Able-Bodied
Part I: Honoring the Bodies of Women
“Eve” by Nicolea Gutu Fine Art America
There’s been much talk about women’s bodies since the second there was one. Genesis says the first woman was made from just a piece of the first man. Because patriarchy and Judeo-Christianity have a historically codependent relationship, Eve’s story has long been used to justify the subordination of women. Social institutions and cultural traditions have sustained an underlying theme that women are less capable, less important, and less powerful. Just less.
When I was a teenager, I once went to a Christian Nationalist church while visiting a family member in the south. Back then, the only thing I knew about Christian Nationalism was that it had the word “Christian” in it. I learned pretty quickly that I was not that kind of “Christian.”
The pastor preached about man’s Biblical mandate to exhort his authority over his wife and children, even if that meant using physical force. He said it was God’s idea and somehow benefited everyone in the long run. I was on fire. I scanned the pews hoping to find some faces that looked as horrified as I felt. Surely, I’d find just a few people shaking their heads in disgust, disagreement, or disbelief? At the very least, a head turned down in discomfort? Nope. Nothin.
At the end of the service, I wanted to puke. I watched men, women, and children from different families smile at one another and shake hands. They made small-talk like all was well with the world. I felt like their whole world was a well—dark and dangerous, with no escape route.
This noxious world-view is out there, preached as gospel and accepted as truth. It’s also out there in other sly and convoluted ways. For example, the current Ohio bill that would require extra I.D. for women with their husband’s last name. This is not only voter suppression—it’s, specifically, the suppression of women.
Likewise, eliminating certain medical research funding on the basis of “DEI” is suppression of women. Endometriosis, menopause, pregnancy-related diseases and deaths ONLY affect women.* Uterine fibroids, which can cause cancer and infertility ONLY affect women.* Even prior to the current federal cuts, diseases affecting men received double the funding as those affecting women. Under this regime, the gap will widen.
For a party that claims to “want more babies in America,” they sure don’t prioritize the bodies that carry and birth said babies. The right has been working closely with pro-natalists. They’re “worried” about the declining birth rate. They think, perhaps, a $5000 baby bonus would encourage women to have more babies. *
They also believe the decline is a result of women not knowing when to get pregnant. Surely, all we need is a few classes about how our menstrual cycles work (as opposed to free, accessible women’s health specialists or family planning clinics).
There has even been a proposal to award women who give birth to 6+ babies a “Medal of Honor for Motherhood.” Believe it or not, this isn’t a Trump original. Hitler, Stalin, and other authoritarians also distributed motherhood medals. How many things do Trump and his cabinet have in common with these guys? Let us count the ways (if we can keep track).
Nazi Germany Medal of Motherhood
Damn. I don’t even know what to unpack from this bag first. It’s heavier (and full of more crap) than the diaper bag I’ve used as a purse for the past decade. But, for you, I shall try…
These “solutions” address a non-problem. The incentive for being a mother is being a mother. Money may be the irresistible, proverbial apple for every benefactor of patriarchy out there, but it’s not the sustenance for every problem, and certainly not this one.
In a serious way, their 5k baby payment prostitutes women (not surprising given the men we are talking about). Our bodies aren’t real estate for manufacturing future consumers. Our wombs are not for sale.
This transactional baby bonus doesn’t just misunderstand the real problems—it ignores and distracts from them completely. Imagine for a second how this conversation probably went down:
Trump: “What do we think the reasons are? Why aren’t women having babies? I just don’t understand. Babies are so cute.”
Minion: “Well, they probably don’t know how their periods work.”
Trump: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they could use some classes about their minstrel, monstar, muenster…umm their period cycles.”
Minion: “Brilliant sir. I also think most of them are short about $5000.”
Trump: “Is that all? I have an idea. Let’s give them each $5000 to have a baby. We’ll have so many babies. The likes of which have never been seen before.”
Minion: “Brilliant sir.”
