Jeff rules. Seriously, just read this post. A small, tempting sample so you click over and read it all:
Is that like the “National Association for the Advancement of White People” or the folks who think the Christian Right is oppressed?
Yes, the Men’s Rights Movement is the same kind of animal. All of these groups share a common worldview, that the traditionally oppressed groups, be they women, minorities, or non-Christians, have somehow seized control of the country and are systematically denying the straight, white, Christian men their rights.
That’s insane!
Well, yes, but don’t ignore the reason for the pushback: men’s traditional privileges really are under attack. It’s just that these rights, like the right to beat and rape your wife with impunity, are anathema to a truly free and equitable society.
So they agitate for the right to rape and assault?
Not in so many words. But the MRAs do certainly seem preoccupied by the loss of that privilege. Look at the Glenn Sacks/Helen Smith interview we talked about early this week. It was all about how the Violence Against Women Act is a debacle for men, because, they say, men get sent to jail unfairly in domestic disputes. VAWA is a traditional hobby-horse for the MRA set.
It’s good, but a bit harsh. Not saying that MRAs don’t deserve harshness, but I would have liked more about legitimate complaints (men being more likely to die on the job for instance) so that he could more effectively argue that feminism is the better means of repairing such complaints. That’s what I’m used to in reading about MRAs from you and from Barry Deutsch.
Jeff Fecke is totally dreamy.
Yah. Feminism as an anodyne for discrimination that hurts males is a real attention-getter…much more so than feminism as a way to advance women. Maybe this is just self-interest on the part of males, or maybe you just have to put it in terms people can understand, but when I try to explain to people that gender stereotypes hurt men as well as women, they listen.
I would like, however, if someone could unpack the “Choice for Men” argument for me. Some of the language Fecke applies to men is “wrong” if applied to women. For example, he says if men want to avoid paternity, then they should get a vasectomy. Why is that ok, but if you say, if women want to avoid pregnancy, then they should get their tubes tied (or, if you want to be crude, there’s the “keep your legs closed” argument) then it’s wrong…?
I do see the problem equating “Requirements for women and their bodies” with “Requirements for men and their money” when it comes to “men’s choice” and raising kids.
But, generally speaking, my impression of the situation is that men really have no options when it comes to supporting their offspring. There’s the anecdata about men being forced by the state to support kids that are not theirs, just because they waited a year to get the paternity test. “Well, the kid is yours now.” That just reinforces the negative cultural view of men as providers, doesn’t it?
Consider it a teachable moment and help me out here.
Petey:
Essentially the “choice for men” thing would be fine if you were OK with mandatory abortion, babies left to starve in the street and/or women sentenced to lifetime poverty for choosing to bear a kid. It sounds like a great idea: just as women (who have enough money, live in the right parts of the country, can get away from their families for long enough etc) can decide before sometime in the 2nd trimester that they’re not going to carry a pregnancy to term, men should be able to similarly renounce the adventure of parenthood that they embarked on by having sex some months earlier.
BUT
If a woman exercises her right to terminate a pregnancy, there will not be a baby (and then a toddler, child, adolescent) to take care of, there will not be any more pregnancy with potentially life-threatening complications, there won’t be a delivery ditto. If a man removes himself from the picture, there will be all these things unless the woman decides to have an abortion. (And of course it gets better, because the man gets to dither until, say, the beginning of the third trimester, at which point if the women decides to abort, she’s out of luck.)
The MRAs argue that the lack of “male choice” means a woman can unilaterally decide to soak a man for child support for 18 years — you know, that luxurious gravy train that is court-mandated support for a child. But to fram things this way they have to ignore the (to them) minor detail that sponging off male generosity requires the woman actually engage in the 24/7/365 ratrace that is raising the kid. (It’s such an easy gig, you know, that the only thing preventing MRAs from volunteering for it in droves is their stand on the principle of “choice”.)
So in some universe where a man exercising the “choice” not to be a father meant that — POOF — there suddenly wouldn’t be any more fetus, any more risks to the pregnant woman, any offspring to raise for 18 years, “male choice” might almost (depending on lots of devilish details) make some small amount of sense. But in this world, it’s just another way of saying, “I’m out of here, woman, you clean up the mess.”
Teachable enough?
I really don’t understand how men can be willing to sleep with a woman in a way that’s conducive to pregnancy - no condoms, no hormonal methods; by the numbers, the men who used contraception and still got pregnant have to be a vanishingly small minority - but not willing to help raise the kids when she gets pregnant. That goes against everything I know about community and relationships - hell, that even goes against my long-abandoned Christian upbrining.
I know this kind of attitude isn’t exactly rare, but I just wanted to come out and state that it’s morally reprehensible. You know, just in case some of us forgot.
Personally, love how some MRAs argue that fathers are absolutely essential to the well being of their children while simultaneously arguing that “men trapped into unwilling paternity” should not be held responsible for the wellbeing of their children.
Can’t have both ways…either fathers are critical to their children, or fathers are in fact, basically unnecessary.
Pick yer poison, Kids.
boo-hoo.
straight white men being threated over political and social powers they perceive to be eroding.
how will i ever sleep tonight knowing that MRA’s are suffering?
So in some universe where a man exercising the “choice” not to be a father meant that — POOF — there suddenly wouldn’t be any more fetus, any more risks to the pregnant woman, any offspring to raise for 18 years, “male choice” might almost (depending on lots of devilish details) make some small amount of sense. But in this world, it’s just another way of saying, “I’m out of here, woman, you clean up the mess.”
Perhaps, but if you required the man to opt in or out in the early stages of the pregnancy, the woman could make her choice fully cognizant of the consequences involved.
Srsly. Cry harder, little emo men. Life is just so tough for you, you middle-to-upper-class white man.*
*FYI, this is what goes through my head every time I have to listen to some emo boy band - populated with white middle-class teenagers - whine about how no one understands them. POOR THINGS.
I would like, however, if someone could unpack the “Choice for Men” argument for me
It’s quite simple: When men can have fetuses growing in their nutsacks, and give birth out their urethras, they can have a choice.
Until then, they have to realize that once they give their sperm to a woman, they really have no say in what she chooses to do with it. Because it’s a gift, and how ill-mannered is it to try to dictate to someone else what they can or cannot do with a gift?
Don’t want to give a gift? Try a condom. That’s quite effective, though accidents do happen. But no one can say you didn’t try.
The MRA’s have descended on Shakesville! How long before they show up here.
off-topic Didn’t want to put at the end of the dead or dying Malkin threads…
This is just too good an article about the kind of world the like of Michelle Malkin and her followers would have us travel. In Japan, they have already gone down this road, with tragic and truly pathetic results…
Cruel Japanese Welfare State
an anonymous kate, they and their evil friends have been infecting this Pandagon thread from nearly the beginning
Yea, I meant this particular thread.
The saddest part of the MRA phenomenon to me is that I wish there could be organizations focused on actual men’s issues - groups that would seek to help men break away from oppressively rigid gender systems and the other negative effects that patriarchy have on them too. That would seek to give men a full range of life choices as well - like the ability to be a stay-at-home dad, for example, if that’s what they want. But the idea of “men’s rights” and the “men’s movement” has been co-opted by these losers instead.
Oh, and re: the “men’s choice” in abortion argument…
A classmate of mine tried to make an argument in class that men should be able to choose a symbolic “financial abortion” during the pregnancy that would get them out of paying child support later, saying that this would equal their rights with those of women.
Our professor pointed out a flaw in the argument. The right to choose abortion is about the right of a woman to have autonomy over her own body. But once the child is born, and is therefore not a part of her body, she has a legal obligation to take care of the child because it is now a human that has its own legal rights. The father has this same obligation - not because the woman has rights and he doesn’t, but because the CHILD has a right to support from its parent. It’s not a matter of the father’s rights against the mother’s - it’s a matter of the father’s right to support his offspring once it is a person.
Thoughts? Any lawyers here that can say whether or not my prof was right?
Caro #1:
The saddest part of the MRA phenomenon to me is that I wish there could be organizations focused on actual men’s issues - groups that would seek to help men break away from oppressively rigid gender systems and the other negative effects that patriarchy have on them too.
