UNICEF’s photo of the year:
No, not a father and daughter as you would assume. This picture, taken in Afghanistan, is of a couple on their wedding day. The child bride is 11.
Upon discovering that Jamie Lynn “How’d that happen?” Spears has been dating her boyfriend that got her pregnant since she was 13 and he was 16, Mommagrrl asked:
So, they started dating when she was 13? I wasn’t allowed out with a boy when I was 13. Am I naive? Isn’t 13 really young for dating?
I wouldn’t say that it is absolutely, but it’s certainly too young to be dating outside of your immediate age group.
But I bring these examples up to illustrate a simple point for Feminism Friday: In a patriarchy, women are basically treated like minors and thus the distinction between “adult” and “child” is not a matter of maturity, but of whether or not you’ve been moved from the ownership of your father to the ownership of your husband/lover. In both these examples, you have heavily patriarchal religions that make it easy to deny women the gradual maturity that men have. Either you’re a virgin child or a breeding adult, but the idea that maturity is a mental state is denied women. Because only our bodies count, not our minds.
68 Responses to “Is she an adult? Check her pants.”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Kaching!
I am so fucking sick and tired of people trotting out culturally relativist arguments to justify treating women’s and girls’ bodies as either currency (”building ties” or whatever) or property.
Sorry, I can’t go there. This is vile.
The most common form of you’ve-got-to-be-kidding cultural relativism I see is on the right, and all the pretending from conservative elites that the overt religiosity and violent patriarchy in the Southern Baptist fundie set isn’t fucked up three ways to Sunday, when it so very clearly is. Like make fun of the quiverfull freak shows, and who’s gonna come out of the woodwork with cultural relativist arguments that read like parodies of the academic left? A bunch of Republicans who need the crazies for the votes.
Of course, when I’m accused of moral relativism, it’s usually because I’m actually engaging in cultural hyper-fairness. Like, “Okay, this violent patriarchy is bad, but let’s not Other them and pretend that we don’t also harbor our own version here.”
My future mother-in-law asked me if my father was walking me down the aisle. I was 27 and had been living with her son for almost 4 years- we decided to have a small ceremony in our favorite restaurant instead of the big church/dress/trappings scene she so wanted. So I told her our plans and that no, my dad wasn’t “giving me away”. (Hell, he didn’t even attend!!)
Her response? She snarled, “If you’re so BRAZEN as to walk yourself down the aisle to your future husband by yourself, honey, good luck to you!!”
Charlie and I have damned little to do with his family…
It’s been interesting to see the response to the latest Spears “scandal” play out in the media; Nickelodeon is considering a teen pregnancy special with Linda Ellerbee and NBC’s Today Show did a segment about “how to tell your child” about Jaime Lynn’s pregnancy.
Our 12 year old heard the news with us, turned and said indignantly, “If she was going to have sex, why wasn’t she smart enough to go on birth control pills FIRST?”
MY KID ROCKS OUT LOUD.
So, which is worse, an Afghan pedo or K-Fed?
Sirk:
That probably depends on whether you’re judging them against their own cultural contexts, or against each other.
In a fight, I’d take the Afghan pedo.
*** SPOILER ***
Ugh, that picture gives me nasty flashbacks to the ending of Osama.
Oh, wait, I forgot, no one in the Middle East or Afghanistan is horrified by how women are treated there, so the film must not really exist. My bad.
I would say rather, that in a patriarchy minors and women are both treated as property, but that doesn’t really dispute your point.
Meh. In a few days I plunge deep in patriarchy with the obligatory holiday festivals. It makes me feel so schizophrenic to see people who are in all other respects relatively smart mouth off the kind of sexist, racist, talk-radio bs that I’m bound to hear. I’ve seen them be very loving and kind, but it’s usually when they forget briefly to toe the patriarchal line. It’s crazy-making. I love them, but I am going to have to ignore a lot of stupid.
Not like Jamie Lynn Hoohaw couldn’t, you know, want to have sex …
Who knows, she may have actually wanted a baby! Unlike most teenage moms, it isn’t as if she lacks access to the material resources to care for her child.
Otherwise, we simply can’t pretend that this whole fiasco isn’t a direct result of a lack of understanding of birth control fostered by an intentional embargo of understanding of human sexuality.
I think it is a victory that my 12 year old reacted to this with a resoundingly disgusted “that’s what happens when you don’t use condoms”. I told him “hold that thought”.
