satellite refueling and menstruation

Dear space settlers,

I've been writing that blessed story I asked for help on earlier, and
lurking, and wish to revisit several topics we discussed earlier that
have become elements of the story. The question is women. Yes, a bit
broad, that, let's narrow it,.

It was pointed out that there may be a change regarding population
once a space colony is up and running. We could go from feeling
overpopulated to feeling underpopulated. The question was asked, how
will be induce women to have children again?

But no, it's more than that. How will we induce women to menstruate
again? We are within weeks of menstruation being optional with a new
hormone regimine available in pill form ready for government approval.
It will be approved, have no doubt. Women will now take that last step
into being full blown little men, with unending work hours, no break
at all for (also optional) pregnancy, no "light work" days for those
crazy enough to choose to continue to bleed. We can expect that
employers will make suppression of menstruation officially or
unofficially mandatory, in fact, just as it is officially or
unofficially mandatory that children must never, ever interrupt the
flow of the workday and profits. Women will be expected, now, to "pull
their own weight" in the job market on the basis of justice, of
fairness, and, we will never mention it openly, of profits. If that
takes doing a certain amount of subtle violence to the female human
body, it is worth it, the marketeers will tell us, to end the
dominition of PMS forever ("you know why they call it PMS? they will
joke. Because Mad Cow Disease was taken.").

How will we induce women, in fact, to be women again, now that society
is in full open war against womanhood itself?

Because we fear overpopulation so much, we have simply made it almost
impossible for women to be women. You will not cure that by
withholding hormones (the plan we were discussing, as I recall--need
more workers on the colony? Just "forget" to make birth control
chemicals or mechanicals) if you continue to advocate and plan for a
society that does not recognize and appreciate the differences between
men and women and recognize a more forgiving definition of gender
equity that allows women to be women without giving up a place of
respect in society or a means to support oneself. Make a place for
people who are a little wiggy once a month. Make a place for the
natural in the new world. Make a place and a time for women to rest.

Otherwise, if you call for population growth by whatever means
necessary without adjusting other features in society, you are calling
for the worst kind of slavery for women, and you can expect the same
kind of strange fruit that always eventually grows from oppression,
that is, failure. Unfortunately it could mean failure for the colony
and for the human race.

Men such as yourselves who obviously care about the future of the
human race must begin NOW to fight for womanhood as a right (instead
of the false "right" of abortion, the false "right" of some kind of
total "ownership" of the female body). That has lots of implications,
socially, legally, culturally, economically (for example, men's wages
have fallen for decades in relation to women's wages--that's how the
great leaps forward in women's wages have been possible, and they are
in fact a mirage--and this should stop. Men should earn enough to
support a family NOW, not on a future colony, and should be held
accountable to do so, for that matter. Make it economically possible
for women to have children NOW and we will not face the problem in the
future, and in fact, we will support the drive for colonization now,
as well. The two concepts are linked. They are linked to a great many
other concepts as well that are fertile ground for fiction and the pun
is so intended.

Jan Baker