It’s what drives my anger toward them. They target men like me — divorced, non-custodial parents — and convince them that their enemy is women, which keeps them nice and angry, and also keeps them from looking in the mirror. Sometimes, you’ve got to look in the mirror.
Caro #2:
Thoughts? Any lawyers here that can say whether or not my prof was right?
I’m not a lawyer, but I was married to one, and this is precisely right. It’s in the name itself: child support. I don’t pay a quarter of my meager income so my ex-wife can eat bon-bons (not that she is), I pay so she can give my daughter a decent home. And not for nothing, but what I pay doesn’t cover expenses; if my ex tricked me into fatherhood so she could get the money, it was a really, really dumb idea.
An anonymous Kate:
The MRA’s have descended on Shakesville! How long before they show up here.
Give it an hour or two. They will; they don’t have anything better to do with their time.
IAAL and yes, Caro, your professor was correct. Cutesy as the term “financial abortion” is, the choice-for-men position is that men should have rights that women don’t have–namely, to walk away from obligations to their children. A woman is not relieved of her legal ties to her offspring because she didn’t consent to the sex, didn’t consent to conception, couldn’t get an abortion, or otherwise was unable to exercise any choice in the matter of becoming a mother. Choice-for-men would give men, but not women, that option.
I’ve sometimes proposed to MRAs that marriage is a requirement for paternity; unwed fathers never have to worry about some strawfeminist sperm-thievery, because they wouldn’t have to pay a dime of child support. Of course, then they’d have no rights to the child either unless they married the mother, but them’s the breaks.
Funnily I can’t get them to drum up much enthusiasm for the idea.
Child care is for the child. But having children is a decision of the mother. It’s her choice. If a woman decides to have a child and knows the man isn’t interested in paying for the upkeep of the child, she made a choice to have a child with an unwilling father. Hasn’t she?
As written, biology is destiny in regard to men and their sperm. If it’s his genes, it’s his financial obligation. That’s the law, and it makes perfect sense from the position of determining if a child should get money from its creators. But if you look at it from a different perspective, say a man and woman who just found out “she’s late”, there is a very different legal question: you have a potential child, one person can choose to give the other a financial obligation, and the other person has no choice in the matter. In other words: after birth it makes sense to have the child cared for, but before birth either parent should have an out. It would still be “unfair” because a woman can completely veto a pregnancy, but I think that biology diffuses all possibility of making that situation “fair”.
Argue all you want about how the man made his choice when he deposited the semen, but to say that things are equal because the man doesn’t have the baby growing in his body doesn’t quite jibe with me. It’s just as logical to say the woman has to have the child because she let the man deposit his semen. In other words, it’s not logical.
This unfairness doesn’t keep me awake at night, nor does it make me want to write my congresswoman or senators, but it does exist. The rest of the men’s rights movement is a bunch of misogynist crap, and I wasn’t aware that “men’s choice” was a movement to veto abortion rights. I sometimes can’t believe such insanity exists, but I’m getting more and more surprised that I can still be surprised at some of the idiotic anti-woman garbage swilling in the minds of some losers.
It’s good, but a bit harsh. Not saying that MRAs don’t deserve harshness, but I would have liked more about legitimate complaints (men being more likely to die on the job for instance)
Well, that really deserves another post. Half of MRA “legit” complaints are basically bullshit, because they only tell half the story. Which means telling the whole story is the issue. That men die more on the job is the result of two things: male privilege (access to work that pays better) and labor issues (we don’t have enough worker protection on those kinds of jobs). The MRA solution, to deprive women of rights to “compensate” men for this is insane, especially since men are already compensated more, in paychecks.
The other MRA hobby horses to prove that men are discriminated against are fucking ridiculous, like the draft we don’t have and sitcom characters that make men to be buffoons. On the first—unarmed civilians are 90% of war deaths, and women are the main target of one of the most repulsive forms of warfare, strategic genocidal rape. The whine that women don’t suffer enough to compensate for the draft assumes that having your insides mutilated with a bayonet is not suffering enough, i.e. pure misogyny. And male buffoons on sitcoms are usually paired with a deeply misogynist counterpoint, the fun-killing, whiny bitch who barely tolerates the buffoon because it’s women’s burden in life to put up with men.
I agree that it’s good to see the “legit” complaints of MRAs addressed, but it takes entirely other posts to break down why even “legit” complaints are mostly smoke and mirrors to disguise the MRAs’ true, woman-hating motives.
Petey, the problem with “Choice For Men” is that it makes the silly assumption that abortion rights are “special” rights. In fact, abortion rights are based on equality—we all have the right to control our own bodies. The notion that men should have an *extra* right to compensate for women having an *equal* right to medical care is similar to saying men should get an extra check in the mail to compensate for the fact that women have the right to vote. “Choice for men” is ultimately about privilege and how men should always have it. Caro: Your prof was right.
FYI, there are organizations dedicated to men’s issues. One of my favorites is Men Can Stop Rape. The name makes them sound like a narrow organization, but they’re really not. They understand that the rape culture is as much, if not more, the result of a rigid, aggressive view of masculinity as it is about controlling women and they seek ways to reach out to young men to show them that there are ways to define yourself as a man outside of hating women.
Except the man’s “out” exercises undue control over the woman’s right to bodily integrity. Which is an argument for writing relationship books that de-stigmatize asking about a potential girlfriend/boyfriend’s take on abortion and unwanted pregnancies so people are unlikely to GET in that situation, but that’s in the realm of personal choice, not social and legislative and legal choice.
But think about it this way: a lot of men are uncomfortable about being told to even wear a friggin’ condom and not have sex with women whose views on unwanted pregnancy and birth control they don’t know. Which is the most minor, pragmatic sort of inconvenience and infringement on bodily integrity in the sexual arena that we have. So, suggesting condoms, vasectomy, and better choices of partner are an infringement on male rights; what is suggesting a man has permission power either way over a pregnancy? Especially with the high level of abusive potential in what your’e suggesting. Imagine a man who says, “sure, let’s have the baby” and then three/four months in, he shows his true colors — an abuser. Not only is the woman in a worse place, re: doctors who will provide abortions, the abuser in your scenario can now threaten her and control her every day with his “equal veto power” while she bears the brunt of the physical and emotional horror — “if you don’t do what I say, I’ll push for an abortion as my right” or “if you don’t do what I say, I’ll have a ‘financial abortion’” and honestly, if you think those are a fair price to pay so that a man doesn’t have to pay child support, I think you’re a jerk who feels inconvenience for a man is far more important than women’s bodily integrity.
Like most of the women here are trying to explain: when the actual consequences of an unwanted pregnancy, or raising a child after the end of a partnership, is equal between men and women, then we can talk. But until then, screening girlfriends to find ones who will take birth control/wear the patch/whatever while you’re wearing a condom, one who agrees that abortion is the right choice in case of being that statistical anomaly is just no road on the impositions on women if men have veto rights over her actual, real body.
Jon, you’re framing abortion rights wrong. The right is not to be pregnant if you don’t want to be. Men have that right already. The idea that they need extra rights to compensate of women’s equal rights is based on the idea that men should always have more than women have. That men can’t get pregnant is not a matter of rights—MRAs don’t want to compenstate infertile women with extra rights over fertile ones, so the idea of giving men extra rights to compensate for not being able to get pregnant is clearly a matter of sexism for them, not of using the law to right some wrong in terms of inability to be pregnant.
But having children is a decision of the mother.
Again, joe: a mother is legally (including financially) obligated to her children even if it was not her choice to have the child. Period. “Choice for men” gives men a right women do not have–the right to walk away from parental obligations just because they feel like it.
A mother can give up her child and have no obligation whatsoever. A father doesn’t have that option unless the mother is dead or declared unfit. Women can walk away from parental obligations. Really. They can. It’s true. It only requires that they walk away from their children. And unless the father steps in to take care of the children, she won’t pay a dime of support.
I’m not saying that there aren’t other factors: biology, social pressures, and so on. But I am saying it is possible for a woman with an unwanted child to abort the child, have the child and keep it, or have the child and give it up. For a man, the choices are to support the child (either entirely or partially) or face the consequences. Maybe pregnancy itself makes that completely fair, but I’m thus far unswayed.