This is one of the most insightful observations you have made in the time I have been reading your “magazine.” (zine? blogizine? weblog? okay fine we will call it a blog)
You are absolutely right and it is the perfect example of how a patriarch exerts ownership not only over the women in his realm but the men as well.
Poor kid.
These little girls are being sold into slavery. That’s the name for it. On another thread some posters are trying to use the “well it’s their culture” argument. But how about the “would you like this to happen to you or your daughter” argument? Or the poverty stinks argument?
The “it’s their culture” argument works well as long as you are trying to justify something you want to be true in our own culture. Beheadings? That’s uncivilized. Suicide bombings? Uncivilized. Treating your daughter like property? Well, you know… that’s just “tradition.”
For the record, I’m against all of them.
“The “it’s their culture” argument works well as long as you are trying to justify something you want to be true in our own culture.”
Some men are embracing examples of how to live from other cultures. Patirarchy is rearing its ugly head right here in the good ol USA. Its not as overt as in other nations but the notion (albeit false) that men have been emasculated is quitely spreading into the mainstream male population. Some have even taken the backlash to extremes as expressed in the rant below.
You need to hit the link to see the photos that remind me of how real this actually is.
______________________________________________
http://www.online-dating-rights.com/forum/index.php?topic=1274.0
Breeding a brave new world
American men can make a difference for themselves and the next generation. Practice self-genocide and honor the marriage strike at home and stop the transfer of wealth to American women. Earn locally. Then marry and breed globally.
From the special moderation queue:
Because I thought I’d share the “boil the computer” love.
I wonder if guys like that realize their darling child brides of their fantasies would soon become old enough to menstruate and therefore lose that pedophilia bait allure.
Oh yes, we must not forget “the tons and tons of complications and crap”. I know I find my life complicated by those little things like living to our 12th birthday, not dying in childbirth or becoming infertile due to the diseases papa/husband may be carrying or because of a botched early pregnancy. I may be unaware of the allure of being wedded and bedded before my first period but I can definitely see how a man who considers children to be little more than kleenex may be enamoured of the idea.
“the tons and tons of complications and crap”
Like, women are humans and equal citizens, as opposed to women are property to be sold, traded, and used however you please.
Nothing wrong with getting married at 11?
How about obstetric fistula? Don’t Google this if you don’t have a strong stomach.
Obstetric fistula can occur when extremely young girls (with the narrow pelvis typical for their age) attempt to give birth and suffer severe injuries during the process.
“Prevention comes in the form of access to obstetrical care, support from trained healthcare professionals throughout pregnancy, providing access to family planning, promoting the practice of spacing between births, and supporting women in education and POSTPONING EARLY MARRIAGE.”
Let’s see…are girls in countries/areas where early marriage is typical going to have access to family planning, birth control to space or postpone pregnancy, or educational support? Probably not so much.
the tons and tons of complications
Oh yeah, doesn’t it suck that those whiny creatures with the nasty playdoh and bacon bits think they ought to have rights, too? How dare they want to do things like learn and not have to suffer the emotional and physical trauma of early marriage, down-there sewn up, or early childbirth? Who do they think they are? Men?
/sarcasm and excuse me while I go find some salt to scrub with…
Amanda,
is there someplace that you can report comments like that? I can see if you don’t want to, but I think it’s at least arguably the right thing to do– someone with paedophiliac tendencies who is at that level of self-justifying delusion is potentially a very dangerous person.
Forgive me if I’ve missed something, but I fail to see the connection between child sex slavery and Britney Spears’ little sister riding some older teenage cock. How exactly can the latter situation be read as Spears’ boyfriend “owning” her? As far as I know, we have no information suggesting coercion or ownership; he simply appears to be a sperm donor. By implying there is some sort of connection here, aren’t you infantilizing Spears (which is ostensibly what this entry is against)?
Random idiot: there is nothing wrong with getting married at 11 years old. this is especially true in a culture that does not have the tons and tons of complications and crap like the american culture does. you people are so blind!!!
Amanda: Because I thought I’d share the “boil the computer” love.
Let’s see.
A little research shows females as young as 13 (and males as young as 14) can be married in New Hampshire. 14 in North Carolina. 14 and 16 in South Carolina, These have judicial restrictions.
