‘Peter Cottontail’ to ‘A Handmaid’s Tale’ How an Easter Tradition Exploits Female Reproductive Rights

The days are lengthening, the snow is melting and you are eager to greet spring. Perhaps it is tradition that leads you to want to continue the practice of painting and hiding eggs. You may even consider yourself an “animal lover” and look to the traditions surrounding the Easter holiday as a chance to bond with your children while painting eggs.

Yet chances are, when you were indoctrinated into these traditions, no one ever prompted you to stop and consider the impact of this seemingly harmless activity.

You may consider yourself a compassionate, conscientious person, in fact. Maybe you marched for a cause or two. You may have even updated your Facebook profile frame in support of enlightened, progressive causes.

But hold on to your pussy hat, sister, because here is the inconvenient truth about your widespread Easter tradition.

The practice of stealing eggs from another woman in order to entertain and amuse your children and in celebration of the Easter holiday is an infringement on reproductive rights.

Yes it is.

By acquiring the egg of another female you are committing an intrusion into that female’s reproductive autonomy.

You have decided that immersion in vinegar and food coloring are much better uses for a part of her reproductive cycle than her chance to have a family.

You have decided that she exists to provide for you.

To provide eggs for your use, not hers.

Kind of ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ when you really stop to think about it.

Which is probably why you haven’t.

“But it’s a religious holiday!”

The tradition of associating Easter with the egg is highly symbolic and pre-dates the Christianization of the holiday. Much is written on this which is beyond the purpose of this article. The egg is a symbol of birth and new life.

Why?

Because it is how chickens (and other beings) give birth.

For celebratory purposes, consider the implications of using an actual egg symbolically in your Easter celebration. Stealing an egg from a female and coloring, hiding, and eating it are interrupting the cycle of life. It is the opposite of what people who celebrate Easter, for either Christian or Pagan reasons, proclaim to be celebrating.

Fortunately, the cool thing about symbols are they are representations of the real thing and do not have to be the actual item. That is why a stick figure depicting a female form is sufficient signage for a restroom and one doesn’t need to actually affix a woman’s body to the door to signify who voids in that restroom.

“But I want to have fun with my kids!”

Guess who else wants to have fun with their children?

Chickens.

And probably most other sentient beings who aren’t psychopaths.

Consider the option to teach your children to respect life and honor the sacredness of family by not destroying someone else’s.

Chickens don’t have the option to become ‘egg donors’. Their reproductive systems are colonized and exploited for food and decoration.

By exercising your right to choice, you can opt to use plastic eggs, or rocks or other symbols of rebirth that can be used as decoration or for an Easter “egg” hunt. Celebrate the new life blossoming all around you by not destroying it and by teaching your children not to destroy it.

Start your own special traditions of compassion and dignity for all beings this Easter.