Jon, adoption is an entirely separate issue. Male custodial parents do have a right to give babies up for adoption. But in lieu of negotiating an adoption, yes, mothers are required by law to care for their children. If a woman neglected to feed and house her baby, she would go to jail for child neglect. Very few men who skirt child support responsibilities are facing prison penalties, but women who skirt their duty to feed and clothe their children go straight to jail. So men ALREADY have a privilege in neglecting their children, and you want to expand that privilege. Which is fucked up, honestly. Snitting at women because we “get” to have the risk of unintended pregnancy doesn’t make child neglect right.
The right to negotiate an adoption varies state by state and has very little relevance to the topic at hand, which is that men can’t get abortions and for some bizarre reason, that pisses some off. Honestly, give yourself a colonic with a razor blade if you’re so damn jealous of the experience.
The topic at hand is not just abortion and the fact that men don’t have that option. It is unintended pregnancies and that women have more options (including adoption) than men in determining whether they want to continue them and what financial obligations the men have if they do. I’m all for women having the right to abort. It’s their body and that’s that. I just think that a mother having a baby without a supportive father and then expecting the father to pay up is a very big part of the subject at hand.
I don’t have much sympathy for men who impregnate women without any plans, but I do have some opinions regarding their lack of control from that point onward. I know that many if not most of the men (and women) who share my opinions are anti-woman dolts, but I still see inequality. A big deal worth curbing the rights of women? Not really. But I’m not quite convinced that extending the rights of uninterested fathers needs to impinge on the rights of the women who get impregnated by them. Knowing that the man isn’t going to pay up doesn’t affect any right of the woman other than the right to bring a child into this world who has a father who isn’t interested in being a father. If that’s an important right, I’m not going to march with you for it. And I think the man should have to sign an affidavit stating his unwillingness to support the child, the affidavit should be published, and he should have to put up an abortion bond payable to the mother (who gets to be unnamed.)
Jon said:
“I just think that a mother having a baby without a supportive father and then expecting the father to pay up is a very big part of the subject at hand.”
But *she* isn’t expecting it, it’s the child, a factual, living child which has to be supported by its parents.
It’s not about women’s rights, it’s about children’s rights.
Are you in favour of giving all rights to children to just the mothers, with no rights and obligations for men at all? Because otherwise I see no way out: at any point, the man could *claim* he did not want the child. Or that he wasn’t aware of the pregnancy, and didn’t want it.
It is unintended pregnancies and that women have more options (including adoption) than men in determining whether they want to continue them and what financial obligations the men have if they do.
No, jon, they don’t. A woman is legally (including financially) responsible for her child regardless of whether she made a choice to get pregnant or carry to term, or engage in sex in the first place. The only difference is that a woman, in some circumstances, can terminate the pregnancy–meaning neither the woman nor the man has any legal obligation to a child at all.
As for adoption, there are very limited circumstances where a woman can unilaterally put a child up for adoption. There have been well-publicized cases of adoptions being reversed because the birth mother did not properly secure the father’s consent to the adoption. Dan Savage, in The Kid, talks about Oregon being an extremely popular state for adoptions, because there are laws that say an unwed father who is not at all involved with the pregnancy cannot nix the adoption.
As letty says, the only fair solution to your concern is to completely sever any legal relationship between unmarried men and their children. No rights, no responsibilities, unless he chooses to assume them by marrying the child’s mother. Is that what you want?
That’s why you give the man a deadline in the early stages of the pregnancy to opt out. In that case, the woman’s obligations to raise the child on her own are a concious choice she makes.
After all, you folks are constantly reminding the world that women should not be punished for having sex. Shouldn’t men be extended the same privilege?
I’m always amazed how when Choice for men comes up nobody mentions how men don’t do squat with the choices they do have. Male condom use is 20% in developed countries. Don’t use contraception? Don’t bitch.
That’s why you give the man a deadline in the early stages of the pregnancy to opt out
How will this deadline work? What if the man claims he wasn’t told? What if he waits until the last minute and leaves the woman scrambling to pay for, and obtain, an abortion? What if both of them are mistaken about how far along the pregnancy is?
No, Simon, I’m afraid that the only fair solution is an “opt in” model–the unmarried father has no rights nor responsibilities unless he chooses to assume them.
As an aside, it’s amusing how much the MRAs complain about one, and only one, aspect of parenthood: the bills. They aren’t complaining about the legal obligations to another human being, the lifelong relationship, the way having to guide a new person from birth to adulthood completely rearranges the way you live your life, how caring for a child puts a dent in your work and your social life. Nope, it’s just that the fucking bitch and her sprog want their money.
This is exactly the point. If I told the same thing to a woman who wanted to have an abortion, I’d be called a mysoginist.
Well, yes, because you’d be telling her that she can’t have an abortion. You wouldn’t be telling her that if she gives birth to a child, she’s that child’s parent, and it’s not the kid’s fault whether she used contraception or couldn’t afford an abortion.
The fact is that a woman’s obligations to a child, under the law, don’t depend on whether she wanted a child. Same goes for men.
I wouldn’t have a problem with that. But that would probably end up worse for women than an opt-in model.
I think they are, you just are assuming they aren’t.
I wouldn’t have a problem with that. But that would probably end up worse for women than an opt-in model.
Why? Under your plan, men have more rights than women; they have an absolute right, no questions asked, to walk away from a pregnancy by saying “No thanks”, even if doing so hurts the woman’s right to do the same.
And I don’t have to “assume” anything–I can see what they’re saying. In this thread, for instance.
Jon - in many states women can’t just give babies up for adoption, they have to name the father and he has to agree to sign away his rights too. If he refuses, she has to pay child support to him. If he has custody and is found to be not fit, she has to pay child support to the state until his parental rights are terminated and the baby is adopted.
Meanwhile, the mother has had to bear the economic costs of pregnancy. Sure, most states say he has to compensate her for her medical costs, but they usually don’t consider time off from work in that calculation. OB appointments generally take about 30 hours of time total (in a low-risk uncomplicated pregnancy). Plus 6 weeks off to recover (although many women are now going back at 3-4 weeks which is not good for their longterm health). And the very act of being pregnant and giving birth usually sets a woman back 3-4 years on her career path (especially an unplanned, single mother pregnancy).
So yes, after she has made the decision to give up her body to be used as an incubator, mothers and fathers have the EXACT same rights and responsibilities.
It seems that one of the rationales for abortion is that a woman doesn’t have to accept the obligations of raising a child if she doesn’t want them.
Perhaps the way the law is currently constructed leads to the most socially beneficial outcome. But you at least have to acknowledge the inequity of insisting that men have to accept the responsibilites and consequences of simply having sex, yet women do not.
Under my plan the woman could obviously still have an abortion before the man makes his decision. I don’t see how it really affects her rights.
Why is it so darn difficult for MRAs to realize that child support is about CHILDREN’S RIGHTS.
Generally, once the child is born both men and women can petition the court to sever their parental rights and financial obligations to a child. Both men and women who do this might be denied their petition because the government believe it is counter the the child’s and society’s interest. Otherwise, both parents are legally responsible for the child’s financial needs. Equal rights. Of course, I notice that MRAs are not petitioning to have their parental rights severed, just their financial obligations.
Child support has nothing to do with what happens BEFORE a child is born. From birth, the parents have equal rights and responsibilities toward their child.
So, Simon and Jon, you are arguing that men should have a special right to opt-out of fatherhood that women do not have. Abortion is not equal to this right because, and I know it’s hard to grasp, pregnancy is (in this context) a medical condition and abortion is one of the ways to treat it.
It seems that one of the rationales for abortion is that a woman doesn’t have to accept the obligations of raising a child if she doesn’t want them.
No, the rationale is that a woman has a privacy interest in her own body, and therefore has some right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Abortion has nothing whatsoever to do with her obligations toward a born child. A woman who is raped, beaten, falls into a coma for nine months, and wakes up a mother is not automagically free of any obligation to support her child. “But I didn’t want to have sex and I didn’t get to have an abortion!” are not excuses. Unless the father’s rights are terminated or he consents, the woman cannot unilaterally put the child up for adoption, either. She is, legally, just as much Mommy as the woman who deliberately conceived and spent the next nine months with her husband picking out baby names.
