Each week the editorial board reflects on a current issue in Our View. The position taken does not reflect the opinions of everyone on the Hilltop Views staff. This week’s editorial board is composed of Viewpoints Editors Sully Lockett and Kenneth Phipps and Copy Editor Laura Irwin.

In an effort to call attention to the manifest ridiculousness and blatant hypocrisy of the laws restricting women’s rights enacted by the overwhelmingly male members of the Texas Legislature, Rep. Jessica Farrar D-Houston has filed a retaliatory, satirical bill.

Filed on March 10, House Bill (HB) 4260 would fine men in Texas $100 for masturbating and require a 24 hour waiting period for the prescription of Viagra, among other intentionally humiliating measures.

No one, not even Farrar herself, expects the bill is not expected to pass. Instead, it is meant to attract attention to and protest the “unnecessary” and “invasive” procedures that women are subject to under state law.

The bill would require a rectal exam before an “elective vasectomy or colonoscopy,” which is medically unnecessary. Farrar, in explanation of the fine imposed on male masturbation, said that “it’s a waste” of semen, which “can be used – and is to be used – for creating more human life,” using language intentionally evocative of the proponents of abortion restrictions.

Aside from being hilarious, the bill’s satirical nature illustrates the hypocrisy that pervades the Legislature.

Farrar was reportedly mocked by male Republican representatives March 14 as she attempted to present a completely unrelated bill, HB 744. This sophomoric and petty demonstration by her Republican colleagues were, in her words, an attempt to “put a woman in her place.“

Currently, the Legislature is made up of 36 women, 18 Democrats and 18 Republicans, and 142 men, according to the Texas Tribune. That’s 19.9 percent female and 80.1 percent male, just to be as clear as possible. HB 4260 exists to draw attention to a single issue — a largely petulant male legislature deciding on issues in which that they have no personal stake.

In just one example of the roaring double standard plaguing these issues, Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, filed a bill that would charge women who receive an abortion with murder. Tinderholt has not drawn a fraction of the wailing and gnashing of teeth as Farrar has, reflecting the inequality between the genders present in the legislature.

More attention like this needs to be drawn to the problems of the Texas Legislature. Having a legislature made up of 36 women and 142 men is abysmal and unrepresentative of us as citizens; Texans deserve to see equal representation in our government.

We, as residents of this great state, deserve to be led by individuals with the wisdom to realize that they don’t possess all the knowledge of the world, and the maturity to handle it like adults when they do. When they realize the issue, they should seek solutions, rather than belittling those who seek to fix the issue, no matter how satirically they do it.