Award-Winning Snippet:
I don't believe that all anti-abortion advocates are acting in bad faith, or that they all want to control women. I do believe that many of them have genuine religious objections to abortion, and that these objections don't necessarily make them misogynists. But I also believe that on both sides of the debate are men who don't really get what it's like when something is not their decision to make. It's time for them to learn.
Oh, please. Do "teach" us blinded, oppressive, piggish men, Anna N.
Nothing in the abortion rights saga has been more stunning to Harrogate over the last decade--and this is including the murder of George Tiller, which was more heartbreaking than it was surprising for Harrogate--than the persistent presence on the blogosphere of women writers lashing out at male supporters of abortion rights, for having the audacity to enter the conversation in the first place. There are so many things wrong with such "logic," one hardly knows where to begin.
Anna N. asserts that Friedersdorf's post amounted to a threat by men, to withdraw financial and emotional investment in their offspring in response to the rhetoric of people like Anna N. But of course this is not at all what Friedersdorf's post said. But then, truth is not really a primary concern for those who worship at such poisonous wells.
For that is what identity politics has become, in the popular culture, in the political sphere, and increasingly, in the academic humanities as well. One wishes this were a straw man argument, but then one wishes a lot of things.
The illusion that women in the United States suffer greatly, that a vast patriarchy oppresses Anna N. and her sisters, must be maintained at all costs by any good progressive.
Blech on the race baiters and blech on the ovary peddlers too.
4 comments:
Anna'a post is interesting in the way that Fox News is interesting. The authoritative claims and moral absolutes make for great entertainment but....
This is an interesting problem with rights discourse, the concept of a "trump" card. Once you play the autonomy card, the discussion moves from any concept of community to individualism. As Anna's piece suggests, the man has an "opinion" before pregnancy and then the opinion should not longer possess any persuasiveness. From pregnancy, it is the women's choice, which seems to be a terrible standard from a relationship perspective as authoritative power-struggles inside relationships do not always seem too healthy. But someone must win a debate....
I wonder how different this discussion is from the Right's notion that life begins and conception and then ends at birth. The whole notion of discussing life and choice seems to end when discussing social services for mothers and their children. The community standard of protective life only occurs until the mother has the child and then the mother and her child must walk alone, without support, because life does not entail social services.
You can find an even worse article by Anna here. Even the title, "Dude Makes Abortion Party About Dude," is a little absurd.
Anna's article seems a bit petulant since she complains that a writer at The New Republic comments on one of the issues involved but not the issue involved. It seems that any discussion other than the discussion of the issue is a form of gender imperialism.
The patronizing tone at the end, "Oh look, he's trying. But he is just not getting it right," just does not help her.
Why complain that others are not arguing in good faith when you yourself do not?
Solon, in the writeup that you link to, she also wrote this:
"And his assertion that women behave badly because of a sexist society is one that pisses me off a lot less when women say it."
God, you know its whacked out when Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh are beginning to sound reasonable by comparison.
And, heh. Here is the motherlode (pun intended) quote for all time:
"but I'm not sure what "right" feminism looks like, and I certainly don't expect it of all women. Duncan seems to me like he doesn't truly understand women's experiences — he's a prisoner of his gender. But maybe I'm also a prisoner of mine."
No, Anna. No "maybes" about it in your case. You are definitely a "prisoner" of your gender--or, more specifically, self-imprisoned by your rhetorical engagement with gender.
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