I thought I’d seen every stupid sexist idea anyone could come up with. This website, however, just takes the cake. It publishes admittedly fake stats and slogans to convince people who are expecting a child that they should not want this child to be a boy. Basically, it’s a “boys are bad, gross and useless” campaign. It publishes stories from parents who report on how their sons suck and stories from other parents on how their daughters are a total joy. As opposed to those useless sons, you know. Here, I snipped a small portion of the disgusting website for you (press on the pic for a larger view):
The vile, nasty and stupid (sorry, but I just have no patience with people who unburden themselves psychologically at the expense of children) creators of this stupid, nasty and vile campaign say that their goal is to combat the prejudice that many expectant parents have against giving birth to a girl. Having a daughter needs to be promoted as something good, they say.
Of course, the easy solution here would have been to start a campaign saying, “If you care about your child’s gender, then you are a flaming idiot who isn’t prepared to have a child in the first place.” Or, “I just hope that my kid is healthy and happy. Gender? Why should I care?” But no, these sexist jerks have chosen to reaffirm the most stupid gender stereotypes instead.
Mind you, people can’t control the gender of their child. So what is supposed to happen when a person who spends time on this idiotic website and wishes passionately for a girl, then gets stuck with one of those stupid boys who pee in fish-tanks, destroy furniture and set things on fire (these are all examples from the website in question, of course)?
What’s more, there are already even bigger fools who celebrate this perversion as. . . a victory for feminism. I mean, the stupid campaign constructs the male identity as aggressive, violent and destructive and female identity as beauty-salon-visiting, obedient and docile even BEFORE the kids are born. A boy who is “a bookworm” is described as a disappointment to his parents because that makes his masculinity somehow faulty. The website uses pink for girls and blue for boys. Yes, this is a definite milestone of feminist achievement.
I also want to remind everybody that at least one person is born every day in this country whose biological sex cannot be determined as either male or female. People who have been brainwashed by the idea that the gender binary is to be maintained at all costs then do horrible things to these children in order to make them fit into a preconceived notion of definitive maleness or femaleness. I have been reading up on intersex recently and let me tell you, it’s horrible to see how often people inscribe gender on the bodies of newborns in very violent ways.
I also wish that people tried to keep in mind the plight of transgender folks who discover later in life that they were born into a wrong gender. It is that much harder for them to confront their families about who they really are if their parents believe in a very strict definition of gender. A definition that this campaign reinforces.
This is why the last thing we need is yet another stupid website pushing the pink versus blue dichotomy. We especially don’t need this garbage to be sold to us under feminist auspices. Countless people suffer every day because of the gender binary. It is a task of feminists to dismantle that binary, not to reinforce it. Why is this so hard to comprehend? Why, people, why?
Sheesh, folks. Do I really need to have my mood spoiled and my blood pressure raised by these vicious child-haters, stupid pseudo-feminists and brainless sexists so early on a Saturday morning?
Clarissa's Blog 
Thank you for talking about this, I had no idea that this was happening!
What’s more, the biological sex of any person doesn’t necessarily mean that they are going to have the “corresponding” gender identity. Indeed, they may not identify as either male or female.
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Exactly!
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There is a problem with men and maybe women, too, preferring to have a son, even in western countries. However, this website is not going to change anyone’s mind. In fact, there is an aspect of bragging to it : look how naughty my son is! What a guy! Telling anyone that they’re sexist idiots isn’t really going to work either, satisfying though it may be. Also, the existence of transgender people kind of reinforces the idea that there is a gender binary. Unless being transgender means only wanting to have a kind of sex your genitals won’t permit. But I think it is more than that, isn’t it? There is a family in Toronto who has been in the news lately because they have refused to tell anyone the sex of their child, who is, I think, two now. As you can imagine, some people love the idea, and some people hate it.
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I’ve written about the “genderless baby” in Toronto on this blog. That was a very popular post.
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I have a daughter but I am also a son. This is deeply stupid, tone-deaf, and offensive. I was open to the possibility of either son or daughter, but not for idiotic reasons in either case. You can’t really just order people to change their deep-seated personal preferences, or trick them into doing so with a pseudo-humorous tone.
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“This is deeply stupid, tone-deaf, and offensive.”
– Exactly.
