested,

“Shouldn’t a man who wants to be trusted with the reigns of society prove himself to be unintimidating – a consummate diplomat in the home?”

There are some who may read this counter factual history and recoil. They recoil because things that were traditionally “female” seem today obviously inferior (the graduate student "ack" reflex compels me to post the disclaimer that "traditionally female" is not a fixture but is itself a function of historical moment). Women’s cycles are something to be controlled or stopped altogether, by any means necessary, and housework is where women’s spirits go to die. Pregnancy, that capability that connects women at once to the future and the past is something that is best planned out carefully or rejected out of hand. Why are our life goals dominated only by male physiology, male psychology, and male dreams?

Let’s dream bigger.