If you’re wondering why people assume you’re a misogynist, it comes from silly reasoning like claiming women don’t have to accept “the responsibilities and consequences of simply having sex”. That’s not only tipping your hand, it’s an out-and-out lie. Just like a man, a woman who has sex with a person of the opposite gender risks becoming a parent, with all the legal obligations that entails. (You also seem to think that abortion is not a ‘consequence’.)
The only difference is that women, being the one who physically become pregnant, in some circumstances have the option to terminate the pregnancy.
I don’t see how it really affects her rights.
Please re-read post #31. Again, you are granting men an absolute right that women do not have. Is there an explanation other than misogyny?
Simon: Do you not see that for many women knowing they will have a partner, at least financially, factors into the calculus for an abortion? What you are suggesting is a form of coercion to induce women to get abortions they do not want (i.e. unwillingly submit to an unnecessary medical procedure). Or, alternatively, forcing them to seek illegal late-term abortions when they realize that the father has no intent to support the child.
And when did abortion become “skipping out on the consequences of sex”? I’d say that’s a pretty major fucking consequence of having sex. Fucking assholes.
Yep, Jon. Read Roe again. Nowhere in it is it argued that women should be able to evade parental responsibilites, ergo abortion. It’s based on the right to privacy. There were also equality-based arguments, i.e. that equal protection under the Constitution doesn’t mean that the government can treat basic medical care and bodily autonomy rights as different for men and women.
I’ve lost count of how many times I have heard “an unwanted child should not be brought into the world.”
Whenever someone points out that women can control their reproductive freedom by not having sex, the standard feminist response is that women should not be punished for having sex by facing the “consequences” of being forced to carry a child to term and raise it for 18 years. After all, practically everyone has sex, so it’s silly to think that the exhortation “don’t have sex” will work at all. So it’s fair to give women that choice. The problem is, men have zero legal say in that choice, but it nonetheless has substantial consequences for them. The are, in effect, being punished for having sex. Why is that fair?
What you are suggesting is a coercion to induce men to support children they never wanted.
Simon’s dance is interesting. It’s something like a bullfighter with a red blanket of shifting schemas.
Blog world isn’t up for this kind of discussion. If someone wants to take up the mantle for the MRA, who are about protecting male privilege and all of the justifications that, irrationally, support it. Hence there is only one framework that certain people are willing to work from, that male privilege is of the natural themes of the world. It’s how they percieve the world. Presenting a heterogenous viewpoint to them confuses these people because the landmarks of their consciousness are not present. People disdain what they fear (if not immediately) or do not understand.
Leading to this point, Simon and Jon and their like *have* to insert various rungs of their understanding of male privilege in a framework that doesn’t really accomodate these concepts. Think square peg into round circle (lavisciously, please). It’s pretty simple how to respond to them. Lay out the premise properly the first time, and repeat, repeat, and repeat the main ideas in an unimaginative fashion. The more troll-like of their kind seeks to crystalize a male privilege framework inside of a framework that correspond closely to unified viewpoint of reality. Hence, lots of probes, and lots of what-ifs coming zinging in. Do NOT respond to elaborate what-ifs, just repeat the main idea of the framework you’re operating from…
Simon’s response is pretty pure
What About The Menz?
isn’t it?
Absolute utter bullshit.
Men have the choice to wear a condom, get a vasectomy, or not have sex with a woman. They also have no interference with any medical decisions which may affect their fertility. If a man fathers a child he does not want he may petition the court to sever his parental rights.
A woman may use hormonal or barrier contraception, get a tubal ligation, or not have sex with a man. Unfortunately, their right to make medical decisions which may affect their fertility is interfered with. If a woman births a child she may petition the court to sever her parental rights.
In other words, Simon, he has the exact same rights (and in the case of his medical decisions, more rights) as a woman.
I’ve lost count of how many times I have heard “an unwanted child should not be brought into the world.”
Yes, you’re very fond of non sequiturs. Please explain where the phrase you cite allows women to walk away from their legally-mandated obligations to their children.
the standard feminist response is that women should not be punished for having sex by facing the “consequences” of being forced to carry a child to term and raise it for 18 years
No, the standard feminist response is that withholding abortion or access to contraception to punish women for having sex is misogynistic and wrong. The standard feminist response is that a woman has the right to control her body. I am unaware of any “standard feminist response” that says once a woman gives birth, her obligations to that child are entirely dependent on whether she wants to spend money supporting the kid. Are you?
What you are suggesting is a coercion to induce men to support children they never wanted.
The same coercion applies to women. You refuse to acknowledge this, retreating into misogynistic babble about how abortion is not a consequence of pregnancy, and that responsibility for one’s children is really punishment for having sex.
And I note that for all your insistence that MRAs care about more than money, you yourself limit your complaints to child support.
Hi, Simon! Wandered over from “Stubborn Facts” again, have you? Good deal!
Your question over whether it is “fair” for men to be legally obligated to the children they conceive has already been answered several times, but hey, we’ll just run through this once more. Let’s suppose (and why not?)
that you and I go out on the town one night, get drunk, and sleep together. (Yes, I know we don’t get drunk, and we wouldn’t sleep together even if we were, but let’s imagine for the sake of argument) Now, from moral standpoint we’re equally responsible for any fetus we conceive together, but what are the respective consequences for us?
YOU: Nothing.
ME: Once I’ve sobered up, I’ve got to find a druggist who’ll sell me a morning after pill, because if I don’t, I face morning sickness, exhaustion, and a whole smorgasbord of possible health problems. Plus, my insurance doesn’t cover pregnancy related treatment, so I have to pay for any medical tests and doctor visits out of my own pocket. Now, I have two options;
ME: I could get an abortion, which at best entails struggling through a crowd of shrieking harpies thrusting bloody pictures in my face, more medical expenses, an unpleasant operation, and possible stalking from some of the more deranged “pro lifers”. At worst, (if abortion is outlawed) it means a desparate search, interstate travel, and a dangerous, painful operation which may leave me sterile and could leave me dead.
YOU: Nothing.
Or I could go through with the pregnancy, which means nine months of illness, possible loss of my job, huge medical bills which I will have to pay myself, another smorgasbord of health problems, which will only worsen, and a dangerous, agonizing birth at the end of it, which may cripple or kill me.
YOU: Nothing.
At least, if I decide to give up the kid up for adoption. You don’t have to pay any of my medical bills; not for the morning after pill, or the
abortion, or the pregnancy. Nada, not one thin dime. You don’t have to hold my hand during Lamaze class or drive me to the clinic. If I don’t tell you that I’m pregnant, (or you decide to ignore me) then you don’t have to waste a second’s thought about that wild Saturday night and its possible consequences. You’re sitting in the catbird seat. If I decide to give up the kid for adoption, then all you have to do is sign your name to a contract stating that you give up all rights to the child.
If you decide not to do that, THEN:
ME: I need to raise this kid for the next eighteen years, with all the burdens and joys thereof.
YOU: May pay some financial support, but you run little risk of going to jail if you don’t. But if I send little Simon/Simone to school hungry, I go to jail for child neglect. I doubt the judge is going to sympathize with me if I say “Well, your Honor, I’d like to feed little Simon/Simone, but Simon didn’t send me any money for food, and I’ve lost my job/ can’t find child care/can’t afford it/etc.”
So, tell me again; who’s got the greater burden, even if we share equal responsibility?
BTW, Simon, there’s absolutely no chance some evil womenz is going to rape you so she can steal your sperm and make you pay child support. Isn’t that great?
I’ve sometimes proposed to MRAs that marriage is a requirement for paternity; unwed fathers never have to worry about some strawfeminist sperm-thievery, because they wouldn’t have to pay a dime of child support. Of course, then they’d have no rights to the child either unless they married the mother, but them’s the breaks.
Funnily I can’t get them to drum up much enthusiasm for the idea.
Ah the TT memories, Myth. I too, well remember the deafening silence when I proposed the “no rights/no responsibilities” concept outside of the marriage license. Remember the famous TT discussion that centered on whether women would prefer the right to abortion over the right to cs? When the overwhelming concesus was bodily autonomy, the MRA’s went suddenly “dark.”
Why? MRA’s apparently realized they were arguing for their own unimportance in the lives of their children and very quickly shut the fuck up.