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Do yourself a favour, Clarissa, and never go inside of a store called the David & Goliath Stupid Factory. Their “Boys are dumb, throw rocks at them” shirt will ruin your day; in fact, almost all their merchandise has the potential to do that.
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Oh hell no it doesn’t. Trans is a huge label that encompasses a wide variety of people, including genderqueers and others who identify as neither “man” nor “woman”. Gender is far from a binary, it’s much more useful to think of it as a spectrum, with some people more comfortable on the extreme polarities, and others preferring the centre, some flitting on a sliding scale, and many happy to just tilt one way or the other. Gender binaries are harmful to trans people, I don’t know why anyone would think that they would ever reinforce the concept.
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I don’t mean to be offensive about this, I am actually interested, and open to explanation. I would think that if there were no genders, we would all be on the same kind of normal curve of personalities, attitudes and interests. There would be an equal number of men and women interested in hunting, and an equal number interested in nail polish, and an equal number interested in MMA. But what we are finding is that while some women are interested in MMA, most of the people who are interested in it are men. And while some men like to wear nail polish, most of the people who do are women. There seem to be two normal curves, one for men and one for women, with a significant amount of overlap. It seems to me some people want to say: everyone is the same, except for their genitals; others say: there are two genders, male and female; others say everyone is an individual, talk of gender is meaningless; or finally some say there are X kinds of gender, men, women, bi, trans, queer, add your favourite. It seems to me that if someone says something like: I was born a man but I feel I am really a woman, then that person is saying that being a woman means something. So you are positing that there is a gender difference.
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For what what it’s worth, I believe that everyone is the same. Specifically when it comes to children, I believe that they should be exposed to all food things equally. What’s good for girls is good for boys, and visa versa.
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You are underestimating the great impact that cultural norms surrounding gender performance have on the bigger picture. One time, I tried to find classes in martial arts catering to women, and all I could find were ones which were billing themselves as “Self defence” courses (aren’t all martial arts self defence?) which were watered down versions of what I was really interested in. At the same time, a guy friend of mine was interested in doing Yoga, because he had anxiety and thought that Yoga would be a good way to improve his mental health, but he was treated with suspicion and irritability by other students and had to drop out. Meanwhile, in its country of origin, Yoga has no such gendering attached to it, so all kinds of people enjoy it without stigma.
If you look at gender on a global scale, you find many examples of groups who flit between the binary, there’s the Fa’afafine of Samoa, the Kathoey of Thailand, Akava’ine in New Zealand, Hijra from the Indian subcontinent, Balkan Sworn Virgins, and Aboriginal North American Two Spirits. They don’t necessarily consider themselves to be one gender becoming another, instead they exist in a unique place, but are not condemned or ostracised for it. Why ignore them or force them into categories they don’t fit? Why not just acknowledge that we’ll learn more about gender identity if we don’t hold onto this ideal of a binary and explore what’s out there?
I’d like to mention also that the idea of trans people holding up the gender binary was historically used as a red herring by transphobic second wave feminists to prove that they were dangerous and shouldn’t be welcomed into feminism, because they would hold up the patriarchy. So the idea is very insulting and hurtful to trans people, even if they do identify as women or men.
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I’m not underestimating anything. I’m not even arguing with you. I’m just trying to figure something out. Is gender anything other than a social construct? Do you think we will eventually achieve a society in which men and women have similar interests, attitudes and personal characteristics? And if so, will there still be people of one sex who think they should have been born the other sex?
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Great minds run in the same channel? 🙂
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My point exactly. 🙂
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Laughed out loud about the boy who decided he was a pirate and buried the family jewelry in the back yard! Hilarious child.
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That’s the kind of thing I might have tried as a kid, or at least thought about.
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I actually don’t understand any of this. Culturally, it is all under (sic) my head.
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I’m starting to see very clearly how Americans essentialise gender a whole lot more than Australians do in many respects. In universities, for instance, gender isn’t really observed very much. It’s assumed that we’re all a bit beyond gender. I’m not sure what the case is in the US, but I suspect it must be otherwise.
That we have a cultural setting where gender is barely noted means that we can easily imagine the whole of society functioning on this basis. Every student who has a humanities education will have this experience and consequent realisation.
