Sex strike an ineffectual gimmick
It’s an undeniable fact of life that no matter how noble their cause, celebrity activists are annoying.
Take as a prime example, American actress Alyssa Milano, a woman who has done a great deal of good in the spotlight (popularizing the Me Too movement in recent years), but whose current social justice project is, to put it lightly, idiotic.
Milano announced a few days ago that she is going on a “sex strike” in an effort to protest Georgia’s so-called “heartbeat bill,” a cruel piece of legislation that prohibits women, or any persons capable of becoming pregnant, from undergoing an abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected inside them.
This occurs around roughly six weeks into pregnancy, often before many people know they are carrying, and before many of them experience symptoms like morning sickness.
If you believe human beings should be masters of their own bodies, this law should outrage you. It should serve as a reminder that rights won are not set in stone, no matter where you live. It should jolt you into action.
Alyssa Milano, however, believes it should jolt you into inaction.
Late last week, she tweeted the following: “Our reproductive rights are being erased. Until women have legal control over our own bodies we just cannot risk pregnancy. JOIN ME by not having sex until we get bodily autonomy back. I’m calling for a #SexStrike. Pass it on.”
Needless to say, this call to celibacy did not resonate among those in the pro-choice camp for whom pregnancy is not typically a risk factor in sex (a.k.a. lesbians).
But it hasn’t gone over well with heterosexual women either, many of whom are rightly insulted by the notion that a) women’s political agency resides between their legs, and b) women should forfeit their own pleasure in some broader scheme to stick it to the man.
(Meanwhile, conservatives think it’s hilarious that in trying to advocate for abortion rights, Milano is doing her part to prevent abortions by championing abstinence.)
But what if men aren’t the singular problem here? Yes, it’s true that Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, is a man. So are several other political leaders on this continent who appear to want to horn in on women’s reproductive choices (for example, Ontario Progressive Conservative MPP Sam Oosterhoff). But when we focus on men as the sole barrier to abortion rights, we fail to see the bigger picture.
As research psychologist Peggy Drexler argues in a recent column for CNN, Milano’s sex strike proposal “implies that she thinks men — all men — are the problem when, in fact, many measures to restrict abortion and birth control are backed by women.”
This is an understatement. One could reasonably argue that the heart of the anti-abortion movement is as much female as it is male.
For example, the Susan B. Anthony List, a woman-run non-profit that seeks to eradicate abortion in the United States by supporting predominantly female, anti-abortion politicians, claims to boast a membership of 700,000.
Not only are women at the core of the anti-choice movement, many of them are young and some even identify as feminists. If you find this hard to believe, check out Flare Magazine’s recent profile of the many “Gen Z” activists who belong to Canada’s anti-abortion movement, and who attend anti-abortion events across the country.
In the United States, antiabortion Americans are not overwhelmingly male, not even close. According to a Gallup poll from last year, 49 per cent of American men surveyed identified as compared to 47 per cent of women. That is not a difference significant enough to cast reproductive rights in a male vs. female light. The issue is simply too complex and the players involved too diverse. Brian Kemp is the man who signed the “heartbeat” bill into law, but he isn’t the cultural force that made such a bill acceptable to so many.
The sad irony about Milano’s sex strike campaign is that it’s precisely the kind of shallow stunt that turns socially liberal but politically ambivalent women off of feminist activism; it’s exactly the kind of thing that makes them roll their eyes and say “no thanks, not for me.”
Milano’s sex strike is wellintentioned, but it’s a gimmick. And gimmicks don’t change minds or policy. Outreach does. Any activist — celebrity or otherwise — who is serious about championing abortion rights should be rallying to get pro-choice and pro-choice leaning people involved in meaningful protest, and most importantly, into the voting booth to elect politicians who believe in bodily autonomy.
Industry leaders in film and elsewhere should continue to refuse to take their business to Georgia until Georgia refuses to deny its citizens the right to choose. The fight is in the public square. Not in the bedroom.