"The Invisible War"

Today, I was fortunate enough to catch the online viewing of a new documentary called "The Invisible War" hosted by the director, producers, and a few interviewees of the film. If you haven't heard of it, I wouldn't be surprised. Here's the trailer.

I first heard of this film a couple of months ago when I was browsing rottentomatoes.com for a film to stalk as my inner movie geek is bound to do, and I saw that there was actually a film with many reviews that was sitting at 100%, hardly heard of. And a documentary no less! I did some googling, watched the trailer, and knew I had to see it. But there was a problem: it wasn't showing anywhere within two hundred miles of my north Texas city. What in the--? Why was Sundance-winner with such a high critical rating struggling so much with distribution?

The answer, it would seem, matches the theme of the film: denial. Cover-up. For those of you who haven't heard of this brilliant film, "The Invisible War" chronicles the journeys of several survivors of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) in their brave searches for justice. US Government statistics estimate that 1 in 5 military women have been raped while serving this country. There is no police for them to report to when the perpetrator is their police, their commanding officer. Attempts to prosecute are met with hostility, humiliation, resistance, even death threats. The film touches on the scandals at Tailhook in the early nineties, and in DC in 2003, but months before the film's release, the nation was shocked again by a similar scandal at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.

The real shock in each of these scandals wasn't even the crimes being committed; it was the blatant cover-up. The protection of the assailants and the blaming and counter-persecution of the victims. What in the hell has been going on with our military?

As a moderate, I can see this being one of those issues that gets swept under the rug. One side has bigger things to focus on, and the other will never say anything bad about the military. And before anyone gets any ideas, I am not now, nor have I ever been, anti-military. I am grateful and regretful for the lives that have been taken in the service of this country. However, can we not see how a profession that grants its members a gun and no small amount of power over other human beings would hold a certain attraction for less-than-admirable people as well? There is something inherently broken about a system that refers to sexual assault as an "occupational hazard" of serving this country, as it was officially ruled in 2011, as if it is to be accepted, as if it is unpreventable, as if it isn't a despicable crime against humanity that should never be tolerated.

What many are failing to realize is that standing behind these women, prosecuting their assailants, and making rape a strictly untolerated crime IS supporting the troops. These women are the troops, too. They deserve justice. They deserve a system that protects them, not their rapist.

Is this an issue we can all get behind? Can we put aside some party lines and blind worship for the military aside for half a second to solve a real issue that, surely, we must all be against? An issue this important should not be struggling to be talked about. Be outraged. Demand justice. Speak out.

To vote to bring "The Invisible War" to your city, and for other resources and ways to get involved and spread the word, click here.

Birth Control.

Today, I purchased my second-ever round of birth control. Today I also had a rousing bout of what my beloved physician referred to as "dysmenhorrea," or what I like to refer to as the Cramps of Doom. For those of you fortunate enough to possess either regular and not-hateful menstruation or else not a uterus, the Cramps of Doom cause me to be unable to stand, sit, lie down, move, breathe, think, or do pretty much anything for four to five hours at a time. Imagine someone lighting your internal organs on fire. (I'm completely serious, there's really no way to exaggerate this kind of pain.) This might happen once at the beginning of my "time o' the month" as my body's way of letting me know it is indeed my girly time, or else at the very end, just in case I thought for a second that I was going to get out of it this month. Sometimes I get lucky and it'll happen twice in the same week. When I was twelve, people told me this would go away as I got older. People lied. Lied lied lied.

So finally I go to the doctor last month and she tells me she knows of only one thing that will cure it and sends me to see Deb the Wal Mart pharmacist with a prescription for birth control pills. I called her again after the Cramps of Doom released me from their clutches and returned to the Underworld, to ask what gives. She said it would take a few rounds to start seeing improvement, which just about figures.

Let it be known! I'm not ashamed of my lack of a social life and my complete disinterest in the rigamarole of dating. I am not now, nor do I plan on engaging in romantic escapades of any sort, least of which those that would result in a child.

Am I perfectly able to pay for my birth control? Well, yes. Is nine dollars a month prohibitively expensive for a college student like myself? Not really.

And yet. I was confused as to why my birth control being covered by insurance is even a controversial subject. People acted like it was a tragic loss of freedom and the American way when it was proposed to be covered with the rest of necessary healthcare. My six-dollar antibiotics for strep throat last January were covered by insurance. My mother's asthma meds, my step dad's pain medication, my little brother's x-rays, all have several things in common with my little birth control pill. Some of them are preventative and guard against health threats, or else treat/assist in the treatment of health threats. My pill does both. So am I perfectly able to pay for my pills? Yes. Does it make sense to me why I might ever not be able to, when I need them to be able to function like a normal human being and not miss a day of class and work like I did today? Not particularly. But I like being on friendly terms with my uterus more than I like my nine dollars.

But then I'm forced to consider what I'd do if I couldn't afford these pills. What if I didn't have financial aid to make ends meet? What if I had four kids already? What if my hypothetical spouse passed away and left me with some hefty bills? I'm just saying, worst-case scenario. (And make no mistake, someone somewhere is living your worst-case scenario right this very second.) Why could we then still give me antibiotics for my cough, but not birth control for my monthly agony?

What if I didn't need to prevent one of the many, many medical conditions such as endometriosis or ovarian cysts that can be treated with the pill, and was instead trying to prevent having another child that I couldn't afford? Wouldn't a poverty-stricken mother be the very last person we should be trying to keep from birth control? (Married women can be poverty-stricken too. Or just, y'know, practicing a little responsible family planning.)

If you answered that question with some variant of "Weeell, if she has that many children and no way to raise them, perhaps she should not be having sex at all." Here, we really get into it. So then, the real problem with expanding access to birth control via tax dollars is the belief that there should be no such thing as consequence-less sex. Perhaps you feel that only unmarried women are poor enough to be unable to afford birth control. Even if I were to pretend that were true, it still doesn't explain away why we as a society are okay with allowing a poor, uneducated, unmarried woman to birth a child as some kind of lesson to her about having premarital sex. Why wouldn't we be doing everything we could to prevent one more unwanted baby?

Is that something you could give nine dollars to? It's something I could give nine dollars to.