Fact sheet on child marriage: http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2005/presskit/factsheets/facts_child_marriage.htm
The wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age
- note Ethopia, South Africa, Tanzania, Brunei, Yemen(!),
I don’t have a copy of Postman on me, but IIRC, comparably young marriages were legal in Europe for much of teh Middle Ages (although the average age of marriage was fairly high).
The situation, while deplorable from the modern perspective, is not uncommon, and not unknown in our own histories.
In this respect it is, perhaps, comparable to slavery - you may express disgust, but expressing surprise or increduality is naive.
“In a patriarchy, women are basically treated like minors and thus the distinction between “adult” and “child” is not a matter of maturity, but of whether or not you’ve been moved from the ownership of your father to the ownership of your husband/lover.”
Such is still alive and well in more isolated and less educated areas of the country. Young girls are raped by relatives and family friends, left to become pregnant due to pro-life guilt and to bear the brunt of the pregnancy/child rearing while the male moves on. I’ve seen it with my own eyes in every part of this country I’ve lived in.
Everytime I hear about a man seeking redress for molestation occurances and the resulting public outrage, I think of the numbers of young girls between the ages of 11 and 17 who are raped, impregnated or forced or pressured into marriage and no one bats an eye.
I can’t respond to the comment resurrected from moderation, I just get these images of punching a stupid asshat about a hundred times. The outrage I feel goes beyond articulation.
As I come from the land of sex-offenders-for-God , I do have a basic abhorrence for older men or women with underage girls or boys.
However, to at least defend Jamie a little, this guy is only three years older and at least it’s a three-year relationship.
I think it’s even funnier that “Mrs. Spears” had to put her “parenting” book on hold. Who would buy that thing?
PIATOR, if someone left a message expressing the open desire to be a slaveowner in the antebellum South, I would find that surprising and disgusting as well. Also, I expressed more disgust than surprise. Your insinuations are wrong down the line.
Tricycle, Spears’ boyfriend is more age-appropriate now (19 and 16), but considering that they’ve been in a relationship, probably sexual, for 3 years, that means it started when he was 16 (basically an adult) and she was 13 (basically a child). Her specific culture can’t see that age inappropriate relationships are wrong because they don’t distinguish very well between children and adults in females. My point is that the refusal of adult status to women is a common element in patriarchies. I’m not arguing that the two situations are identical, but that the common thread between them is that people are blind to how inappropriate it is for men to expand their pool of potential sex partners into childhood, because both the American and Afghani patriarchies don’t see women as mental creatures that need time to learn and grow, but just bodies ripe for the picking as soon as they’re big enough to get between their thighs.
Yes, I believe the US laws don’t include teenage marriage when the parents sell an 11-year-old to a 40 year old man to pay off a debt or because they can’t afford to feed her.
Like in cultures that don’t have “have the tons and tons of complications and crap like the american culture does” that random idiot so adores.
If the genders were reversed, and 11 year old boys were being sold to old women for sex, you KNOW these mighty cultural defenders would suddenly get it.
But since females are not actual humans the way males are, they are havng a hard time wrapping their heads around any critiques of “traditional” practices.
Feminism has had a huge impact, of course. While many old-fashioned people wringing their hands over Spears—including Spears herself, who framed this as an issue of not being married, as opposed to being too young—are doing so because she’s a fornicator, more and more people are viewing the teenage pregnancy issue in a feminist light, saying that women should delay both marriage and childbirth because we, like men, deserve time to learn and grow into adulthood.
In a patriarchy, women are basically treated like minors and thus the distinction between “adult” and “child” is not a matter of maturity, but of whether or not you’ve been moved from the ownership of your father to the ownership of your husband/lover.
This is very true. OTOH in egalitarian societies, women are considered adults by virtue of age/maturity, often going through some kind of womanhood or initiation ritual. (For instance: the Ohlone and Miwok, the Native American Indians of my local area, had elaborate pubertal ceremonies for girls. Once this was over, the girl was a grown-up, responsible not for being “chaste” or “the perfect wife,” but for weaving tight baskets and knowing how to gather and prepare acorns for food. A man depended on a woman’s skill at basketry and preparing acorn food, just as a woman depended on her husband’s hunting ability. Not the one-sided woman depending on her husband’s paycheck here.)
Anyhow, I’m very much for a MINIMUM age of marriage in ALL societies - eighteen at least. This would give girls a chance to finish at least high school, as well as physically develop; and older women are less easy to control than very young girls.
