If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.
— Shirley Chisholm
I have long admired the quality of self-possession, people who consciously wield their personal agency without surrender. By all accounts, Natália Correia was very much a woman self-possessed. Born in Ponta Delgada in 1923, she lived in a world where women were encouraged to become either mothers or nuns and she chose to be neither. Correia was a poet, novelist, essayist, journalist, songwriter, scriptwriter, editor, translator, activist and politician. She had the audacity to speak as she chose, the power to love as she chose, and the freedom to live as she chose.
Correia began publishing in 1945, and some of her extensive work continues to be published posthumously. I can find limited translations of her work available in Spanish and French, but none translated into English. I know about her only because my Portuguese Literature (in Translation) professor in Portugal made deliberate efforts to have Portuguese women in our curriculum, often translating them herself. I would like to be able to speak more about her literary achievements but I can’t.
What I did learn in class was that Correia’s work was controversial, which is not separate from who she was, a 20th century, Portuguese, bisexual, feminist writer/activist. She wrote deliciously erotic poetry and took pleasure in lovers regardless of their gender or age. I mean, old enough to be consenting adults of course, just not necessarily close to her age. She’s had lovers that were notably older, and some notably younger, than herself is all. She defended herself in court with a poem, written in rhyming couplets when she was charged essentially with distributing pornography (it was a book of poems1).
There is a sensuality in Correia’s writing that might give the impression that women are capable of enjoying sex. This is apparently an unlikely and uncomfortable thought for some men. In 1982, then assemblymember, João Morgado foolishly said in her presence, “the sexual act is to have children.2” He was arguing that to frustrate that purpose with abortion is not only immoral but completely unnatural.
Correia eloquently put Morgado’s argument to shame. In a poem far more eloquent in Portuguese than when run through Google Translate, she points out that if the only purpose of sex is, as Morgado states, to procreate, and he has only one child, and as she would never insult his presumably high fertility, he must have only had use for the sexual act the one time. She basically indicated that having fulfilled his purpose he must be a eunuch now. This was a poem she recited out loud in parliamentary debate, bringing the assembly to such a state of laughter that they had to call a recess.
Women owning their sexual agency, especially if they’re outrageous enough to give voice to that fact, is still controversial. Decades into her career, Janis Ian had to fight to record Ride Me Like A Wave with its sexually provocative lyrics– “No one but Janis and Jim Brock, wanted the song recorded; everyone felt it was ‘too overt for a woman to sing.’” More recently, WAP by Cardi B stirred the same tired controversy. There are still a disturbing number of straight men who seem to twist their mediocre abilities in the bedroom to be evidence that women just aren’t naturally that into sex.
In class I take notes by writing them into an app on my iPad. Notification banners sometimes pop up along the top of the page, and I typically shoo them away like digital house flies with a wave of my pencil. On June 24, 2022, a breaking news notification popped up letting me know that Roe v. Wade had been overturned. I, who rarely cuss and never in class, dropped an immediate and singular F-Bomb. There, in the same classroom where we’d learned about Natália Correia and her fight for reproductive choice in Portugal, we learned that we would be guaranteed no such rights when we returned home. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back. How hard is it to immigrate to Portugal? Can I bring my adult kids?
I don’t want us to live in a country where my daughter is allowed less personal agency than my son. We all have the right to bodily autonomy. I am an adult, and my reproductive organs should make me no less worthy of the rights of citizenship.
My son has bad kidneys. If he ever needs a replacement, I would happily give him one of mine. That is a choice I can make. If I don’t want to give him one, I don’t have to. No one can make me. Even if he would die without my kidney, and I would probably be fine without it, even if some medical marvel of the future makes it possible for me to merely loan it to him temporarily, I should get to choose how and by whom my organs are used. Yet, in a growing number of states, my daughter and I are not trusted to make such a choice if it involves a uterus? How is this even debatable?
I first marched outside an anti-abortion politician’s office in the summer of 1989. My daughter’s first protest was in January of 2017. We have to fight for the same rights repeatedly, and it’s exhausting. The sexual agency of women (and some men) to love how and whom they choose continues to be under threat. I vehemently hold that what happens between informed and consenting adults is no business of the government. What happens in my organs is between me and my doctor. The Supreme Court of the United States has enabled millions of American women to be stripped of the ability to make private medical decisions in a timely and affordable manner.
In Portugal, mental health is healthcare, and reproductive health is healthcare. The U.S. needs accessible, affordable, and comprehensive healthcare if it’s going to continue to tout itself as a developed nation. There is ongoing messaging that women’s bodies exist for men’s pleasure and our children’s needs, but never for ourselves. Women are, in fact, complete human beings with our own individual desires and dreams. We are not, never have been, and do not want to become, just NPCs in someone else’s game.
My uterus is not more important than my personhood. I am pro bodily autonomy. I am pro keeping private medical decisions between affected parties and their medical teams. I am pro choice. I am not pro abortion. I don’t think that is actually a thing. Nobody is out there having abortions for funsies, and if they were do you really think it would be a good idea to inflict unwanted parenthood upon them?
Studying Correia’s fight for human rights (which includes decriminalizing abortion) in Portugal, and getting to witness the National Health Service in action there, gives me much-needed hope. Despite the odds against her, Natália Correia lived her life on her terms. She fought the good fight and made so much progress possible. I am weary, but as I continue the fight, I know that better is possible. We can do it!
Put on your face
Know your place
Shut up and smile
Don’t spread your legs
I could do that
But no one knows me no one ever will
If I don’t say something, if I just lie still— MILCK
Crystal, Clearly 
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