Kiss My Beard, Governor

Recent comments by Maine’s governor have been distorted by the media, and the reporting has largely ignored his most important remarks. Yes, Governor LePage said, “so the worst case is some women may have little beards,” in response to a question about the dangers of BPA, the additive to plastics believed by most scientists to interfere with human hormones and cause numerous health problems.

But that’s not the end of the story. Governor Lepage went on to say, “and we don’t want to do that.”

What does the governor have against a little female facial hair? Doesn’t he know there are hundreds of thousands of American women born and raised in the U.S. (with the papers to prove it) who proudly, albeit inadvertently, sport mini-beards already?

Maine’s governor appears to have many symptoms of the right-wing flu spreading throughout the United States. Women are particularly vulnerable to this highly infectious strain of the disease. We are being denied healthcare, representation, family planning, welfare benefits, constitutional protections, and educational opportunities for ourselves and our children. In return we are offered BPA-laden sippy cups, low wages, discrimination and war.

But even this epidemic of testosterone-induced legislation is not enough yet to bring women together and rise up, form a political party, and fix what’s so obviously broken with politics in the United States. It’s going to take something more – some unconscionable and enormous assault on our dignity. Something like facial hair.