As far as Jamie Lynn Spears is concerned, sure maybe she wanted a baby, but what 16-year-old is mature enough to know what parenting entails? Most young girls that age lack the maturity and social skills to be a good mom without lots of family support. Oh, and I wouldn’t read Mrs. Spears’ book on parenting either. Not if it meant raising kids like Britney or Jamie Lynn. :/
PIATOR, if someone left a message expressing the open desire to be a slaveowner in the antebellum South, I would find that surprising and disgusting as well. Also, I expressed more disgust than surprise. Your insinuations are wrong down the line.
Random Idiot’s billet doux would be more like a comment saying “there’s nothing wrong with keeping slaves”.
The point would be that there is something very very wrong with it, but that it couldn’t be seperated from the social context, that expressing what was wrong would require a modern perspective on the situation, and that we couldn’t seperate that from our own history - the evolution of our attitudes.
The practical aspect of this is that I don’t think you can attack child brides as a problem in itself. IMHO, the only solution is to continue to work towards providing real educational and economic autonomy to women in these societies, and let this practice wither on the vine as a result. I think this is an implication of the last paragraph of your post.
Another interesting analogy springs to mind - this might be how future societies regard meat-eating in teh current day…
“If the genders were reversed, and 11 year old boys were being sold to old women for sex, you KNOW these mighty cultural defenders would suddenly get it.”
Some would and some wouldn’t.
There are several examples in recent years of female teachers seducing and/or having affairs with underage male students. It is disturbing to me that while many decry this as pedophilia, and believe it to be just as bad as if the teacher was male and the student female, there are some who see the older woman bringing sexual maturity to a boy as being something to celebrate rather than condemn.
The experienced male and inexperienced female stereotype has some pretty nasty implications at the edges…
Haven’t the fun folks at the FLDS figured out a solution to this one? Ah, yes–a never-ending supply of nubile young lasses doled out to the leaders of the flock, with the older ones tossed out like frayed socks.Out of curiosity, has this been used on the right to argue about how vital the fight against Islamo-fascism is, and about how dumb feminists are to oppose the awesome, awesome war… or is the idea of scoring some of those meek brown child brides too appealing for that?
I think The Pain did a bit that was kind of relevant here.There are several examples in recent years of female teachers seducing and/or having affairs with underage male students.
The boys weren’t given to the teachers by their parents in a public, approved ceremony. Big difference.
The practical aspect of this is that I don’t think you can attack child brides as a problem in itself. IMHO, the only solution is to continue to work towards providing real educational and economic autonomy to women in these societies, and let this practice wither on the vine as a result.
So what are you saying - it shouldn’t be illegal?
And did you have a problem with the Civil War? Would you have preferred to let slavery “wither on the vine”?
This marriage was illegal; the legal age in Afghanistan is 16.
The only way to get “educational and economic autonomy” to girls such as this is to break down the system which treats them as property to be sold, or trade in order to form alliances between powerful men. Within the current system, providing educational opportunities for girls like this “bride” won’t work, because they won’t be allowed to go to school; they’ll be too busy in their role as brood mare. And that’s literally why she was bought, as a breeder.
hem, so i think the connection this post is trying to draw, about how female maturity is somehow only about whether there’s grass on the field, is really smart and important to make. and for the most part i agree with everything that’s been said in the comments too. BUT um i wish i weren’t getting a “that’s what you get when you don’t use protection” vibe here and there, about the spears family thing.
like, technically? sure. that IS what happens without contraception, more often than not anyway. but what’s the purpose of pointing this out? it kinda feels like a more decorous form of slut-shaming. or another tack, how do we know that protection wasn’t being used? it’s been three years with apparently no pregnancy, after all. or another tack, with which i’m sure all of us here are familiar — the condom broke, she missed a pill, diaphragm slipped, even depo has a slight failure rate. etc etc. and of course if it was a coercive relationship we shouldn’t treat it like a consensual, grown-up, no big thing; but in that case all the more so, why are we sniping at her?
yes teenage pregnancy usually isn’t part of a best-outcomes path in girls’ lives, but lording it over the morons doesn’t seem especially appropriate. i chafe at that when anti-abortioneers do it and i chafe at it when it’s about young motherhood, too. sorry to carp though.
ugh, you feminazis with your censorship and your borg hivemind. i have a first amendment right to say something whiny on your bandwidth, dammit!