Oh, yes. Wasn’t it on TT that there was the one guy whose soon-to-be ex informed him “You’re not the father of the kids, sorry,” moved out and tried to get both child support and sole custody? HE just wanted his children back; as far as he was concerned he was their daddy. The resident MRAs, of course, were of one voice that it was so unfair that the guy was getting screwed for child support. They couldn’t comprehend that a man would still love and care for children that weren’t biologically “his”.
If I have to give the Family Scholars people credit for that much, it’s that they’re very quick to grasp that Fathers Matter, But Only If They Feel Like It is not a particularly compelling slogan.
Okay, adoption isn’t a simple process in every state. Here in Arizona, a mother can drop a newborn off at any emergency room, or fire or police station and do so anonymously. But I know that there are 49 other states plus DC and Guam and such that have different rules.
I understand child support is for the children. But I do think that since abortion can end a pregnancy (an important right for women, regardless of the reason,) the world will not be much worse off if, before abortion isn’t a viable option, the potential father declares his unwillingness to support the child. He can be labeled a cad and shunned by right-thinking folks everywhere, but I don’t see why this child should be supported by an asshole who doesn’t want to support the child. If a woman has a child without the support of a father, I say that’s her choice. I think the welfare programs should butt out regarding whether or not a father is named, stay the hell out of trying to get people married, and all that other stupid bullshit. Just give some damn money to support the fatherless child, damnit. Trying to fix broken “families” shouldn’t be the government’s job: just keep people off the streets, fed, and schooled. And if the jackass changes his mind and wants to see his child later, then she should have full control over when, how, and under what financial arrangements this will occur until the child is an adult. And she can change her mind, too.
As for the costs associated with pregnancy, that’s biology as destiny. There’s no way of getting around the fact that pregnancy can be a complete bitch to deal with, but I think there is a lot the government should do to fix that. I favor giving tax breaks for the pregnant, paid leave from the government (not from the private sector employers!,) backdating child tax deductions nine months before birth, and many other sorts of ways to reduce the costs of parenting/motherhood. I also favor making the school days as long as work days (vice versa would be nice, but a much harder sell), since that’s the number one reason so many women (and many men) miss hours of work, full employment, and all other sorts of benefits most men take for granted.
Men and women aren’t on an even playing field, won’t be for some time, the government can’t solve it all, the private sector can’t solve it all, and even one sex fighting against the other won’t solve it all. Things are too damn unfair right now.
But I hate thinking that any addition to the rights of men is an affront to the anti-patriarchal feminists. Rights are not a zero-sum game. Taking rights away from men won’t automatically mean women get more. Giving rights to men won’t automatically reduce the rights of women. I have to say that feminist rights such as the right to parental leave have been beneficial to me. And I think “choice for men” (in its less-awful incarnations)could actually strengthen abortion rights. Sure, the devil is in the details. But I think saying “the patriarchy is the problem!” is a sort of Godwinesque conversation-ender for too many times I try to address issues here.
And Roe v. Wade isn’t the alpha and omega for why abortion is a right. If it was, we’d be screwed. The right to abortion is in subsequent Supreme Court cases, precedents in Ninth Amendment law, and other places even outside Federal law (some state legislatures have actually legalized it, others–such as Arizona–still have laws on the books banning the procedure.) Reading Roe is informative, but it doesn’t fully enumerate the reasons behind the right. And it can’t.
Additions to the rights of men is not an issue if it’s not an attack on women and children. But giving men a special right to neglect their children is in fact going to hurt women and children. So your “extra rights for men” thing—rights that you would have denied to women, mind you—is not something feminists object to out of meany-headedness. We object to giving men the special right to hurt women and children. Giving someone the right to neglect their children is unfair to children, full stop.
Blue Jean: “there’s absolutely no chance some evil womenz is going to rape you so she can steal your sperm and make you pay child support. Isn’t that great?”
There was a curious child of Boris Becker (yes, the tennis player.) The mother (not Mrs. Becker) gave Mr. Becker a blowjob in a restaurant broom closet (German tennis players don’t go for walks on the beach or to drive-ins and stuff, I guess), then transferred the ejaculate into her hand, then to her vagina, and voila! (I don’t know the German for that) a child was born! The German court which heard the mother’s testimony ruled that he had to support the child, which is kind of funny as long as your name isn’t Boris Becker.
Get a vasectomy, Simon. It’s so simple I thought I could have done it myself. And you won’t have to worry about restaurant broom closet blowjobs leading to financial ruin.
I’ve lost count of how many times I have heard “an unwanted child should not be brought into the world.”
In the rhetoric around it, sure, but you’ll be stuck finding that in a single legal argument.
Plus, the unwanted child argument that you’re sticking to is a perfect argument for why men who don’t want children should be invested in contraception.
That’s what I don’t get—it’s not like the fact that women have a set of birth control options (pill, diaphram, abortion) means that men are optionless. Men have condoms and vasectomies. Yes, a lot of men think so little of women’s lives and health that they don’t even stop to discuss contraception and abortion with their female sex partners, and then are shocked to find out that said partners have different opinions than them after a conception occurs. If you MRAs are so damn worried about this happening, you need to quit hating women. Seriously—I know it repulses you to talk about and consider the opinions of the brain attached to the pussy, but if you actually bothered to talk to women about abortion before you fuck them, you might have better information about what will happen if she gets pregnant.
But no, the right to abortion is based on women’s autonomy, something MRAs keep forgetting women have.
Amanda, does the father then have to take time to raise the children? Without that, isn’t it neglect? Some would say so. So should the court order an unwilling parent to spend time with children? Is it unfair otherwise?
If I don’t spend time with my children, it is neglect. If I don’t support my children, it is neglect. No court is going to order me to spend time with my children if I express a desire never to see them again. But a court will require me to support them financially. And that’s a good thing, because they are already born! I don’t think potential children should automatically have the same rights. Am I utterly evil and anti-woman and anti-child to think so? I’m willing to entertain that, but I think putting a legal difference between children and potential children is one that comes in quite handy when I suggest that the right to abortion trumps the right to not be killed. Lesser rights for the unborn is something I’m all in favor of, whether the consequence is a life without a father’s support or a life that isn’t.
Re: Jon, Simon, et. al.
Here we go again.
“Wah! Wah! Life isn’t fair! Men can’t magically undo a pregnancy! Therefore, women shouldn’t be able to have abortions and/or men shouldn’t have to pay child support! Wah! Wah!”
Look here, simpletons:
Men and women have the exact same rights when it comes to contraception and pregnancy. The exact fucking same. Simon, who I assume is a man, and I, as a woman, have the following right in any just and healthy society:
The right to bodily autonomy, and therefore the right to subject your body to any form of birth control you so please.
The fact that some birth control options, such as abortion, may not be biologically feasible for preventing men from having children is not anyone’s fault. No one is stopping you from getting all of the abortions you want, all day long. Hell, get fifteen of the damn things if you so please. But, of course, you’re gonna have to get pregnant first.
Fact: You have the right to abortion. The fact that you probably won’t be ever having an abortion is something you need to bring up with Mother Nature, your god or whomever else you can think of to blame for the fact that you don’t have a damn uterus, not women or feminists or lawmakers.
Listen, I get it: You think it’s a tragedy of epic proportions that women have an extra nine months to exercise their right to birth control, and men don’t. Well, if you’d like to complain about how life and the reproductive system aren’t fair, get in line behind all of the world’s women. We’d like to complain that, if we do want to breed, we have to be pregnant for nine months, culminating in a painful and messy birth process that alters our bodies forever. All men have to do is bust a nut. Now that isn’t fair.
Here in Arizona, a mother can drop a newborn off at any emergency room, or fire or police station and do so anonymously.
Men can do that too. Of course, if the mom finds out, automatic custody goes to the mother. The same goes for fathers in the case of moms dropping their kids off.
I’d suggest the following:
To a would-be father who wants to walk away from all responsibilities.
Ok. But you have to get a temporary vasectomy for the next ten years. (I think medical science could come up with this pretty easily.) You want to have the freedome to walk away from the responsibilities of certain actions, we’re going to make damn sure your actions don’t impose a burden on society.
Or in other words: get snipped until you grow the f*ck up.
