Real Quick

I can hardly handle my facebook newsfeed lately.  As if the Planned Parenthood brouhaha last month wasn't enough.  As if the panels of male experts debating women's access to contraception wasn't enough.  As if laws required vaginal ultrasounds weren't enough.  As if Rush Limbaugh (in general, but specifically referring to Sandra Fluke) wasn't enough.  Today I saw that Arizona has advanced a bill that allows employers to fire women for using birth control, based on the employer's religious beliefs.  You know it's gotten bad when Fox News runs an article taking seriously the idea of a political war on women.


I've been thinking a lot about this sentence from Ong's article "Sisterly Solidarity:"

“Brackette Williams has argued that subordinated male agency seeks redemption through the ‘retraditionalization of wayward women’ by calling for the revival of domestic feminine virtues and for women’s protection from outside dangers.”  

Do you think we can interpret this recent politicization of women's health issues as a call for "retraditionalization of wayward women?"  What about the other calls for retraditionalization in the American context?  Who leads these calls, and who benefits from their implementation?  In what ways are women themselves gatekeepers and agents of retraditionalization?  Sometimes I think that women are the primary agents of retraditionalization (although I've had plenty of evidence lately to challenge that idea!)  But if so, what are the gendered dynamics around this process?