hem, so i think the connection this post is trying to draw, about how female maturity is somehow only about whether there’s grass on the field, is really smart and important to make. and for the most part i agree with everything that’s been said in the comments too. BUT um i wish i weren’t getting a “that’s what you get when you don’t use protection” vibe here and there, about the spears family thing.
like, technically? sure. that IS what happens without contraception, more often than not anyway. but what’s the purpose of pointing this out? it kinda feels like a more decorous form of slut-shaming. or another tack, how do we know that protection wasn’t being used? it’s been three years with apparently no pregnancy, after all. or another tack, with which i’m sure all of us here are familiar — the condom broke, she missed a pill, diaphragm slipped, even depo has a slight failure rate. etc etc. and of course if it was a coercive relationship we shouldn’t treat it like a consensual, grown-up, no big thing; but in that case all the more so, why are we sniping at her?
yes teenage pregnancy usually isn’t part of a best-outcomes path in girls’ lives, but lording it over the morons doesn’t seem especially appropriate. i chafe at that when anti-abortioneers do it and i chafe at it when it’s about young motherhood, too. sorry to carp though.
ok but seriously when i post a silly comment about how my first comment didn’t go through, and then the second one DOES go through but the first one’s still stuck in limbo, it makes me look really dumb. whoops.
Jeff - if the legal age of marriage in Afghanistan is routinely flouted, then that means the law has no teeth and those (men) who break the law and marry young girls, or marry off their young daughters, get at most a gentle love-tap on the wrist.
The solution seems to be twofold: Put teeth in the law - so breaking it means serious punishment. And remove incentives for marrying a girl that young. I think education and job opportunities would be a huge help here. In countries where girls routinely go on to college and good jobs, or at least have value in the larger economy even if they don’t go to college - as opposed to having value only as mothers - then there’s no reason to marry a young girl, and often many reasons NOT to.
The solution seems to be twofold: Put teeth in the law - so breaking it means serious punishment.
Requires a functioning state. Our invasion of Iraq but the kibosh on that.
I love it when cultural relativism means that the most obvious of facts–women and girls are human beings!–is treated like an annoying technicality.
On the issue of language: why do we insist on calling them child brides rather than child rape victims or simply victims? The use of “bride” can’t help but sanitize the brutal reality.
On the issue of language: why do we insist on calling them child brides rather than child rape victims or simply victims? The use of “bride” can’t help but sanitize the brutal reality.
How about child sex slaves?
[…try 3? sorry in advance…]
i really like the connection this post is drawing, about how wrt females “maturity” is somehow only about whether there’s grass on the field. also i have a whole bunch of ideas about cultural relativism but i kind of blew my wad this morning when the gre writing topic seemed to call for it. bleh.
and for the most part i agree with everything that’s been said in the comments too. BUT um i wish i weren’t getting a “that’s what you get when you don’t use protection” vibe here and there, about the spears family thing.
like, technically? sure. that IS what happens without contraception, more often than not anyway. but what’s the purpose of pointing this out? it kinda feels like slut-shaming in a different dress-up costume. or another tack, how do we know that protection wasn’t in use? it’s been three years with apparently no pregnancy, after all. or yet another, with which i’m sure all of us here are familiar — the condom broke, she missed a pill, diaphragm slipped, even depo has a slight failure rate. etc etc. of course i concede if it was a coercive relationship we shouldn’t treat it like a consensual, grown-up, nobigdeal thing; but in that case all the more reason to ask why we’re sniping at her.
granted teenage pregnancy usually isn’t part of a best-outcomes path in girls’ lives, but lording it over the morons who had it coming seems wrong. i chafe at that when anti-abortioneers do it and i chafe at it when it’s about young motherhood, too. sorry to carp though.
How about child sex slaves?
I think that nails it. Although you could shorten it to just “slaves” without any change in accuracy.
Out of curiosity, has this been used on the right to argue about how vital the fight against Islamo-fascism is, and about how dumb feminists are to oppose the awesome, awesome war… or is the idea of scoring some of those meek brown child brides too appealing for that?
I believe the couple in the picture were married in LiberatedFreeNewAfghanistan, not in RepressiveOppressedOldAfghanistan, which makes it all right., of course.
So what are you saying - it shouldn’t be illegal?
“Illegal” implies that there’s an authority able to enforce that law. Where the society itself believes it is okay, no law will work save outright conquering and attempted reconstruction - which will fail in the absence of a society able to accept a new template. I’m not expressing myself well here, but I think there’s no way you could reconstruct Afghanistan in the same way Japan was reconstructed after WWII.
