Talking with girlfriends

Always fun, though obviously harder as we get older and more into our jobs and whatnot. Sitting around the Texas Chili Parlour, my friends and I joked because I was trying to arrange a dinner date with another couple who had a baby, and god that's exactly how you know you're a dull adult when you have dinner dates with other couples.

Politics were much on our mind around drinks and dinner tonight. Two out of three had voted and the other was planning to vote tomorrow. One friend joked that now that Boston had won, she had nothing but high hopes for Kerry. We made jokes about how we were in the much-desired "single woman" demographic but had barely heard a single appeal directly to us, excepting, as I pointed out, Kerry's straightforward defense of Roe v. Wade. My friends agreed that this was important and one jokingly made a voting motion, saying, that's all it takes, isn't it?

The funny thing to me is that our sad laugh told a whole story. Young, single women don't want to be one-issue voters and we're not, not at all. Talking with me and my friends over drinks, you would hear everything from frustration at how illegal immigrants are treated to dumbfounded anger against the war to worries about our financial futures. Young, single women aren't one issue voters, but we are very liberal, and one's stance on abortion is a decent indicator of one's overall liberalism. To put it succiently, you aren't going to get many people with enlightened views on equality who stand against a woman's right to choose. Some, but not many.

But the saddest thing is that we young women feel like we have to apologize for our stance. Of course, it's all but uncommon for minority groups to be pressed to apologize for pushing for their civil rights--look at the way that blacks are in a constant push-pull with Democrats who want their vote and also the racist vote. But to their credit, even when civil rights leaders compromise with the Democrats, they never feel obliged to deny their primary objectives. But young women are constantly called on to claim that our issues are minor and we comply.

There's no reason to think that reproductive rights are secondary--a society's well being can be gauged on how much control the women have over their child-bearing. It's undemocratic to think that women cannot be expected to choose the proper number of children to bear and when best to bear them. When women have full control over that, many other things fall into place. My girlfriends and I are all living examples of this fact, as is practically every woman I know.

Being products of the feminist era, we all believe in choosing the time your children are born, and even in choosing whether you have them at all. None of us at the table had children, but many of our friends do and they are happy and doing fine, which they would not be doing if they had them younger. None of us have children, and all of us are productive members of society with good jobs and stellar voting records. All of us--all the women at the table and all that we know in our lives--expect that their relationships with men will be mutual, supportive and loving. And because of this, those of us in relationships are happier than we might have been in the past and those without are not wallowing in shame but reveling in freedom.

All of this is what they want to take away from us, if they take away our basic reproductive rights, and we know it. It's condescending to mock young women who are anxious to make sure their birth control pill is there next month and easy abortion is there if it doesn't work. To our minds, that's our whole futures.

There was a lot of anger expressed at the Shrub. Anger that's been expressed at family members who don't get it. Anger at him for not caring a shit about us. Anger that maybe the people at the next table think that we are selfish bitches for wanting jobs and independence and not wanting to turn our wombs over as baby factories. And this is anger that generally we downplay, because it's "one-issue" or unseemly or whatever. But it's there.

Women are boiling.