>Many people believe that being opposed to the HPV vaccine means that you are some kind of a religious fanatic: “Conservative elements and religious institutions have often opposed it for the same reasons they oppose birth control education in schools—that these measures will somehow encourage young people to have sex.” I, however, oppose it on feminist grounds.
We keep hearing that the female body is diseased, inherently wrong, and in need of constant policing and control. This control is often carried out through the attempts to “repair” the female body medically. Women are constantly told that somehow they simply cannot exist unless their bodies are continuously modified through some form of medication. Hormone replacement therapy, HPV vaccine, PMS medication, Mydol. The idea behind all this is that female body is one huge mistake of nature, which can finally be stabilized through the benevolent ministrations of pharmaceutical companies. The HPV vaccine is supposed to “only work” when administered to teenagers. Obviously, the goal is to start convincing women as early as possible that the very fact of being female equals being damaged and in need of a cure.
For me, all these efforts to present women as perennial invalids who need to be cured of their painful and problematic sex are the modern equivalent of foot-binding.
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