Amanda, I hate to be a pain, but will you please fish my first post out of moderation?
tzs,
I think that sounds absolutely reasonable. I was thinking the guy would be called a cad, get known for it, and hopefully get avoided by most if not all women. But I think your suggestion is better in many ways. Not likely to get anywhere, unfortunately, but I support it.
There was a curious child of Boris Becker (yes, the tennis player.)
Actually, jon, there was a very ordinary child of Boris Becker, the tennis player. The “bitch stole my sperm” argument was Becker’s claim during the paternity suit–he also suggested the Russian mafia put the young lady up to it–but he finally admitted that he’d had sex with the child’s mother after his then-wife, seven months pregnant, went to the hospital with what she thought was early labor.
Amanda, does the father then have to take time to raise the children? Without that, isn’t it neglect? Some would say so. So should the court order an unwilling parent to spend time with children? Is it unfair otherwise?
OH Good Heavens…out of the mouths of babes…
“Does the mother then have to take the time to raise the children?” Why yes, and her marital status has little to do with this. And maybe Dad makes arrangements.
“Without that…isn’t it neglect?” Well probably, unless Dad fills in…
“So should the court order an unwilling parent to spend time with children? Is it unfair otherwise.”
You do realize that you are arguing for paternal irrelevence in the the lives of their own children, which is fine, just as long as you DO realize you are arguing for paternal irrelevance.
Myth, I seem to remember a subdiscussion where Dad turned out to be bio-Dad in one of three, and won in court…children born within the marriage were HIS kids…
That one?
Ahunt,
I am arguing for parental, not necessarily just “paternal”, irrelevance. If a parent doesn’t want to be a parent, irrelevance is the best status for him or her. Keep the uninterested as far away from the children as possible, please. Parenting is hard enough when you really really want to do it.
And I say this as someone who gave the state custody of one of my children. And she was fourteen at the time. It’s a shitty thing to do, but my wife and I did it after too many years of trying to make things work. We took steps to ensure that she was as safe as could be under the circumstances, but we still did it knowing we would never again have any actual control. And we’d do it again tomorrow if under the same circumstances.
LOL! Yeah, and there’s the story about the Civil War girl who was standing on her front porch when a battle was going on, and a stray bullet zinged through a soldier’s testicles, then wounded her in the stomach, and nine months later, their baby was born! That’s pretty funny too, and like the Becker story, it isn’t true.
I’m still wondering how a man (a tennis pro, at that) was knocked out by a woman, dragged to the closet, and forced to undergo a blow job. Didn’t anybody in the resturant come to his rescue? Or did they just keep eating and ask for more wine?
And what about her? Did she check the calendar and say “Oops! it’s my fertile day; time to go rape a rich man so I can get child support!” How did she get the semen from her mouth to her vagina anyway? Did she carry a turkey baster in her purse, just for such emergencies? Or did she keep her mouth shut and refuse to swallow until she got home?
In any case, Becker’s story is a bit more probable than the Civil War story. But not much.
If a parent doesn’t want to be a parent, irrelevance is the best status for him or her.
And it’s just a coincidence that said irrelevance also comes with a complete absence of responsibility.
jon, I’m sorry for the circumstances that led to your giving up your child, but that’s really not much of an argument for letting fathers unilaterally walk away from their obligations to a child because, like, they’d rather not. This is about what’s best for the child, after all. I don’t think “Mommy left all of your financial obligation on Daddy because Mommy had better things to do” is the best status for anyone.
Blue Jean - Becker subsequently admitted the sperm-theft story was bullshit. Didn’t keep the MRAs from passing it around as truth. It’s their version of the microwaved poodle tale.
(A., I don’t remember, but it’s probably the case that the mother could not successfully challenge his paternity. I just remember being heartbroken for the guy because he missed his children so desperately, he didn’t care about paternity or whatever, he just wanted his babies back–and all the resident MRAs were in his face about, like, whoa dude, sucks that you have to pay MONEY and they’re not even YOURS.)
And I say this as someone who gave the state custody of one of my children. And she was fourteen at the time. It’s a shitty thing to do, but my wife and I did it after too many years of trying to make things work. We took steps to ensure that she was as safe as could be under the circumstances, but we still did it knowing we would never again have any actual control. And we’d do it again tomorrow if under the same circumstances
I’m truly sorry…your circumstances must have been a nightmare, and so I will not pursue the issue, except to say that as an MRA, you cannot argue for the importance of fathers while simultaneously insisting that fathers are irrelevent if fathers do not wish to act as fathers..
Fourteen years later, you and your wife apparently needed the help of the state. Your circumstances are not equivalent to the fundamental question of whether fathers, as an overriding rule of public policy, are necessary in the lives of their children. Yes, no, maybe?
Yeah, Mythago, you’re right; the Becker story is total BS, but I felt sorry for Jon, and I thought I’d let him down easy. Some day, when he’s ready for it, I’ll tell him there’s no Santa either.
Gee, Simon, are you stupid or blind? Men use condoms 20% of the time. Women have a far higher use of BC. You’re be a moron to say that to a woman because she’s already using BC. BC methods are aimed at women because most men can’t be arsed to have the slightest consideration for their partners. Fucking tool.
I could waste time with you, but anybody who wants men to fuck without BC is three seconds of my life I won’t get back. Then again, I bet you hear that a lot.
Sorry about the Becker nonsense. I had heard about that years ago and didn’t check to see if it was true or not. When trying snopes and other sources I did see a similar tale, so my (joking) advice to Simon was (half-heartedly) still valid. And sperm can swim, baby! It doesn’t require a turkey baster, though that certainly improves the odds.
And Blue Jean, I know there’s no Santa. That’s a made up Americanization of the real guy. He’s the former Bishop of Turkey and he has numerous black “friends” and either beats you with a stick or leaves candy in your shoes. Everybody knows that, duh! Read your David Sedaris if you don’t believe me.
Tim, that’s a deceptive little shell game, there. The word “secretary” has fallen out of use as a job title for the women who do it a lot, being reserved often only for those who are at the top of the heap. Most secretaries I know now are called administrative assistants, and their salaries are more about $21,000 a year.
But nice attempt to oppress women with lies.
What makes me see red about MRAs who whine about the urban myth of “sperm stealing” is this:
THERE ARE NO REALISTIC ATTEMPTS TO PREVENT MEN FROM USING BIRTH CONTROL BY LEGAL FORCE.
Whining that you don’t wanna and that makes you a victim is repugnant when women are in a situation where there’s a very real chance of not being ALLOWED to.
Now, I won’t lie. Anti-choicers don’t like condoms, either, but if you poke them hard enough, they’ll tend to reveal that they think condoms are a nefarious “labial mind” plot to emasculate men. But the vast majority of their activism is aimed strictly at banning and otherwise restricting access to forms of birth control used by women, namely hormonal BC and abortion. There’s no nationwide group of clerks seeking legal ways to avoid selling condoms, but there is one of pharmacists trying to weasel out of selling pills and emergency contraception.
Literally, the “women trying to trap men into pregnancy” is pure, unadulterated projection. There’s a powerful political lobby that has the President’s ear and now 5 out of 4 SCOTUS justices that is all about trapping women into pregnancy.
My theory: MRAs want to preserve the patriarchy and of course, the best way to oppress someone is to keep them from naming their oppression so they can fight it. Thus, the need to deny the patriarchy. And how they deny it is seek the ways that it pushes itself on women: violence against women, mandatory pregnancy, the use of pregnancy and marriage to financially damage women (men see their income rise upon marriage on average, women see it fall on average), the economic devastation of divorce (divorced men usually have a lot more money than their ex-wives, and certainly she’s doing worse than if she’d never married at all on average), etc.
And then they claim that it’s all really happening to men. There’s even some weak attempts to make it sound like rape goes both ways, but that defies the common sense of all but your most brain dead of misogynists.
I don’t think but a few people on any side of the issue think that women are actually doing better than men, that misogyny isn’t rampant. None one really believes that there’s an attempt to stop men from using condoms on the level that there’s an attempt to stop women from using abortion, birth control pills, and emergency contraception. MRAs know they’ll not change reality, but what they hope to do is disrupt the conversation enough to get people off track.