Trump: “And let’s throw in a medal for the women who birth 3, no 4…better make it half-a-dozen babies. Given by yours truly. They’ll feel so honored.”
Minion: “Brilliant sir.”
Oh, to be a fly on that wall and know you have the biggest brain in the room. For comic relief, let’s pretend it’s the fly that had a seat on Mike Pence’s head during his vice presidential debate. We all liked that fly. He can be our Jimminy Cricket, fruitlessly trying to be a guiding conscience for those who lack one. We’ll name him “Jimminy Fly.” So, if Jimminy were to interject and expose the truth of the matter, here’s what he’d say:
“Ahem…Trump and MAGA: You want women to have more babies, but then you go and follow Project 2025 like it’s your inerrant, ‘God Bless America Bible.’ Your policies will make it impossible for low and middle-income, would-be parents to afford a child. Or, they’ll bury current parents and their children in poverty with no ladder to climb out. Women, especially, are collateral damage.
Women are paid less than their male counterparts. $0.83 to $1.00. Many do not make a living wage or must sacrifice hours or cash to pay for childcare. Instead of addressing these facts…
You have jeopardized essential childcare programs. You had planned to zero-out Head Start until they sued you. They are still at risk for deep funding cuts. Your funding freezes have wreaked havoc on their ability to serve children in need to the point where staff have been laid off and preschools have been shut down.
You have plans to eliminate grants for low-income parents in college to attain childcare and pre-school development grants. You consistently attack public school funding and free lunch programs for students. (Watch Katie Porter defend universal childcare)
You have prioritized tax cuts for billionaires and a tax increase for the impoverished.
You have neglected the facts. 1 in 4 single moms live in poverty. Children are 31% of those living in poverty. More women live in poverty than men. (Watch Katie Porter defend Single Working Moms)
You have required committees responsible for Medicaid and SNAP to make cuts that are impossible to make without defunding said programs. WIC eligibility will also be problematic due to these cuts. 6.7 million women, infants, and children depend on WIC for nutritional support.”
Photo Courtesy of Shorpy Photo Archive
At this point, Jimminy Fly would fill his tiny lungs with a deep breath, exhale, wipe his brow, and then continue:
“You’ve failed to address women's health concerns. Women must be healthy to have healthy babies and survive childbirth. The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation. Instead of facilitating means for all women to take care of their bodies…
You have violated reproductive rights and the human right to health care. Women are afraid to become pregnant. If a complication arises, they may be denied life-saving care. Many already have 1+ children who need them. 12 states have total abortion bans and are able to legally deny life-saving abortion care. Maternal deaths have increased in these states (In Texas, maternal deaths increased 56% in the first year).
You have defunded and restricted access to reproductive health care clinics such as Planned Parenthood. These clinics provide many services, such as vaccines, STD testing, cervical cancer screenings, birth control, family planning, and infertility services.
You have cut federal divisions responsible for preventing sexual assault, rape, and domestic abuse.
So, do you now understand some of the real problems behind the falling birth rate?” Jimminy Fly would ask.
Trump would stir from a power nap (he endorses them because the word “power” is in there). Then he’d say, “OK so $5000, period schools, and a shiny medal. That’ll do it. Pass me my giant sharpie.” He would reach for the fly swatter, but worry not! Jimminy would fly safely away. I have a feeling we might hear from him again.
Even with all of these issues affecting women, there are still at least two other groups they have isolated or stigmatized with their plans. I refuse to do that. Millions of women would like to be mothers, but suffer infertility issues. ”Rewarding” women who are able to biologically experience the true rewards of motherhood only twists the knife for those facing infertility. It further isolates them from other women. Furthermore, Trump says he wants to expand IVF access, yet he has allowed HHS to fire the CDC team responsible for IVF research.
Last, and treated as if they’re “the least,” are women who do not want to be mothers. They do not feel called to motherhood for their own valid reasons. We are supposed to be living in a time and place where we have freedom to follow our callings without being stigmatized for our choices. Instead, the right has found yet another way to degrade women’s autonomy.
