If you think you're having a hard time getting that pothole fixed outside your house, consider the plight of a bunch of women from the small town of Barbacoas, Colombia. They'd been begging to have a road into town paved for so long that they finally went on strike. Sex strike, that is.
Three-hundred-some women in the small town in the southwestern part of the country told the men in their lives that they would not be getting any nookie until the dirt path was covered in stone. That was June. This week, the machinery arrived. And the dry spell ended.
The feminist in me wants to be really depressed that a bunch of women had no better means of greasing the wheels of government than to resort to using their feminine wiles. I'm not happy about women being marginalized by their community. I'm not too crazy about people who use sex as a weapon.
Usually.
But this protest wasn't in one house with one spouse playing games. It was in 300-some houses, and it was suggested by two judges who the women had already appealed to. They tried regular channels, and then they tried not so regular channels. Guess which worked?
Protesters of the world, listen up! This is how you make change happen.
In fact, I dare say some of the people down at Occupy Wall Street could learn a little something from these ladies about sacrifice! Kanye West couldn't even take his bling off for the trip down to squat with the 99, and here these ladies are giving up the sweet release of sex? Their husbands/boyfriends/etc. haven't been able to indulge since June, but neither have they!
They stood up for themselves, and no one was hurt. There was a specific end game that benefited a community as a whole.
So what's next? How about getting a school built? A war stopped? At the very least, it's worth jotting down the names of your town's highway crew, then cozying up to their spouses. Next time you're not getting a call back about that plugged culvert, you'll be able to put a working plan into action.
What do you think? Sad state of affairs or some smart ladies?
Image via That Canadian Grrl/Flickr