It’s like the way the Bush administration started playing hot potato with the word “torture”. Today it’s “abuse” or “advanced interrogation” or some other euphemism that doesn’t do shit to hide what’s going on—they didn’t want it to be hidden, anyway, since their base loves the idea of torturing Muslims. It was about sowing enough confusion that their political opposition didn’t know what to do.
Same with MRAs—they know, we know that there’s not a mass movement of women beating men or stealing sperm. We know that it’s wrong to reclassify “kicking someone off you as he rapes you” as “unprovoked violence” to throw women in jail for being victims. We know that sitcom dads are not a feminist plot to make men look stupid.
The idea behind these ideas is that MRAs will fling shit against the wall, create confusion, and then use their male privilege to roll back women’s rights while feminists scramble. Which is why it’s important to focus like lasers on what they do. Do they have any policy proposals that are about helping men—BUT NOT at the expense of women and children?
No. Just as anti-choicers don’t have policy ideas to reduce abortion, just ideas that will cause women misery, we can judge them as just anti-woman and not really anti-abortion. MRAs are not pro-man, they’re anti-woman and, at best, pro-male privilege. But male privilege is not really pro-man, except on the cheapest level. Most men don’t do well in the patriarchy, either, since part of it is this winner-takes-all competition between men.
So we can’t even say MRAs are pro-man in any real sense. Just anti-woman. They’re willing to let some other guy piss on their head as long as they get to keep kicking a woman.
Amanda, does the father then have to take time to raise the children? Without that, isn’t it neglect? Some would say so. So should the court order an unwilling parent to spend time with children? Is it unfair otherwise?
Huh, you can’t answer the question about clothes and place to sleep, so now you’re going to start dodging. Nice.
Answer: No one said it was about reaching an ideal. Just a minimum. You do know the difference, right? The government doesn’t have the power to make every parent perfect. And men who are evil assholes who mistreat their children are better off out of their lives.
But we’re talking about child support. You make it sound like the kids need shoes less somehow because daddy doesn’t want to come over and play Barbies with them. Incorrect.
I mean, you can’t actually think that kids don’t want financial support even if they can’t get emotional support. Read this. And quit grasping at straws. It’s very unbecoming, makes people wonder at your damage.
I guess in the MRA world, there are roving gangs of desperate females (probably lesbians) who prowl the earth looking for innocent men to steal sperm from in order to control those men for the rest of their miserable lives.
The line separating fact from fantasy seems very thin and blurred in the MRA world.
“It’s my sperm, goddammit, and I own and control it and everything it touches/impregnates, the vessel not withstanding.”
…gets combined in some weird way with:
“I couldn’t help it! She threatened me with her vagina dantata, while controlling my brain with her vagina mentata, and forced me to take off the condom and hand over the sperm just so she can win the ‘child support lottery’ and eat bonbons on the couch while watching Oprah and movies on Lifetime for the rest of her life.”
MRA’s: Just as stupid as libertarian wingnuts and even more useless…
Life isn’t fair. Women have more birth control choices than men do. Men need more choices; men need a safe, reliable and effective oral contraceptive. I have in fact begun asking for one. Birth control choices for men currently are:
a. Use a condom
b. Abstain
c. Leave it up to the woman
These are ALL bad choices for men. Men need to take more responsibility for birth control, and would do so if they had better choices. Condom use makes sex a lot less pleasurable for men. The difference is astounding. Unless of course you believe that sexual pleasure for men isn’t relevant. Vasectomy is NOT a viable option for young men, as it is permanent; the reversal procedure is unreliable and quite expensive. Maybe men could make the taxpayers pay for that?
Note to women: The very same earth-shaking that occurred with the introduction and wide acceptance of the female oral contraceptive will occur with the introduction and wide acceptance of the male oral contraceptive. The phrase “Choice for Men” will take on a whole new meaning. I lived through the 60’s and saw the former occur firsthand. I will also live to see the latter. I act to hasten that day.
Life isn’t fair. Women have more consequences from pregnancy than men. Some of you seem to resent it; to those I have nothing to offer. Some of you here argue essentially that this gives women more right to make decisions about pregnancy. Her body, her choice. Fine, I agree in principle.
Life isn’t fair; sexual pleasure causes pregnancy. That is a design feature. Get over it.
Life isn’t fair; pregnancy causes parenthood. This is either a blessing, if the “baby” is wanted, or it is a curse, if the “fetus” is not wanted. This decision takes place in the mind of the woman. She decides, blessing or curse. “Relational ethics” makes the distinction possible. Her body, her choice. The choice is situational for women; she is expected to rationally choose between motherhood, something I suspect most women want, and her current life situation whatever it may be. I do not envy her the choice. But that lack of envy does not translate into automatic willingness to give her control over my destiny.
We are in a historic transition. That thing you call “patriarchy” had a set of rules for men and women both, and those rules included not having sex outside of wedlock, the “lock” part being operative. The introduction of oral contraception and abortion-on-demand apparently introduced some societal expectation of consequence-free sexual activity for all. Pleasure without consequences: who wouldn’t want that? The old rules got thrown away, and the new rules aren’t in place yet. When a man and a woman hook up, NEITHER are thinking about consequences. NEITHER are thinking about responsibility; if they were, they wouldn’t be hooking up. Would they?
Side note: Rape-induced pregnancy is another matter entirely, but it is one which should not be allowed to dominate any discussion of sexual activity or reproductive rights, since rape is about neither sex nor reproduction.
Returning to the main discussion. Since the new rules are not yet worked out we are left with this deplorable state of arguing about responsibility. Clearly anyone participating in mutually consented sexual activity is equally responsible for its consequences. Along with equal responsibilities come equal rights.
Men do in fact want to be fathers. But like women, we want the ability to choose it. And like women, MOST of the time we want the ability to NOT choose it. And we want that choice to be something WE can make, and not have it made for us by someone else. No man here is arguing for the right to force any woman to bear a child. What I argue for is an equal legal voice for men in the birthing / responsibility decision, as well as equal responsibility for birth control and an equal responsibility / right for caring for the child if it is in fact allowed to be born. Many of you argue that a man’s right to participate ends when he “gives a gift of semen to the woman.” If that is the case, then the man’s responsibility should end there as well.
Do men have a human right to reproduce? Or is this a right that only women have? Do men have a right to be parents? Or is this a right that only women have? If men in fact have these rights, how do they exercise them? Be careful how you answer. And please try to avoid using gender-warrior terminology in your replies, as in my view it detracts greatly from the veracity of your arguments. I know you were all taught in women’s studies that men will shrink away in shame when you throw your power words at us (MISOGYNIST!!! BATTERER!!!). I shouldn’t have to state plainly that I AM NEITHER, but there is some presumption among feminists that all men who don’t automatically agree with their hegemony are exactly that. But that doesn’t work anymore, and I know you find that troubling. Anyway, try using facts and reason instead.
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NotNOW: your belief that condoms decrease sexual pleasure to the point that it’s not worth doing it says more about your lack of skills as a lover than about condoms. Full stop. Men who know how to fuck don’t get perturbed by the condom.
As for your insane anger that you don’t get a complaint fembot to reproduce for you as you wish, think about this: If you thought of women as human beings instead of warm receptacles that get on your nerves by insisting on using a condom and forcing you to touch them for more than 3 seconds to get off, maybe someone would eventually like you enough to volunteer to have children with you.
But as it is, the fact that you’re repulsed by having to touch a woman for any time longer than the bare minimum to get off—which is what you’re talking about with the condoms, let’s be blunt—you’re probably a miserable lover and companion and it’s no wonder no one will have you.
Believe it or not, some men enjoy touching and making love to women, as opposed to jumping on, thrusting twice and escaping. If the whole process of love-making appeals to you, condoms are generally no big deal.
Also, your bizarre belief that feminists are the ones that are blocking a birth control pill for men…
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Fuck man, how stupid can you be? Feminists have been begging for this pill to be invented, absolutely begging. Big Pharma is your villain here, and guess who runs Big Pharma? Hint: Not women.
Also, if you dislike it when people call you a batterer, perhaps you could help the situation by, I dunno, not battering women? It’s a solution that lacks nuance, but has a certain elegant simplicity to it.
