00:00Women work out. We have a total control over what our bodies look like, yet we
00:04still don't have control over what our bodies do. What the fuck is up with that?
00:09The majority of our elected officials are men and so are the majority of our
00:13religious leaders. Year after year they make accessing birth control an uphill
00:17battle. Why? You're almost punishing us for having ovaries. Sure birth control
00:22allows men and women to have safe sex before they're ready to be parents, but
00:28it does other things. A lot of women, and I was one of them, take these for medical
00:32reasons. I wasn't having sex for a long time, unfortunately. It alleviates menstrual
00:37pain for 31% of women. It regulates the periods of 28% of women and it helps 14%
00:44of women control their acne. It helps with symptoms of endometriosis and
00:48polycystic ovary syndrome. It even decreases abortion rates by 78%. It's
00:53basically a miracle drug to help women survive in modern-day society, which is
00:58why 58% of women use birth control for other things. So why make it harder for
01:03us to get than it already is? That has to do with women having freedom, having
01:07control, having power in society. This is Sally Cohn. She's a political commentator
01:12at CNN, but before that she was at Fox News. Sally, I gotta ask you, how did a
01:18medication that millions of women use become such a political landmine? Birth
01:23control has always been part and parcel with women's economic freedom. First of
01:27all, it frees them up to participate more equally and fully in the workplace. And it
01:31also kind of expands your horizons in terms of what other sorts of freedom and
01:35equality and opportunity you're going to want next. So both it liberates you
01:39physically to pursue your dreams and goals and power, and it has a conceptual
01:44liberatory role. And those two things are incredibly threatening to patriarchy in any
01:50form. I mean, right? Breaking news from the Trump administration directly
01:54impacting millions of American women that will let more employers opt out of a
01:59requirement to pay for contraceptive coverage. Some women on this campus are
02:03worried about losing a part of their health care coverage. It has nothing to do
02:07with pregnancy and everything to do with taking control and power away from women and
02:13further trying to circumscribe the rights of women at a time where women are
02:18finally starting to gain even just a modicum of equality that threatens that
02:22patriarchal status quo. So do you think if we had more elected officials who were
02:27women that that would help things along? Well, sure. It would also help if we had
02:31more elected officials who were feminist men. And whether you see the equality, equal
02:36participation, full participation of women as a good thing, or whether you see that as
02:41women as fundamentally threatening, upsetting, and disruptive to the social order where women belong
02:49pregnant and in their place and kept in their place and kept in their role, which make no mistake
02:54about it, as backwards as that sounds, is the agenda at the core of right-wing oppression of women's rights.
03:04Weren't we talking about contraception? Sorry. Birth control is a medication that millions of women
03:09need to get to work, have families, and yeah, have sex. We're fucking humans. I also would just like to
03:16mention birth control is not just a woman's issue. Stop making us jump through a bunch of hoops just to
03:26take care of ourselves. We should have total control over what our bodies look like and do.
03:40We'll see you next time.
