Last week in Michigan, a State Representative was silenced on the State House floor after she referenced her vagina during a debate.
Though this isn’t really about using the word ‘vagina’ --
still, what word are we to use?
And how
does it make you feel--that the
legitimate medical word for a part of a woman’s anatomy is outlawed in a house
of laws - in 2012-- in a assembly of the most powerful nation on earth, one that constantly complains about other countries veiling their women? How does this line up?
Parents went to a lot of effort to educate their children in the last 30 years to use the 'right' words -- and not silly euphemisms like 'down there' and others so silly I can't even them out without wincing. Parents were told, as one example, that some children could not even report sexual abuse because they did not have the words to describe to medical examiners where on their body the abuse had occurred.
This is important stuff.
To be able to speak without silliness about your own body is a kind of right, a type of freedom of speech. It’s not just a
woman’s issue either: is penis next?
Write about your reactions to this as a free-write prompt. 15 minutes--go.
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Background on the story here.
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