The UN seems to have a consensus that 18, 16 with parental permission is the default standard. The UN, of course, has no teeth to enforce this but does have some moral weight.
(Again, I suggest Postman’s “The Disappearance of Childhood” as interesting background, given this discussion)
And did you have a problem with the Civil War? Would you have preferred to let slavery “wither on the vine”?
Slavery did wither on the vine - in England, and the North. As I understand it, it was the economic distance between the North and the South which led to the political tension which caused the Union to split - the North had moved past an economic basis incorporating slavery, while the South was locked into it. The Abolitionist movement worked without violence in England because it didn’t have that same economic split.
Jeff - if the legal age of marriage in Afghanistan is routinely flouted, then that means the law has no teeth and those (men) who break the law and marry young girls, or marry off their young daughters, get at most a gentle love-tap on the wrist.
The wikipedia leads to this article.
On the issue of language: why do we insist on calling them child brides rather than child rape victims or simply victims? The use of “bride” can’t help but sanitize the brutal reality.
Are you prepared to call all arranged marriages sex slavery as well?
I point out that you’re operating from the assumption that marriage is a contract entered into by two independent adults. A culture which believes marriages are contracts negotiated by families on behalf of the couple might see it differently - which doesn’t preclude marrying children to adults being seen as wrong by both types of societies.
“Are you prepared to call all arranged marriages sex slavery as well?”
Yup; that pretty much sums it all up. An arranged marriage w/o the consent of both parties IS slavery.
the North had moved past an economic basis incorporating slavery, while the South was locked into it.
Hence the need for the Civil War. To end slavery in the South. Now back to my question. Do you have a problem with the Civil War?
I point out that you’re operating from the assumption that marriage is a contract entered into by two independent adults.
I’m operating from the assumption that marriage should be a contract entered into by two CONSENTING people.
An 11 year old given to an old man to pay a family debt does not involve the girl’s consent to be fucked by an old man. If she even has been told what fucking is all about.
And if their culture approves of that - too bad. It’s wrong. Like ANY form of slavery is wrong. It’s just as wrong as the black slavery in the US. The slavery we fought the Civil War to end.
The fact that you seek to conflate all arranged marriages with child sex slavery shows you realize how weak your argument is.
But let’s hear from a woman forced into marriage and see what she says about it:
Beatrice Kitamula, 19, was forced to marry her wealthy neighbor, now 63, five years ago because her father owed another man a cow. “I was the sacrifice,” Ms. Kitamula said, holding back tears. She likened her husband’s comfortable compound of red brick houses in Ngana village to a penitentiary. “When you are in prison,” she said, “you have no rights.”
More here:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/international/africa/27malawi.html
But oh, say the cultural relativists - that’s just how “their” society does things. If it destroys the lives of women, well, sacrifices must be made on the sacred altar of “culture.”
On behalf of all women in the world - fuck you, cultural relativists.
re: Ailurophile
Totally yes, on the incentive not to marry off young girls thing.
From what I know of my Chinese relatives and East-Asian friends, there is equal pressures on boys and girls not to date, but focus on their studies, until both of them are in university or have the university diploma in their hands, THEN they are pressured to marry. Of course, due to the patriarchy, women are still often expected to be more yielding to their husbands, but due to the education and career, they are more enabled to say no should they be able to resist the bulllshit pressure.
The fact that you seek to conflate all arranged marriages with child sex slavery shows you realize how weak your argument is
Which part of “which doesn’t preclude marrying children to adults being seen as wrong by both types of societies” did you have a problem reading?
Which part of “which doesn’t preclude marrying children to adults being seen as wrong by both types of societies” did you have a problem reading?
The part where you tortured your prose into intelligibility.
But you were able to ask this rhetorical question clearly:
Are you prepared to call all arranged marriages sex slavery as well?
So why don’t we address the bit I didn’t have a problem reading?
Or rather, tortured into unintelligibility. Too many syllables to remember them all dammit.
Mercurial Georgia, were you listening outside our window last night??? Because if you were, you should have come in- I had just made a new batch of fudge and you must have been cold!
Told this story to our kid last night about a cousin she’s never met: Our eldest niece is half Filipino; her father is a multimillionaire in shipping, owns nightclubs, etc. He paid for her to get a degree at Georgetown that had to have cost about $250k minimum- then within 2 years, she was married- then within another 2 years, she was a mom. The degree in diplomacy was purely for show and never used for a minute.