At the end of the day, Trump and his cabinet do not care if women want to become mothers or not. If they did, they would entertain maybe just one of the issues mentioned above. They would at least acknowledge their existence. They might even explore real solutions to these real social problems. Instead, they do everything in their power to exacerbate the biggest challenges women face today in terms of motherhood.
They might begin by talking to some real, live women. Instead, they exclude women from a conversation about women. It’s like regressing to an era where doctors discussed a woman's medical care with her husband and not her directly. They expect us to be as silent as the congregation in that church. They expect us to accept how “good” the abuse is for everyone in the long-term. Except, they don’t even see it as abuse because they feel entitled to their power.
Photo Courtesy Of The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things
This begs the question: If they aren’t concerned with motherhood for the benefit of women, why do they want us to have more babies? First, they see humans as objects. Babies are just another cog in the machine they own. Their attempt to incentivize birthing is another form of control. It’s them having skin in the game, only it’s our skins that are the pawns.
Also, with the exception of a few “token women” strategically placed to make powerful men seem less sexist (Bondi, Gabbard, MTG, Leavitt), they don’t want women in the workforce. They certainly don’t want women like Katie Porter or Melanie Stansbury in leadership roles, speaking about the real issues women face today.
I should also add, this isn’t a conspiracy theory. No one thinks the world’s most powerful men are having a meeting of the minds to plan and precisely execute these things (although Project 2025 is as close as it gets). It’s more serious than that.
This is something that has been normalized over time, since the beginning of time. It’s embedded in the very framework of society, and liberal policies have worked hard to remedy the damage it causes. The far-right embraces this ideology as a power play to enact policy. MAGA worships leaders that say the quiet part out loud. They feel vindicated. Much of their damaging rhetoric has been internalized by women, too. Patriarchy doesn’t want to share power by empowering women. It equates shared power with power lost.
Remember, Western Christianity likes the part of the creation story where Eve was made from Adam’s rib. He had to “give it up” for her to exist. He was whole and Eve came from a tidbit, so she must be less. Adam was a man made in God’s image, so that must mean God is a man and men are superior. This is the predominating interpretation held dearly by patriarchy across time and continents.
Can we pretend for a minute that the narrative had been presented differently, or at least edited throughout history? I don’t mean the story itself (and whether one takes it literally or not is irrelevant here). Can we tweak the word choice and see what that does to the perception of the story and all it implies? Stick with me…
What if the focus had been on man and woman sharing one body, one flesh? What if it had been framed to say woman was necessary. Man was incomplete without her existence? What if God’s image was incomplete without woman? What if centuries of people had described the first woman as an equal counterpart of the whole? Would femininity be valued for the true force of power it is? Could we just be women without also being seen as weak?
Patriarchy likes to say “man needed a helpy-helper, and so God made a woman.” It equates her companionship with servitude instead of equality. If I wanted to be snarky (and sometimes I do), I could say, ”Adam was the needy one, was he not?” He had God, the whole garden, the whole world and all the creatures in it, but he needed more (not less).
I don’t really find him to be “needy,” though. If I did, I’d be imposing the same air of superiority over men that women face from sexists. Can you imagine standing up and saying something like that in a Christian Nationalist church? I want to be better. So instead, I will stand by the interpretation that each party, man and woman, could only be made whole, together.