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Gender is largely a social construct. If you look from an anthropologist’s view, so is race. But that doesn’t mean it’s not real and has real repercussions in how people interact with you and how you view yourself. It’s like the exchange between Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter in Limbo: “Sir, is this real, or is this all in my head?” “Of course it’s all in your head, but why should that mean it’s not real?”
We already have a society where men and women have similar interests, attitudes, and personal characteristics. 🙂 What we don’t have is one where people can express these whenever and wherever they want without facing some kind of judgement for it if it so happens that’s not what’s agreed to be the “norm”.
In an ideal future, your gender and your sex wouldn’t have any bearing on what you want to do with your life every day. If you were a cisgendered man who wanted to wear a dress, lipstick, heels, and make-up, but still identify as a man, nobody would call you a creep or a fetishist for it. If you were a butch lesbian who expressed her soft side by baking chocolate chip cookies for her girlfriend, nobody would tease you and ask if you were “femme whipped”. If you were a trans woman who wanted to play a rugged game of rough and tumble rugby and have a beer with your teammates afterwards, nobody would suggest that you never should have transitioned and that you’re still, deep down, a dude. All of those are real examples of real people I know, and they’ve all faced shit for not obeying the “rules” of the gender binary.
To make a long story short: Gender is a social construct, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t largely impact the way people view themselves. The problem arises when people try to say only gender X and Y are acceptable, and punish those who feel more like they’re Z, A, B, or Q.
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So, about my last question, if gender is a social construct, and eventually no one is judged for their lifestyle, will there still be people of one sex who think they should have been born the other? If both men and women can wear pants or dresses, if both men and women can wear makeup, if both men and women can bake cookies or build a house, will there still be people of one sex who think they should have been born the other?
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I asked my girlfriend, a trans woman, if she would still transition in such a world. She said she would still transition, would still feel a great deal of dysphoria and anxiety about her body in its present state and want to feminize it with hormones and surgery. That’s why I specifically cited there being a trans woman in one of my examples of the people who would benefit from this ideal future.
After all, this is an ideal future where the full gender spectrum is acknowledged, so people will still move along the spectrum as it personally suits them and their identity.
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OK, it makes sense that someone would still want to change their body. I think, in such an idealized world, gender would disappear as a concept.
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Second everything nomina sez here.
Boy, that website [in the OP] is stupid.
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“So, about my last question, if gender is a social construct, and eventually no one is judged for their lifestyle, will there still be people of one sex who think they should have been born the other? If both men and women can wear pants or dresses, if both men and women can wear makeup, if both men and women can bake cookies or build a house, will there still be people of one sex who think they should have been born the other?”
– From what I understand, transgender reality is not and has never been about makeup and cookies. It is about seeing your body as alien to yourself. This lies in the area of biological sex and has nothing whatsoever to do with gender which is, indeed, completely socially constructed and has no actual reality behind it. As we all know, biological sex is actually very real.
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Have you ever read “As Nature Made Him”, a book about a boy, David Reimer, whose parents and doctor decide to turn into a girl after a botched circumcision? He had surgery while still an infant, and was raised as a girl, but it didn’t work. (It is a horrifying story.) But it does seem to suggest that there is more to gender than a social construct, however much we wish that to be the case.
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As I said, I have been reading A LOT of scholarship on intersex recently and the scholars seem to agree overwhelmingly on the following: when intersex stories get reported in the media or popular lit, they are manipulated in a way that confirms the existence of the biological justification for gender differences. In reality, these stories are a lot more complex and do nothing of the kind. The story you reference, for example, is treated at length in the scholarship I have been consulting as an example of how facts were manipulated in order to support the dominant beliefs about “innate” gender differences.
The only solution here is to recognize that some people are intersex. That is simply who they are and trying to place them into the category of “men” or “women” is always hugely detrimental to them.
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I think you’ve misinterpreted a lot of what you’ve read. The vast majority of boys that were castrated and turned into girls have since reverted to their original sex. The theory that you support, that sexual identity can be assign has been completely debunked by many other studies. The human suffering that has been caused by experimenting with these kids has lead to tragedy. Dr. Money, the first proponent of this theory has been completely defamed. It’s due to the theories of people like you that so many boys had to go through this operation.
