Property of....You.

I recently came across a Facebook “rant” that really pushed my buttons. I’m not one to engage in online fights or comment battles, but I just couldn’t let this one go. This particular rant was imploring young women to stop posting revealing pictures on social media because (and this is the part that angers me) “your body belongs to your husband or future husband”. Well pardon me, but I was pretty certain my body belonged to me. I don’t remember having “Property of Spouse” stamped on my ass. I don’t recall a property deed included with my birth certificate, and yet time and again society and government will tell me my body isn’t mine, because I’m a woman. They will tell me I’m not allowed to make decisions about it. They will make laws that take away my right to do with it what I please.

The idea that a woman’s worth is directly proportional to her husband is both antiquated and outrageous. To say that a woman’s body belongs to her husband or partner is to devalue every moment she lived before she was married and teaches young women that their one goal in life is to strive for marriage. We no longer live in a world where women are expected to sit and wait until a suitable husband is found.  We are not property. We are beautiful creatures full of life. We have gifts, ideas, and dreams that are all our own. Even when we choose to be intimate with someone, we aren’t giving that person our body, we’re sharing it with them. That act is yours to share, not someone else's to take because they feel entitled to it.

Just because you don’t feel the need to post certain types of pictures online doesn’t mean you have the right to tell another woman that she can’t. Who are you to tell her that her body doesn’t belong to her?  Her choices are her own, just as your choices are your own. We don’t always have to agree with each other, but as women shouldn’t we respect each other? Shouldn’t we support other women instead of shaming them? The world is already against us, why must we continue to be against each other?