Forbidden Fruit by Alexander Gallagher
Pod Save America recently interviewed Congresswoman Sarah McBride, the first and only transgender woman to be elected to Congress. One topic they discussed was the Democratic strategy going forth to enact social change. She used an analogy to explain the double standard experienced by the Democratic Party in this MAGA era. I believe a reading of the entire quote is necessary to capture its full insight. Sarah says:
“The reality is there are two different standards for the parties […] and [they] make a lot more sense when you recognize that they’re just the replication of sexism and misogyny. The Democratic Party is the woman of politics and the Republican Party is the man of politics. It’s why Donald Trump can scream and yell and people see him as strong and why when we can scream and yell, we’re seen as hysterical and shrill. It’s why Donald Trump can hate and insult more than half of this country, because we tolerate deadbeat dads, but Democrats can’t say anything about any voters that impugns their motives and their good faith, because a mom has to love every single one of her children […]
And so, I’ve been thinking about how do you grapple with that reality… that real double standard? We can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. Marginalization doesn’t exist in only politics. We recognize that it exists in our individual lives systemically […] We have to grapple with the world as it is to change it […] How does a woman successfully push back? [How does she] navigate a workplace, a world where so often her passion is held against her?
And the only socially acceptable path for a woman to fight back unfortunately, is when she’s defending her flock, when she is defending her family. And I think we as a party would do well in replicating the strategies that women have to employ to navigate this world.”
Resilient and Brilliant. I love how she steps into a power they would otherwise use to dismiss us. I have one thing to add to Sarah’s thoughts. It seems, some women can yell and be considered “strong” by their base. Marjorie Taylor Greene is an example of this. For women like her, it only matters that they yell at the “right people” or about the “right things.” Women like this are a threat to women akin to the threat posed by misogynistic men. They pit women against women and undermine feminist causes.
So, the end goal is not to elect women politicians simply because they are women. Just having more women leaders, regardless of what they say and do, won’t solve the challenges of being a woman. Sadly, some do gain power through blind loyalty or through the same abusive tactics their sexist male colleagues have mastered.
I can’t spend too much time trying to understand someone like Marjorie. It literally makes me nauseous. At the core, I think there is a dangerous, covert, internalized misogyny held by MAGA women. Aside from ignorance, this is the only explanation I can muster. I can try to have sympathy, or at best pity, for a woman like this. On a good day, I can even succeed.
I know she still needs the rest of us even if she doesn’t know it. I know that if I want equity for the rest of us, I have to want it for her, too. That’s what makes me different from her. That’s what makes us different from them. It’s an altruism not too different from the unconditional love of a mother defending her entire flock. A worthy politician, regardless of gender identity, honors and harbors the responsibility to care for all.
We do not, however, need women like Marjorie in leadership. We need more women leaders who seek to empower all women and not just themselves at the expense of other women. We need leaders who use their identity as a woman as just one of many specialized tools (because they serve everyone, not just women).
We need Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Katie Porter (love her), Janet Mills, Marcy Kaptur, Sarah McBride, Melanie Stansbury, and others like them. We need Dr. Amy Acton in Ohio for governor. We need male politicians and voters to help empower these women, as well.
There are many valid reasons for the declining birth rate, and they all have the same foundational problem—a woman’s personhood is not valued within a patriarchal system. We need politicians who first acknowledge this truth, and then go on to understand and appreciate the numerous ways it affects women and society as a whole. These are the prerequisites for enacting policies that will help women, children, and families.
And you know what? When we bolster these leaders, when we become these leaders, when we succeed in implementing the policies of these leaders—the birth rate just might increase. We won’t know unless we try.
We must talk about the true challenges women face today and the many more that are upcoming. Speak truth to the war against our bodies, our equity, our freedoms, our feminine strength, our authentic selves, and our callings. We must lift up those who defend the well-being of all in the same way a mother protects the entire flock. The flock will follow its mother once it learns and trusts in her unconditional care.
Sources are linked throughout the post. Plus, a few others:
Women’s Health Research Cuts:
https://19thnews.org/2025/03/women-lgbtq-health-research-trump-funding/
Incentivizing Motherhood:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/us/politics/trump-birthrate-proposals.html
University of Toledo Cuts:
This belongs in a big publication so many people can read these well written thoughts. Katie, you’re truly a gift to us. I appreciate the time it takes you to complete a beautifully written piece. May it awaken us all to a higher purpose. It speaks to me in so many ways.