Motherhood and Sexual Beings

What I got from a few of the readings is that being a mother or being able to conceive is power for a woman. But I don't think that being a mother is everything and a woman shouldn't base her worth over it. Some women really want to have kids while others don't...either option is fine but there is power in both choices. It is an awful position to be in when you want to have a child but aren't able. But the fact that we can do artificial insemination and other such procedures should be empowering that you can overcome that obstacle. I think that women who find power in being a mother is great it isn't something that we should look down on as a weakness or something. But it just isn't the only thing. 

Women should be looked at as owning their bodies. I know Petchesky,  brings up that it make women seem like property if its looked upon that way. But the thing is, is that we do own our bodies. Just like a man own's his body. I think it is strange how there is a double lens of how we view words as applied to women and the same words applied to a man. I accept that there is a disparity in those regards and I think that that is one of the biggest problems facing women in their battles. 

On a different note I thought that this was pretty interesting from Spiraling Discourses... : 

      "Still, the campaigns around "women's human rights" have generally flourished- that is, gained the widest acceptance- when they parade the worst horrors (sexual violence, genital mutilation, forced pregnancy or forced abortions, sexual trafficking, etc.) and therefore capitalize on the image of women as victims....Does this victimizing tendency sometimes evade, or even mirror, more than it directly confronts fundamentalist images of women?" 

I think that is something I would like to talk about in class and hear what everyone's opinion is.