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Are you insane??? Or simply illiterate? Only a complete idiot could have gathered from my post that I propose operating on anybody or castrating people. What I propose, you blethering fool, is that nobody operate on people without their express wish after they reach the age of consent. Got it?
“The theory that you support, that sexual identity can be assign has been completely debunked by many other studies. ”
– Where did your thick stupid head find that I support this theory? I have never even heard of such a theory.
What is it with people heaping completely idiotic accusations on me today?
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“they are manipulated in a way that confirms the existence of the biological justification for gender differences. ”
The fact is the whole debacle with what I’ll call “The Dr. Money” babies results from the fact that the majority, not all, of gender idenity is determined “before” birth. It’s the whole reason their attempt as assigning these babies as female didn’t work. And there was a strong belief among his supporters that if you treat a kid like a girl and dress him like one, he’ll be one.
It seems from your statement at the top that you are of the opinion that there are very little bioligical reasons for gender differences? Or did I infer wrong? Because the one thing the gender assignments, male to female, done from 1960s – ~2003 prove is that there’s a strong bilogical component and most major medical centers have stopped messing with it.
Also, a lot of intersex individuals to identify as male or female, they have self assigned that way, they do not consider themselves a “Third” sex. If fact most of the movement is about the right to assign themselves the sex they want, male or female.
“The theory that you support, that sexual identity can be assign has been completely debunked by many other studies. ”
I get it from this statement.
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“It seems from your statement at the top that you are of the opinion that there are very little bioligical reasons for gender differences”
– Not “very little.” None. And it isn’t an “opinion.” It’s science. I have quoted it too many times on this blog. If you want the bibliography, you’ll find it.
“Also, a lot of intersex individuals to identify as male or female, they have self assigned that way, they do not consider themselves a “Third” sex. If fact most of the movement is about the right to assign themselves the sex they want, male or female.”
– This is exactly what I propose: that people should choose how to identify. They want to be male – fine. Female? Also fine. Neither? Perfectly fine, too.
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“- Not “very little.” None. And it isn’t an “opinion.” It’s science. I have quoted it too many times on this blog. If you want the bibliography, you’ll find it.”
Attached is a link from a Johns Hopkins Study. The study shows the failure of attempts to assign a female gender identity to these boys. How do you explain the failure of doctors, teachers and parents to raise these kids as girls?
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/2000/MAY/000512.HTM
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Okay I’m getting that gender identity needs to be left up to individuals able to make informed decisions in their own best interests as they see them, not doctors with sharp things going at babies. What’s the disagreement again?
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And this is a good quote in the article from Dr. Reiner, who I’ve corrsponded with as well: “These studies indicate that with time and age, children may well know what their gender is, regardless of any and all information and child-rearing to the contrary”
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We don’t disagree on that at all. In fact, I became kind of an activist for while, contacting Dr. Reiner and lawyers for some of these kids and men, mainly to find out how much trouble is was to assigning themselves back. There are a lot of legal and financial issues as well. It’s the nature vs nurture issue that arises here. It seems nature plays a big part.
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… I’m not sure you’re quite getting the purpose of that website. Of course there is gender-essentializing in it, however, faced with the issue of parents disproportionately preferring male children over female children (see the article I linked… or a whole host of other academic scholarship on the subject), this is one humorous campaign that an ad agency created. Gender isn’t real. I know this, I’m not as much of a “fool” as you probably think, however, because we experience the world through the lens of gender… it is real in that sense. This ad campaign does not include children who function outside of the gender binary. However, the campaign is not focused on that. It’s taking a real world problem and approaching it with humor.
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My question of why not to do a “Caring about the gender of your child is silly” campaign instead has still not been answered. Why fall back on the same tired (and insulting) gender stereotype when there is a much simpler way of achieving the goal?
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Haha, I don’t think that’s simpler, but that is certainly what the nicest outcome would be. But I think there are a few steps between parents preferring boys over girls and parents bringing up children in a genderless world where legos and easy bake ovens flow freely. Baby steps.
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But don’t you see that this is a huge step AWAY from a genderless world? This is massive reinforcement of really pernicious, wrong stereotypes. People who will be convinced to want a girl as a result of this campaign will want her for horribly wrong and damaging reasons. They will want a daughter because she will be quiet, nice, will not break things and tear her clothes and will love visiting nail salons. Just think about what will happen when they have a daughter who is none of these girly, frilly, pink-loving, nail-painting things.
