Except you can’t show a topless woman on TV - and you can’t defibrillate a woman in a bra. So victims of heart attacks on TV are *always* male. Did you know that a woman having a heart attack is more likely to have back or jaw pain than chest or left arm pain? I didn’t - because I’ve never seen a woman having a heart attack. I’ve been trained in CPR and Advanced First Aid by the Red Cross over 15 times in my life, the videos and booklets always have a guy and say the same thing about clutching his chest and/or bicep.

And people laugh when I tell them women are still invisible in this world.

Men, in return, thrived. The ego candy they feasted on by virtue of automatically outranking half the world’s population was only the start of it. They got full economic and social control over our bodies, our labor, our affections, and our futures. They got to make the rules, name the gods we would worship, and dictate the terms we would live under. In most cultures, they had the right to sex on demand within the marriage, and also to break their marriage vows with impunity — a luxury that would get women banished or killed. As long as pregnancy remained the defining fact of our lives, they got to run the whole show. The world was their party, and they had a fabulous time.

They may claim to be crusaders on behalf of unborn children, but there is more hate here than love. I don’t know how many times I have heard anti-abortion activists say that women who die from illegal abortions “get what’s coming to them.” When I did clinic escort duty in Chicago, the anti’s kicked us and spat on us. They linked arms around us, chanting “Christ-killers, baby-killers” as we helped women through their gauntlet.

Their ringleader, who said he was a Catholic seminarian, told us that they did these things “to make sure these girls have help living their lives right.” He then ran over a clinic guard with his car.

As a female legislator, I often speak to groups of women — from Girl Scouts and graduates to fellow female attorneys and aspiring politicians. I share my personal experiences and discuss the myriad of challenges females face in elected office. But I rarely convey how much chauvinism and sexism still go on in politics today because, quite frankly, I am embarrassed by it. I do not have the heart to tell a classroom full of girls that the same attitudes and animosity they encounter on the playground persist to our highest levels of government.

Female orgasm is a different story. Shhh, don’t talk about that – it makes people uncomfortable. Think about it—how many slang terms for female orgasm can you think of? Can you make a list? Are there mainstream movies that depict or discuss girls or women masturbating? Although I can think of a few exceptions (Pleasantville, The OH in Ohio), if female masturbation occurs in mainstream films, it is often told from a male pornographic fantasy perspective (e.g., American Pie). Such media depictions suggest that men have uncontrollable sexual drives, (which, apparently, women do not) that must be satisfied immediately by any means necessary. Unlike men’s, women’s sexual desires are peripheral to our conversations about sex and sexuality.

Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, a good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed, well-groomed, and unaggressive.

every person who supports no abortions for rape victims should be forced to donate a kidney. they don’t need it to live, it’s a lot less of a risk and a lot less time, energy, and health lost than pregnancy, and it saves a life. who cares if it’s their body and they should be able to do what they want with it? right?

similarly, anyone who says a woman/girl who was raped and can’t carry the child to term without dying herself should be forced to carry it anyways: let’s declare all of their vital organs public property. i mean, a nine year old pregnant rape victim would only be sacrificing themselves for one child, so there’s no net gain. but if we killed anyone who holds this horrible opinion and take their organs, so many lives will be saved! it’s only fair. by their own logic.