October Blog

“Now avoiding consent in any form

Leaving me as nothing more than a word wielding womb

That forgot the pre-suffrage adage

That women are to be seen and not heard”

(Arellano).

            Out of all of our reading from the month on October, the poem Word Wielding Womb by Amy Arellano really stood out to me. I am not usually someone who enjoys poetry, but something about this poem seemed to strike a chord with me. Maybe it’s because I am a young woman growing up in a society where women are still fighting to be seen as total equals to men. Maybe it’s because I have seen countless news stories of our new president and his administration threatening to limit women’s reproductive rights. Whatever the case may be, this poem really resonated with me and the quote I chose for this blog left me with many different thoughts about women’s rights.

            This reading helped me look at some of our course material in a different way because it was so different that any of our previous readings. Most of our readings are articles or chapters from academic books that can be hard to digest, but this poem felt so much different. This poem had such strong emotion and was written in such a beautiful way. I think this reading helped me look at things differently because it felt closer to home. I can’t always relate to the things we talk about or read for class, but this was a circumstance I had an easier time relating to.

            Even though this poem was published in 2015 its message is still as important as ever. Just a quick Google search of “women’s reproductive rights” lead me to an article from ACLU titled “Latest Abortion Ban Bill Is Yet Another Attack on Women’s Rights”. This article talked about a bill that had a hearing in congress just yesterday that would ban abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy. I hadn’t heard anything about this bill until looking into it now and I have to say it is troubling. Abortion is an understandably difficult topic to discuss, but what worries me the most is that more often than not women aren’t the ones making decisions when it comes to what can be done with their bodies. Arellano’s poem is strong and encouraging for women and we have to keep her words in mind until women are truly equal.

Article referenced: https://www.aclu.org/blog/reproductive-freedom/abortion/latest-abortion-ban-bill-yet-another-attack-womens-rights