Amanda, where did I make any of the statements you just attributed to me? I never said condoms decrease pleasure to the point where sex is not worth doing. I merely said that condoms decrease pleasure for men.
I never said, nor implied, that feminists were to blame for the lack of a male oral contraceptive. Men are in fact to blame for that, because we have not yet effectively demanded one.
Where did I say or imply that I was repulsed by having to touch a woman? Where did I say that I wanted “some compliant fembot to reproduce for me as I wish”? I merely asked whether men have a human right to reproduce. I never said anything about forcing anyone to reproduce with me. I merely asked how men were to exercise a right to reproduce if such a right existed. The correct answer of course is to marry someone, commit yourself to them, and have a reasonable expectation that they have committed to you, and then agree to jointly support each other and support and raise children. I really didn’t think it was a hard question.
What does your personal attack on me do to answer any of the questions I have posed? By calling me a batterer you prove my point that in your mind, any man who does not agree with your feminist position must be a batterer. Is that the best you can do?
Can you answer my questions without merely attacking me personally? Or will you refuse to post this, or delete my account?
Well, Not, if you genuinely don’t like having sex while you’re wearing a condom, AND you don’t want the risk of having a mere woman decide your glorious destiny (never mind that just about every civilization for most of human history has had men in charge of every woman’s destiny) then you have a third option; you can always go see Ms. Hand and her five daughters. You don’t need to wear a condom, you won’t complain about lack of sensation, she won’t make you sleep in the wet spot, and best of all, she won’t trouble you with her petty needs and conversation.
Or you can go back to the lab and invent that male pill. If you do, we will all applaud you and love you and you will make millions of dollars. Deal?
NotNOW: Condom use makes sex a lot less pleasurable for men.
Then I would say that you need to think up more imaginative ways of having sex. I mean you personally, because other men have said they enjoy having intercourse with a condom, so while I believe you when you say that wearing a condom cuts down on the pleasurable effect of intercourse for you, that would seem to me to suggest that you avoid intercourse and use other means of pleasuring your partner and having your partner pleasure you. (If your partner enjoys intercourse with you, then you can concentrate on her pleasure while having intercourse, and ask her to give you pleasure in other ways either before or after.)
Limiting yourself to intercourse-with-a-condom, and then complaining that this cuts down on your pleasure, is a bad choice. But it’s far from being your only choice. Use your imagination: it’s the best friend you have.
“Well, Not, if you genuinely don’t like having sex while you’re wearing a condom, AND you don’t want the risk of having a mere woman decide your glorious destiny (never mind that just about every civilization for most of human history has had men in charge of every woman’s destiny) then you have a third option; you can always go see Ms. Hand and her five daughters. You don’t need to wear a condom, you won’t complain about lack of sensation, she won’t make you sleep in the wet spot, and best of all, she won’t trouble you with her petty needs and conversation.”
I didn’t say I didn’t enjoy it, I said it was less pleasurable. And while men do enjoy sex while using a condom, it is more pleasurable without one. You characterized women as “mere”, I did not. I never said anything about a woman’s needs or conversation being petty, you did. Your lack of self-esteem is not my problem. Projecting it onto me might make you feel better, but it doesn’t add anything to the conversation.
I am not a research chemist. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting, and asking for, a male pill.
Please enlighten me, what are your thoughts on men’s rights to parent, or on men’s rights to reproduce? Do men have these rights? You all now know what I think. What do YOU think?
Those who want more birth control options for men can go to
http://www.malecontraceptives.org/
Especially make sure to take the survey at
http://www.malecontraceptives.org/new_activism.php
to prove there is demand for male contraceptives.
Those who want better male contraceptives should take the survey at
http://www.malecontraceptives.org/new_activism.php
to prove there is demand for such products.
Look, NotNow, Jon, Simon, etc.–
Biology is not fair. Once a child is born, that child needs food, shelter, care, and so on. Since society obviously isn’t up for taking this on–witness the continual shooting down of every single proposal, both federal and state, that would provide funds for those purposes–that leaves the parents. And both parents have a responsibility to any born children that they have. Period.
However, being the incubators, women have a bit of extra time to decide whether or not we want to actually let a child/fetus/whatever you want to call it (goddamned parasite was my favorite when I was pregnant) to live inside our bodies for the time it takes to make it into a person. Again, that’s just biology, and if I could change it so that men were the incubators, believe me, I definitely would. Because pregnancy is no picnic.
Now, a lot of women will factor in whether or not they want to actually be parents into this choice of being pregnant, because that’s human nature and a rational person will use all the information available to make a rational choice. But again, take that up with biology if you have a problem with it. Because once the child is born, BOTH parents have the responsibility for caring for it–either by actually raising it, putting it up for adoption, paying child support, whatever. Nobody is going to actually make you ‘parent’ your biological child, but the law will make you buy it new shoes and help to provide a minimum standard of living. And if you have a problem with that, then start agitating for a society that actually values children and will help to foot the cost of raising them.
Not, I hate to break it to you, but even with male contraceptive pills a condom will be your best friend. STDs are out there and are real and condoms are your best defense.
Of course, what a male contraceptive pill will do is provide yet another “fail-safe” in pregnancy prevention. What do you think the rates of pregnancy will be with both partners on a pill and a condom in use? What are the chances that all 3 will fail at the same time (especially given that there’s only a 5 day window each cycle where a woman can conceive)?
Good heavens, you can’t even hear your own obtuse arrogance, just like you don’t understand my mockery of it. Men have had aurtomatic control over women’s destinies for milleneia, yet the thought of a woman having control over a man’s destiny is suddenly a huge injustice to you. The mother of your possible child doesn’t have authomatic control over your destiny; at best, she will control part of your paycheck. You, on the other hand, by refusing to wear a condom, get to force her to an abortion, nine months of pregnancy, an agonizing birth, lots of health problems, possible death, and the rest of her lifetime raising the child you’re both responsible for.
In other words, YOU have a lot more control over HER destiny than she will ever has or ever will over yours. So quit your obnoxious whining and dodging with “I never said that!” and act like an adult.
Let me make it clear in terms that even you can understand; you have the right to have sex with whichever adult will consent to have sex with you. You have the right to father a child if that’s what you want. You do NOT have the right to run out, leaving your child alone in the world because you just don’t feel like paying anything.
And before you start whimpering “But women get dodge their responsibity by having abortions!”, refer to the rest of the thread. If men ever had to undergo anything as unpleasant as an abortion, you’d have your male pill. If it’s really important to you, go lobby Big Pharma, and quit wasting everybody’s time with your bad faith arguments.
I merely asked whether men have a human right to reproduce.
Absent a willing woman…of course not.
What I argue for is an equal legal voice for men in the birthing / responsibility decision, as well as equal responsibility for birth control and an equal responsibility / right for caring for the child if it is in fact allowed to be born. Many of you argue that a man’s right to participate ends when he “gives a gift of semen to the woman.” If that is the case, then the man’s responsibility should end there as well.
Uhm no, men don’t not have an equal voice in the birthing decision. And some of us are arguing for unmarried men having neither rights nor responsibilities unless he “opts-in” saaaay, by the middle of the second trimester. No “opt-in,” no rights and no responsibilities. Work for you?
“Biology is not fair. Once a child is born, that child needs food, shelter, care, and so on. Since society obviously isn’t up for taking this on–witness the continual shooting down of every single proposal, both federal and state, that would provide funds for those purposes–that leaves the parents. And both parents have a responsibility to any born children that they have. Period.”
I agree completely. I never said anything different. Furnish a quote where I did? I want to ask, though, what “rights” do men have to parent? We are all over the responsibilities, what about the rights? Do men have the RIGHT to parent our children? This is not merely a rhetorical question. A straight answer would be appreciated.
“However, being the incubators, women have a bit of extra time to decide whether or not we want to actually let a child/fetus/whatever you want to call it (goddamned parasite was my favorite when I was pregnant) to live inside our bodies for the time it takes to make it into a person. Again, that’s just biology, and if I could change it so that men were the incubators, believe me, I definitely would. Because pregnancy is no picnic.”
If you want to change your own biology, that is not any man’s fault. Do you mean to say you wish you were a man? But more to the point, why cannot men participate in this decision during this extra time available? Why is this uniquely