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Yeah… I don’t think the campaign is going to be that change-making. It’s more of a conversation starter about a larger issue of femicide and male privilege for a specific group of people. It would be nice if the stuff that comes out of independent ad agencies had that much of an effect on the world, but that’s not actually how things work.
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” It would be nice if the stuff that comes out of independent ad agencies had that much of an effect on the world, but that’s not actually how things work.”
– That I agree with completely.
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This reminds me of a wonderful Nancy White song, Daughters of Feminists.
“Daughters of feminists love to wear pink and white
Short frilly dresses they speak of successes with boys,
It annoys their mom.
Daughters of feminists won’t put on jeans
Or that precious construction boot Mama found cute,
Ugly shoes they refuse. How come?
Daughters of feminists think they’ll get married
To some wealthy guy who’ll support them forever
Daughters of feminists don’t bother voting at all….”
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What a totally meaningless song. In reality, there is nothing better than coming from a line of strong, powerful professional, high-earning women. This makes you strong, hugely successful in your professional life and extremely popular with men. Highly recommended. I should know, I tried it. Success with “boys” comes very easy to daughters of feminists, for the obvious reasons.
Women who want to sell themselves to a rich sugar daddy and spend their entire lives wondering why they keep getting dumped are all daughters of whiny miserable housewives.
I also don’t see why feminists are supposed to like jeans and construction boots.
Who is this Nancy White and who made her so stupid?
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It is a humorous song. I think its about your children having minds of their own and not conforming to your beliefs. I was a feminist (still am) who believed that boys and girls should be raised the same, and would turn out the same. I also thought that two bookish, unathletic parents would produce bookish, unathletic children. However, what we actually produced was a stereotypical boy and a stereotypical girl. Boy has since grown into a wonderful university student, who loves playing and watching sports, and girl is a wonderful teenager who is nevertheless more girly than I ever was. So, when it comes to gender, I would like to say it is all a social construct, but I have my own experience that says, Maybe not. In any case, I don’t think gender matters, I don’t think it should limit anyone in any way, I think people should be treated as individuals.
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I can’t say that I saw anybody with a mind in this song. It’s a piece of anti-feminist propaganda, that’s all it is. I’m sure Hoff Sommers digs it.
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I, as a radical, seperatist feminist think that this is a dizzying, AMAZING idea! I personally loathe little boys and adore little girls!! Clarissa-did you know that the patriarchy in China kills little girls because they are not born male? Men do this in many different countries as well. When I see a little bratty boy, I want to kick them in the head and smash them in their ugly male faces. I’d punch them in their dick and smelly nuts and take them to another country to be castrated (if the fucker was mine.) Little boys RAPE little girls and enjoy torturing them as well as small animals. They shall grow up to be evil misogynistic woman haters. (“ohh but MY BOY is different..) Sure he is! I hate men and penises and boys are no exception. I love hearing them cry! Men and boys are all evil and in cahoots with the old boy’s club and the patriarchy. I hate boys so much that I can’t stand looking at them. They smell bad too. I wanna spit my foul phlem on them and punch them square in the gut so they can’t breathe!
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I’m very sorry you are suffering like this and I hope you find the courage to seek professional help. Remember that the only person you are hurting with all of this is yourself. The rest of the world doesn’t care.
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Is Valerie being parodic? I can’t believe she’s serious here.
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Let’s hope she is. But I met one such person in RL, so I don’t know.
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Valerie, you’re not a feminist. You’re a misandrist, this is different. Die in a fire, fucktard!
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That’s why she use this pseudo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Solanas
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Valerie, could you explain to us why a radical feminist should support genderism like you do? Because generally, radical feminists are against genderism.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUM_Manifesto
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This is real femi-nazi, folks.
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This is just a very sick person. The original Solanas was also a very sick person. Which, of course, doesn’t make what she did any less horrible.
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Fair enough, I read some of the SCUM manifesto, and there are many good points there.
