Getting familiar

Every year I go for my annual gyn exam, and every year my doctor walks in and introduces herself to me as if it was our first time meeting. This year was different as I opted for a “Hope” appointment where I skipped the dreaded stirrup pelvic exam and instead talked about my medical history, got my blood pressure checked, and then renewed my prescription.

This year was even more different when after the introduction she said I looked familiar. Yet, my vagina was fully clothed. I only become familiar when I’m clothed? Is that good or bad? Perhaps, it would be slightly more uncomfortable if while my doctor was sitting between my legs she then said I looked familiar. We then would ponder what that means.

There is another much more important point to consider. How familiar are we with our own vaginas, vulvas, whatever? If women were shown pictures of genitalia would they be able to pick out their own? It is probably time to start friendly introductions to our own bodies until each part can be familiar. I say familiar because frequent reintroductions are important. After all we are always changing.

A pause for gendercide

In my attempts to ease my embarrassment of buying the last book of the Twilight series and to actually turn my brain back on I decided to pick up the latest issue of The Economist. I was eager to read “The Worldwide War on Baby Girls”. Then I made the mistake of reading what people posted for comments on the website. Ugg. Often in such heated issues I find myself angry, baffled, and confused when reading what people think. Questions like “did we read the same article?” or “that is what you have to say?” and “who are these idiots?” often come to mind.

I found the article disturbing for almost a limitless number of reasons. It brings up so many different issues that I am not going to tackle. However, I have to pause and pause for a really long time to think about what all of this means. Ignoring all the comments that I read about the article I keep pondering on value. Often it seems there is a debate over how much women and girls are valued compared to boys as if the traits that make one valuable do not contain a certain value of their own. Is there a disparity between how much women think they are valued versus how much they value themselves? Or better yet how much do women value being a woman?

Ok I cannot ignore the comments I read any further. One commenter suggested The Economist ignored the developed world's war on boys. Huh. Yes, more program content is focused on girls and there is a newer trend of boys being left behind in school. But the article was about the huge trend of limiting/eliminating the population of girls. You cannot compare scholastic aptitude with gendercide, but of course separately the issue of boys falling behind is worth discussing.

I quite thoroughly enjoyed another commentator’s thoughtful description of women and their most powerful abilities- this definitely falls under the that and idiot question categories. Apparently women (especially beautiful women) can get anything they want by flashing a smile and lifting up their skirt to bare their legs. I’m not so sure about the anything part, but I do know it works quite well if I want sex. Question: Are these women trying to get anything from men or from women?

Being a woman seems quite tricky today. It depends on where you are, if you are even born, and who you are asking. It depends on the traits we assign the female gender and the underlying value each trait has. Honestly, and quite simply I feel sad for this loss of girls in the world and I feel this loss as a woman, an individual, and hopefully as part of a collective.