Women of America knit vaginas

Ever thought about sending a politician a vagina?

The wholesome world of home craft making and the cut and thrust of US presidential debate are rarely intimate bed fellows. Or they weren’t until the women of America begun posting knitted vaginas to their congressmen.

Spearheaded by the ‘Government free VJJ’ campaign, vaginas, along with a range of other female reproductive organs, are being sent with the message “Dear Men in Congress: If we knit you a uterus, will you stay out of ours?”

“Let’s make a uterus or VJJ for each male rep in congress!” they say.

The campaign website offers simple how-to steps on crafting your very own woollen vagina.

Patterns to choose from include the ‘Womb’, the stylish ‘Snatchel’ or for the Congressman who prefers a touch as soft as velvet, the ‘Felt Cervix’.

The women behind the ‘Government free VJJ’ campaign explain their call to arms as follows:

• We do not need government interference with our doctors or our healthcare.
• We do not need government probing our vaginas to help us make decisions about abortion.
• We do not need government to give us guidance about whether or not to take birth control.
• We do not need misogynistic pundits calling us sluts and prostitutes.
• We are half of the population and we will not be treated as children or a disenfranchised minority -join us!

Women’s rights have become a defining theme of the US Presidential race of 2012.  In response to Republican policies that campaigners have branded prehistoric, women have found themselves fighting for the most basic rights to contraception, abortion and respect.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney refused to denounce the deranged rant of radio presenter Rush Limbaugh when he called Sandra Fluke a ‘slut’ for supporting the inclusion of contraception in employee health insurance packages. He simply remarked: “It’s not the language I would have used”.

And Romney has made no bones about his desire to ban all abortion apart from in cases of incest, rape of a threat to the woman’s life.

Meanwhile, Republicans in a number of states have passed a law that requires women to have an ultrasound before having an abortion.  They’d originally been pushing for the kind of ultrasound where women have a paddle inserted into their vagina, but were dissuaded by widespread public outcry.

In Arizona and Kansas, the Republican Party has pursued a bill that will allows doctors to lie to pregnant women about the health of their foetus, for fear she might have it terminated.

In response to this onslaught of extremism, women are devising increasingly creative and funny modes of attack.

‘Funny or Die’ have produced the video “Republicans: Get in my vagina”, a spoof political campaign film where Republican women voice their impassioned support for Romney and his policies:

“I don’t want Government in my banks.  I don’t want Government in my classrooms.  Where do I want Government? In my vagina.  Let the oval office take care of your oval office.  Open up your legs and let the Government in.”

But now some bright spark in Romney’s campaign team has sussed out that taking away access to contraceptives and threatening to stick paddles in their vaginas in the hope they’ll be dissuaded from having an abortion has failed to win the affections of female voters.

In a recent charm offensive, the Republican Party have belatedly shown support for free healthcare  for women and Ann Romney, Mitt’s wife, has been wheeled out at every opportunity in an attempt to show the fluffy, womb-friendly side of the Party.

But with the Republican ‘War Against Women’ so clearly staked in the legislative soil, it’s unlikely those women voicing their discontent are going to be appeased.