Her parents bought them a house in San Francisco (Nob Hill, of course), with my sister-in-law (who herself went to a finishing school in London to meet a potentially rich mate, then when she found one, married at age 19 and had her first child a year later) complaining about how difficult her life was because she had to decide colors for her MARRIED ADULT DAUGHTER’S house.
Reality has never touched the lives of any of these people. I feel bad for my niece, who I met at her graduation and liked immediately. She was a sweet child, a regular kid when by herself and a cowed child whenever her parents were around. Like a switch was turned on or off.
Or rather, tortured into unintelligibility. Too many syllables to remember them all dammit.
I just assume you’re posting while drunk or high, like the rest of us.
Now let’s see - first Nancy says “you seek to conflate all arranged marriages with child sex slavery”
And then to back it up, she cites me saying ““Are you prepared to call all arranged marriages sex slavery as well?””
“child sex slavery”, “sex slavery”.
“child sex slavery”, “sex slavery”.
“child sex slavery”, “sex slavery”.
Do you start to see a difference? I was attempting to show that the “arranged” bit was a little more problematic than the “child” bit.
But it’s a serious question, Nancy - is an arranged marriage (and note, we’re talking adults here) “sex slavery”?
And, for that matter, there’s two kinds of child marriage - the other involves two children being betrothed by their families. What’s your opinion on that?
How about child sex slaves?
Why confuse rape with “sex,” especially with regards to children? The stone cold reality is that it is child rape. Words are most powerful and “sex” is one of the most potent, an emotionally evocative word that triggers automatic associations of desire. The term fails to include words that clearly denounce why it’s such an atrocious crime. At best, it sanitizes the crime, making it seem like a junior version of something adults enjoy immensely. At worst, it eroticizes it.
We know rape is about power and control (i.e. misogyny). Why reinforce the myth that rape is truly about sex, which helps justify it as somehow natural?
Great blog entry. This is a problem that needs highlighting. The USA, as the world’s superpower, has a duty to do something to stop these practices in the world. Some differences in cultures (such as what side of the road cars drive on, dinner etiquette, what side of the plate the fork goes on, etc.) each society has the right to make for itself. It would be wrong for us to tell another culture what fashions are good.
But other cultural differences are matters of “this culture is right, that culture is wrong,” and it’s obvious that in Afghanistan, there culture is wrong to accept forced marriages, child-adult marriages, etc.
As for the Jamie Lynn Spears tie-in, I don’t really see anything to compare. She chose her boyfriend, chose to have sex. Maybe she forget to use birth control, maybe she wants a baby, but we can applaud her for making the right choice and keeping the baby. No matter what our stance on the legality of abortion, we can all agree that from the moral perspective, the choice to have the baby is morally superior.
re: terms
How about ‘contracted into sexual slavery’, I know that’s what marriage is once upon a time…practically, but what with Canada especially, redefining it as a union between two consenting adults. This isn’t marriage.
Pandagon says: “In both these examples, you have heavily patriarchal religions that make it easy to deny women the gradual maturity that men have. Either you’re a virgin child or a breeding adult, but the idea that maturity is a mental state is denied women. Because only our bodies count, not our minds.”
Don’t your two examples disprove your point? Jamie-Lynn Spears is physically adult. But reaction to her predicament (particularly on the part of parents) is concern that a 16 year old is too mentally and emotionally immature to undertake parenthood right away — that ideally she would first have experienced child-free young-adult years, during which she could mature.
In other words, despite your attempt to collapse it all into similar “patriarchies,” one culture very clearly values teenage girls’ minds, and views the teenage years (and the 20s) as time to develop.
(the “property of your father” business also has no application to Spears, right? Wasn’t she raised by her mother?)
Phoenecian–
“Let’s see.
A little research shows females as young as 13 (and males as young as 14) can be married in New Hampshire. 14 in North Carolina. 14 and 16 in South Carolina, These have judicial restrictions.
Fact sheet on child marriage: http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2005/presskit/factsheets/facts_child_marriage.htm
The wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age ”
Some of those USA times are only recently increased, too; remember the Matthew and Crystal Koso case in Kansas and Nebraska? (especially bothersome about that case, as explained by Feministing, is that anyone at all had the mentality that marriage was somehow “doing the right thing.”)
re: Sean
Unless you can’t take care of it of course.
