In reading The Story of Jane. . .

So, I've been reading The Story of Jane by Laura Kaplan, and I am appalled.

Being as young as I am, I can never imagine the oppression of women being as bad as it was before the women's liberation movement swept through. I can never imagine being denied birth control a few days before I was to be married because of stupid laws. I never WANT to imagine becoming pregnant because a doctor told me I had to "wait until after the honeymoon" in order to obtain contraception.

The Story of Jane has made a valid point as well. Women are depicted as being pretty and sexy and appealing to men, and that has been a main point in most advertising and media. The idea permeates society so much it's hard to really point it out sometimes, however, it is certainly there. However, once a woman acts on said appeal, she is to be punished by society by being forced to become a baby-maker. So, she does what she's been told to do, but is then called a slut and a whore and is punished by being forced to relinquish her right to her own body.

Women are constantly being pulled back and forth between nuns and whores, prude and easy, The Madonna or the Jezebel.

If you're the Madonna, you're a failure. If you're the Jezebel, you're also a failure, and you must be punished.

The majority of this issue is fueled by a woman's reproductive system. If women were not the ones who got pregnant, they would not be the ones to be stretched between two ridiculous extremes. But as long as a woman is forced to think in the back of her mind, "This could be when I forfeit my body", women will never be sexually liberated, and possibly never fully liberated at all.

It's a sad sad day when a man can shoot his wad with no consequence, but a woman is forced to take the "responsibility" that others impose on her, using their political power, their sexist double standards, and the woman's own anatomy as the shackles and the cattle prod.

Haha. "Free" country my ass.