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Hi everyone…I’m back! So Clarissa-do you realize how many SEXIST ads there are in our wonderful patriarchal media that feature women and girls? Why can’t you write an article on that? It seems to me that you are fully sucking up to the true enemy of women and girls- MEN! Men do not like us. More than I’d care to admit HATE us! If these wonderful men wanted to create a society where women are treated as equals how come they haven’t done this already? I have news for ya sister-they never will. They love the way things are. Alot of overwhelmingly sexist tv shows/art/ hardcore disgusting porn/music videos/books etc are backlash for feminism period. As soon as we start making strides toward independence the patriarchy knocks us back some more. Have you or any woman you know ever been raped/sexually harrassed/beaten up/molested/shamed/humiliated/had to sell her body to men etc? I’m sure you know lots of women who have been through traumas done to them by MEN! Rape is an epidemic now all over the world….
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I don’t watch TV or read gloss magazines, so I don’t see any ads. What possesses you to consume the garbage if you hate it so much? Don’t you realize that by consuming these ads you are endorsing them? Just stop.
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But if men aren’t holding us back through commercials, hardcore porn and mindcontrol rays, why do our lives still suck?
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Stille always makes the best comments. 🙂 🙂
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Mindcontrol rays? Okay, this is a joke?
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Yes 😉
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😉
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Valerie, could you explain to us why a radical feminist should support genderism like you do? Because generally, radical feminists are against genderism.
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This comment is much more interesting than the preceding one. I don’t think watching sexist ads is “endorsing them”, but maybe you should be watch less of those ads for psychological sanity.
“It seems to me that you are fully sucking up to the true enemy of women and girls- MEN! ”
Could you explain more why you said that about Clarissa?
“If these wonderful men wanted to create a society where women are treated as equals how come they haven’t done this already? I have news for ya sister-they never will. They love the way things are.”
You’re right, but the reality is more like this. If these wonderful men and women wanted to create a society where women and men are treated as equals how come women and men haven’t done this already? I have news for ya all-it will take a very long time to do this because the majority of women love the way things are
Oh, and, unless they’re enslaved by a violent pimp, prostitutes generally don’t “sell” their bodies, they rent it. This is not like those permanent housewifes who sell really their bodies even though you don’t care very much about them.
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This comment is much more interesting than the preceding one. I don’t think watching sexist ads is “endorsing them”, but maybe you should be watch less of those ads for psychological sanity.
“It seems to me that you are fully sucking up to the true enemy of women and girls- MEN! ”
Could you explain more why you said that about Clarissa?
“If these wonderful men wanted to create a society where women are treated as equals how come they haven’t done this already? I have news for ya sister-they never will. They love the way things are.”
You’re right, but the reality is more like this. If these wonderful men and women wanted to create a society where women and men are treated as equals how come women and men haven’t done this already? I have news for ya all-it will take a very long time to do this because the majority of men and women love the way things are
Oh, and, unless they’re enslaved by a violent pimp, prostitutes generally don’t “sell” their bodies, they rent it. This is not like those permanent housewifes who sell really their bodies even though you don’t care very much about them.
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Hell, they don’t even rent their bodies, seeing how their souls don’t vanish into Heaven while on the job. They just offer a service. I find the sell-their-bodies rhetoric really creepy and misleading.
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But are they consenting to offer this service?
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That’s exactly the issue that can’t be discussed through the “selling their bodies” rhetoric, since not having control over your body is inherently horrible. Based on the plethora of sex worker rights blogs around, and on the fact that many women* have no qualms about becoming housewives or having lots of one night stands and prostitution is what you get when you cross the sexual and emotional labour of the housewife with the multiple-men-to-fulfill-a-woman’s-needs model of the lots of one night stands model, I’d guess the majority do consent, or at least find it the best choice available for them. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t women whose all available choices suck by their system of values, which is why I’m all for stuff that broadens people’s choices.
*Talking about women since this started as a discussion about women selling their bodies, not because there aren’t any men in sex work.
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You see, our resident Valerie Solanas is not completely hopeless and can even improve on her own comments. 🙂 She is incapable of answering questions, though, so it is useless to ask anything.
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Mind you, people can’t control the gender of their child.(Clarissa)
No you cant, but…………………….. We now have technology that can tell you what the sex of the child is. Don’t be so naïve to think that people havnt already made the choice to terminate the pregnancy when the gender of the child isn’t what they preferred.
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Abortion should be avalaible to women for any reason.
