Husbands, wives, male feminists

It's the first of the month, and there are bills to pay and various paperwork items to complete around the office.  The home computer remains in the shop, so I must blog and work from the campus.  It's odd to be on a nearly empty college campus; my footsteps echo in the hallways and I can have the finest parking space in the faculty lot no matter what time I arrive.  Four weeks from today, when the fall semester opens, all of that will be very, very different. 

I still have a number of spots left open in my History 24F "Introduction to Lesbian and Gay American History Class"; all of my other classes are full.  (My women's studies course is always the first to close, and I'm pleased with how consistently high the demand is for it.  My department chair has asked me to consider teaching two or three sections of women's history per semester, but that would be simply too much work.  With all the assigned journals and papers, no one would get the attention they deserve.)    It is difficult to get some folks to take a course in Lesbian and Gay history; some students have said that they are afraid of what others will think of them if they enroll.  (The course title will be on their transcript, after all).  For that reason, I'm rather shameless about flattering the courage of those who do enroll.  I know very well that even in 2005, a great many of my students on this majority-minority campus come from homes where their parents would be apoplectic if they knew their son or daughter were taking a course in "queer studies".  Thus all the more reason to openly applaud those brave enough to take the course, and to risk the opprobrium and ridicule that, based on what I've heard from former students, is all too real.

Last week, Hannah at Feministing linked to this LA Times opinion piece by Crispin Sartwell, a political scientist at Pennsylvania's Dickinson College:  I Married  A Feminist.   The op-ed is ostensibly about John Roberts and his wife, but it's really about feminisms and marriage. 

Sartwell makes it clear that as in many families, he and his wife (Marion Winik, who has apparently retained her maiden name) disagree around the breakfast table:

I am a married man, and if I know anything from day-to-day experience, it is that you cannot infer a man's politics from those of his wife.

This truth came home to me again in a discussion about the politics of Jane Sullivan Roberts, the spouse of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. Over breakfast, I mentioned that Ms. Roberts has been active in a group called Feminists for Life.

I don't think you can be a feminist and try to force women to have babies they don't want," my wife, Marion Winik, said.

That claim succinctly expresses why many believe that abortion rights are central to feminism: Freedom entails control over one's own body. The idea that the state ought to control female reproduction is therefore an odious violation of the autonomy feminism seeks to uphold.

That's what Marion thinks. But for me, the matter is considerably more complicated.

Sartwell takes the same position I've taken, and that is essentially that there are multiple "feminisms".  All feminists are characterized by a belief in justice and equality for women, but different strands of the movement define justice and equality differently.  More to the point, even within feminist history there is no absolute unanimity on the subject of abortion rights, something Sartwell (and those at Feminists for Life) constantly point out.

Pro-choice critics of this "big-tent" picture of feminism often accuse folks like Sartwell and me of being so inclusive in our definition that we're watering down essential feminist principles, especially the ones about the sanctity of personal autonomy.  I understand that concern, and I realize that at least in my own case, my desire to be radically inclusive of everyone tends to trump, with remarkable regularity, any other principle.  "Making everyone feel welcome", whether in a women's studies class or at the altar for eucharist, is of such paramount importance to me that I am quite unwilling to challenge anyone who proclaims himself or herself a "feminist" or a "Christian."   

At Feministing, there's some good discussion in the comments section about Sartwell's piece.  Amanda makes the following point with her customary incisiveness:

Can you be pro-life and a feminist? I don't know. But I do know that I strongly dislike reading a man write an article where he attempts to override his wife's definition of feminism. Jesus Christ, talk about missing the point.

This leads the Feministing discussion directly into a discussion of men, women, marriage and feminism.  Do read all the comments through.

The question raised is an obvious one: when and how ought men to speak on feminism, both with their partners and in a public forum?  Can one be a pro-feminist man and hold opinions about feminism that are at odds with the majority of women in the mainstream feminist movement?

In one sense, to borrow a phrase from Amanda, I have a dog in this hunt: I've been teaching women's studies at this college for over a decade.  Just last week, I cheered the appointment of David Allen as chair of the UW women's studies department, and I've defended "my right" to teach the subject as well.

But even though I believe passionately that men can and should teach women's studies courses, I also believe we must do so with a profound sense of humility.  Ultimately, no matter how strongly we sympathize with our sisters, no matter how committed we are to women's liberation and equality, we can never claim to be equally affected by the issues we are discussing.   If Roe v. Wade is overturned, I will have not suffered any loss to my personal autonomy.   Regardless of whether or not I am pro-choice or pro-life, I am incapable of truly understanding -- on a visceral and emotional level -- what it means to live as a woman in a body that many believe ought to have its natural processes regulated by the state.  That's not a personal failure on my part, and it's not something for which I feel compelled to apologize.  But while men can be deeply interested in women's issues (I am) we cannot claim personal expertise in what it means to live as an embodied woman.

