ooooooklahoma, where the doctors lie with malice.

so for shavuot dinner on tuesday night I went to ilana gleichblooms with a few other girls (shoutout to talia, sarah gott, rachie, emma, margalit & becca) and we had a lovely shavuot dinner/study (I fell asleep on ilana's couch for the study part...I was very tired). afterwards I got to take a peek at ilana's shelf of feminism books (shoutout to gleichbloom for totally having the most organized bookshelf of ever, I'm super jealous) and I found one on analyzing/reading sex and the city (which I didn't take, surprisingly) and one called "manifesta" which I took and am currently reading. apparently it's 10 years old and they're writing a new one at this point...which is really exciting and I cannot wait to read it.

it starts off being like a basic introduction to feminism (not like jessica valenti though who is kind of annoying and masochistic) so the first chapter is about first wave, second wave and the new, (now obsolete) third wave of feminism. there's a whole big part about sex and birth control and abortion and a woman's "role" -- I'm not going to focus on the woman's role bit just because I think I talk about that enough, so I'm going to look at the sex/birth control/abortion bit. it's just so interesting to look at what these women wrote 10 years ago and read it alongside Gail Collins' article on the 50th anniversary of birth control that was published in the times mother's day weekend (irony much?) and then read that alongside the new oklahoma law that says that a doctor can withhold information, mislead or actually straight out lie to a pregnant woman about the health status of her baby if it might make her want to get an abortion (mind you this was passed at the beginning of this month).

obviously I am all for women's rights, a right to choice, a right to full information (pretty much because that's standard ethics and medical procedure and I cannot see how this new law can coexist with the hypocratic oath at all) and I am a big advocate of birth control (even though it's expensive -- gail collins totally addresses that issue in her article so definitely read up on that) so I don't see where progress has been made. I cannot see how progress can occur so rapidly and be so openly accepted in some states while it seems that some states are taking many steps backwards.

so how do we do something about the oklahoma law? how does birth control become affordable for all women (granted, condoms are free at many places but condoms pose a higher risk of breaking than, say, nuvaring does of not working because there is only perfect usage)? how can we take this country and move it only steps forward, not leave some places behind in the dark? and, most importantly, what can I personally do to make all of america a more women's-rights-friendly place? the balance is out of order -- there simply cannot be some states that withhold information because they worry about abortion occurring as a result. I cannot read a book published 10 years ago about the advances that women have made (and we must recognize that we weren't just granted the right to vote in 1920, we fought our asses off for it; we must recognize that when the fda announced that they would approve the pill as contraception on may 9th, 1960, states didn't open such contraception with open arms -- even new york, a very liberal state) while hearing about the way society has regressed in the past few weeks.

I would say that step #1 would be awareness. see if people even know about the new oklahoma law. even women & men who don't identify as feminists can (and should!) feel morally opposed to this new law. bring it to their attention, find a way to weave it into conversation. bring it up. get it out there. get something done.