As a freshman in high school, I was staunchly pro-life. That might actually shock anyone who knows me in college, where I’m extremely vocal about my support of the sex positivity and feminist movements. But back then, I was a big advocate for “personal responsibility” and “self-control” (read: I didn’t believe in or support casual sex). I didn’t even identify as a feminist because, as I wrote to one of my friends on Facebook, “I just don’t care enough.”
I’ve pretty much done a 180-degree flip-flop in that area. As a person very much defined by my morals and boundaries, I’m actually amazed at how quickly this change happened. What did it was actually hearing this now-infamous quote from a 2012 episode of Saturday Night Live (four years ago this week):
“If men could get pregnant, abortion clinics would be like Starbucks: there’d be two on every block and four in every airport. And the morning after pill would come in different flavors like sea salt and cool ranch.”
Something about that double standard really struck a chord with me. Here I was lecturing about how cisgender women/people with vaginas should take more responsibility for their sex lives when promiscuity for cisgender men/people with penises is just expected, even encouraged. How many times had I heard girls who got pregnant dismissed as having “made a mistake,” as though they were the only ones involved? It suddenly hit me that throughout much of history, virginity was commodified and worshiped in women, while it was normal for men to go out and have a million trysts, even after they were married. I guess "boys will be boys," right?
The stigma around abortion is a stigma around female sexuality. In fact, not supporting free sex for any gender was the reason I didn’t support abortion back in the day. But for the white male politicians who keep trying to repeal Roe v. Wade, that’s not the case. Dress codes that prevent girls from wearing "distracting" clothing, birth control not covered by insurance, pads, and tampons taxed as "luxury items"...all of these things specifically target female-bodied Americans. Pedrad's joke ignited something in me: it was my first of many encounters with a feeling I lovingly refer to as “righteous feminist rage.” All of a sudden, I cared more than enough to call myself a feminist.
Ironically, when Nasim Pedrad imitated Ariana Huffington on Weekend Update, it was in context of the 2012 Vice Presidential debate. Sexual double standards between men and women have never been quite so relevant as they are right now, in a presidential race between a woman and a man who has been repeatedly accused of sexual assualt. At the most recent debate, Hilary Clinton was attacked because of her husband’s affair by a pro-life man who freely recounted the time he made sexual advances on a married woman without her consent. Trump literally wants to police women's bodies while retaining his own free access (at least, to the ones he deems fuckable). In short, the level of Trump's hypocrisy is sky-high.
Personally, I still wouldn’t have an abortion, or casual sex. That hasn't changed. What has changed is that I'm done judging those who make different decisions than I for reasons I’m unable or unwilling to understand. In the end, I suppose the real difference between high school pro-life Abby and college pro-choice Abby is that the latter is willing to admit she doesn’t know everything about everyone else’s life, experience and circumstances. Well, that, and the feminist rage.