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@David
Youre just fucking nuts, plain old fashioned nuts. Youre so over the top you must be a joke to yourself. Stranger yet someone gave you a thumbs up for that statement. Or maybe you did, lol. Nuts.
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How is suggesting that women should have the absolute right to control their own bodies “nuts”? David is a bit on the extreme side with his politics. But I don’t see how supporting a woman’s right to determine what happens to her own body is extreme. In my mind, David’s position is the _only_ position that men–who can’t ever become pregnant–should hold.
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I agree with Evelina and David. David’s position is extremely healthy and normal.
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And you know what, I’m even nuttyer than that. I think abortion should be the default, and procreation should be the exception.
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@David
It seems someone missed out on having one.
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Ok Evelina, lets say David is right. Any reason given for abortion is ok because that is her “right”. What happens if a woman comes into a clinic in a completely suicidal, psychotic state. Should the doctor just agree with her and give her the abortion? There are SO many scenarios where that absolutism is wrong, completely wrong. The fact that you cant even see that is very disturbing at best. It is this type of Ideological thinking that makes the world a very dangerous place.
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A psychotic and suicidal woman should not become a mother. The doctor should care about her in priority.
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“What happens if a woman comes into a clinic in a completely suicidal, psychotic state. Should the doctor just agree with her and give her the abortion?”
Yes. Why should a doctor force a suicidal and psychotic woman to have a baby if she doesn’t feel she should or can? I think it’s very sad that many people (and far too many men) view feminine bodily autonomy as ideologically extreme.
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AMEN!
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No, its sad that you would be ok with someone in such obvious mental distress make such a decision. What if the woman had lost her medication prior to going into the clinic. What if the day before while on her medication she told her mother how much she looked forward to having her baby………..SO many scenarios, but in your world only one answer. Very sad indeed.
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Doctor should care about the woman in prioritiy.
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You are spinning extremely unlikely scenarios which all seem to have a common fantasy at the center: women are “crazy” and psychologically incapable of determining what happens to their bodies. Instead of trusting women to have a rational response to their own bodies, you craft scenarios in which the locus of control must remain with the historically patriarchal institutions of “the law” or “the medical complex.” I think you should do a little soul searching and consider why you are so frightened by the prospect of women retaining control over their their own bodies and their own reproductive systems.
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Hear, hear, Evelina.
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Evelina
You are so off base its unbelievable. I am actually not even close to being anti abortion. Its a girl, abort it. It is a boy, abort it. It has green eyes, abort it. You are so misguided by your belief system(absolutism) that you are not even willing to admit that there could be scenario’s that dont fit your model. By the way, the crazy that started all this was not even female, so you might want to drop the rhetoric.
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Abortion should be available to women for any reason.
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@Evelina
Here is some more spin to make your head spin. You are in an abusive relationship and your partner tells you to get an abortion. You do not want to lose him and you go ahead with it. You mention to your doctor the reason and she says, “you are a grown woman and psychologically capable of making your own decisions”. She performs the abortion. SO many scenario’s it makes your head spin.
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Definitely sounds like the right choice in that situation, as well. Who would want to ensure an abuser never leaves one’s life by having a child with him? I don’t see what’s so head-spinning about this. You keep giving us examples of women who are in no position to care for a child like they’re supposed to make us rethink our opinion on the capacity of women to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy. I don’t see why not, if a woman is capable of consenting to medical treatment, she shouldn’t be capable of consenting to a specific sort of medical treatment – and if you’re objecting to abortion per se, I don’t understand why that makes it more serious than other sorts of medical treatment.
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Head spin? Huh? The answer is simple. Why should a woman in an abusive relationship who puts her partners needs above all else have children? If he abuses the children, which seems likely in this scenario, she will be emotionally incapable of stopping him. Of course she should have an abortion. And once again, you have crafted a scenario in which you fantasize that a woman is incapable of managing her own body effectively.
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I’m sure that if a vote were taken among the inhabitants of the planet, every single one of us would be found guilty of doing things to our bodies that someone somewhere disapproves of. So maybe the most logical way to proceed is to let people manage their own bodies.
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No child should be born from an abusive relationship.
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No child should be born, especially from an abusive relationship.
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Exactly.
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Whoever made up that anti-boy campaign is a narrow-minded bitch who can shove her chauvinism up her ass.
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