I still think that choosing or keeping the fetus is not a more or less moral decision, it’s a personal one. Abortion isn’t easy, the woman is always wonder what if.
The Jamie Lynn Spears thing, it’s unfortunate for her that she’s pregnant, and fortunate that she does have a support network. She has money from her family, and a partner in her boyfriend of three years. It’s rare that young people manage to stay together for three years. It could have easily been a tragedy, the man is three years older than her, but I believe that where the minor is over 14 and the older one is under 18 or within /5/ years and NOT in a position of authority or trust, as long as the minor has no physical or clinically certifiable harm, AND doesn’t want to persecute, it’s fine.
Even so, there is a big difference between a 16 year old and a 13 year old and the child bride in Afghanistan.
Maturity rates vary greatly among individuals. Jamie Lynn could have easily been physically mature enough for the relationship along with the boy. As for emotional maturity, I think you are being very generous in considering the 16 year old “basically an adult.” Jamie Lynn and her boyfriend were doing what teenagers tend to do. The problem isn’t that they were having sex or that they were doing so while unmarried, but that for whatever reason, they were not doing so irresponsibly. Where was the birth control and why weren’t they using it?
I never said there was no difference at all. Sure, there’s a difference in degree. But not in kind. In both cases, you have a distinct lack of difference between adult and child in women because their patriarchal cultures see no reason to differ between them. Differences in degree and kind are vastly different things, and the right mixes up the two in an effort to “other” cultures like Afghanistan so we don’t see how they are like our own.
I reject the idea that Spears was mature enough for a sexual relationship with an older guy if she a) wouldn’t use birth control and b) sticks to the “good girl” line about how unexpected it was and how naughty it was not because she’s too young for a child, but because sex is only proper if the patriarchy blesses it with marriage. Again, she’s likely to have that attitude her whole life, reinforcing the notion that maturity is a concept denied women in religious patriarchies like her Southern Baptist one. Women in these cultures are denied the capability to make the active choice to have sex, i.e. to have sexual maturity, their whole entire lives. Whether or not it’s “right’ is not about maturity, but about marriage.
Where was the birth control and why weren’t they using it?
argh. did i miss something? has anyone in a position to know actually said anything about their contraception use? or are we just using a teenage pregnancy as an excuse to pose the same nosey “questions” (i.e. i don’t think the answer is as important as the asking) that everybody else asks about aborting sluts? maybe i AM missing something — how is this ok?
curious, do comments that have the s-l-u-t word get automatically held for a while?
I am really disturbed by the conflating of Jamie Lynn Spears’ situation with the child brides of Afghanistan.
Jamie Lynn Spears is a rich young woman, employed, with an employer who has publicly stated they will support her, and a very wealthy older sister. She had consensual sex with a man she desired. Her mother didn’t do a great deal to prevent the sex from occurring, but didn’t force it on her either. And a lot of the bullshit she spouts about the problem being that she wasn’t married is because she has to say that to keep her job; a woman who acts on a children’s TV show has to kowtow to popular cultural beliefs.
Given that she had been having sex for three years, there’s no reason to think she was irresponsible about birth control. Perhaps the condom broke. She is, once again, rich, healthy and has a supportive employer and a rich sister. She is in a good position in her life to have a child. Yes, it’d be better if she had more life experience, but honestly, her sister was over 18 when she had her children and yet is a terrible mom; *age* does not define a good mother. If Jamie wants a child really badly, and she’s 16, fully developed and physically healthy, she may be better off having one now, at the height of her career, than waiting until she’s a has-been former teen star without the money or resources she has now.
The thing that specifically strikes me as horrible about this analogy is that Spears made her own decisions, the whole way. She chose sex; she chose to not abort when she got pregnant. She is in a much better position in life to have a kid than most mothers, teen or no. So conflating her with an 11-year-old girl who is sold by her fathr to be raped ad treated as a brood mare by a 40-year-old man is horrifically insulting to both of them. Spears made choices we don’t necessarily agree were good ones, but she made them herself — her mother at best abetted her decisions, but did not make them for her. And a woman making her own dumbass decisions is what feminism is about. There is a *huge* difference between a 13-year-old who starts having consensual sex with her 16-year-old boyfriend and three years later gets pregnant because her mother didn’t enforce “no sex” rules, and an 11-year-old who is sold into sex slavery by her family against her wishes. Trying to equate the two is not feminist and is just horrible.