Of course, there's more to feminism and women's studies than personal experience.  I may never have menstruated, but I can teach my female students about the history of sanitary products.  I will surely never get pregnant, but I can give a narrative history of the expansion of reproductive rights as effectively as anyone else.  Personal experience is not a vital qualification for effective teaching, even in gender studies, but humility is.  What is the essence of that humility?  A willingness to recognize that male biology grants us the freedom from being pregnant, and that privilege inevitably blinds even the most sensitive and compassionate among us to the reality of what it means to carry a child inside of us -- particularly an unwanted one.  And what I think Amanda and others found lacking in Sartwell's op-ed was that sense of humility that ought to be in place whenever a man discusses an issue that is primarily about what happens inside women's bodies.  (To be fair to Sartwell, while he makes it clear that he married a feminist, he doesn't claim to be a feminist or a pro-feminist; to me that's an important distinction.)

Though I am a pro-feminist man, I am quite willing to disagree with my feminist sisters about any number of feminist issues. I do think one can be a pro-feminist, progressive evangelical Christian pro-life man without being crushed by contradictions!  But I'm also aware that when I disagree, it is my job to do so humbly. It is my job to make it clear -- in the classroom or at the breakfast table -- that I speak not as a disembodied intellect (there's no such thing) but as a man. I'd like to think I'm a compassionate, thoughtful fellow.  I know that I have a very good grasp of the story of the women's movement and of contemporary feminist literature.  But professional expertise is not a complete substitute for personal experience.  Hence, I must always be scrupulous about acknowledging my maleness.  That doesn't mean apologizing for having a penis!  But it does mean recognizing that biology does shape our world view, and those of us who are biologically protected from the reality of an unwanted pregnancy must be very, very careful when we share our thoughts with those for whom that unwanted pregnancy is a real possibility.

Comments

[sophonisba]

those of us who are biologically protected from the reality of an unwanted pregnancy must be very, very careful when we share our thoughts with those for whom that unwanted pregnancy is a real possibility.

I used to be someone who would strongly and vocally agree with your position ("no uterus, no opinion," as they say) and I still retain some vestiges of the mindset that makes me respect male pro-lifers less than female ones, but the more I think about it the more I realize how absurd and irrational this cop-out really is. Just as I recognize, avow, and aver that getting punched in the testicles hurts like hell, and understand that it would be mean of me to do that to men, without ever having had a pair of my own to experiment with, you can recognize etcetera that forced birth is wrong, and your lack of fallopian tubes and the rest of the works is really not relevant to the point. You do not need some quasi-mystical communion with the organs in your abdomen to figure it out.

At a certain point (say, at a point where women's rights are threatened, like, say, now), 'humility' begins to look a lot like hiding behind your body to avoid standing with those who can do with all the allies they can get. I am a woman who has never been pregnant, and God willing, I will never be pregnant. I also have the great good fortune to be in a geographic and economic position to be assured of my ability to get an abortion should the need ever arise, and pregnancy would constitute a need. So by your reasoning above, I can kick back and shrug off my commitment to women's reproductive rights: it's really, truly, not my problem - I'm a privileged middle-class woman, and I'll never be forced to bear a child, R v. W or no. And since I've got no personal experience of pregnancy, I'm just as ignorant as you of how it feels. I have, therefore, standing from which to say: ignorance and privilege don't excuse one from figuring out what is just and expressing it as forcefully as one is able.

I do realize that you may decide that women's ability to exercise our reproductive rights is not 'what is just' (from your other writings, you probably will) and that from a pure position of tactics I ought to encourage your silence and humility - but as a general principle I don't want men to think that they have only the obligation to say a few measured words here and there in mildness and humility while the rest of us are fighting for our lives.

[Amanda]

Thanks, Hugo. I think you've hit on nicely what teed me off about his tone. I will say that a man who doesn't identify as feminist is probably even more irritating when he tells a woman what feminism ought to be than one who does.

[Andrea]

Amanda makes the following point with her customary incisiveness:

Can you be pro-life and a feminist? I don't know. But I do know that I strongly dislike reading a man write an article where he attempts to override his wife's definition of feminism. Jesus Christ, talk about missing the point.

This is a small point, but it seems unfair to say Sartwell's disagreement with his wife overrides her definition of feminism. After all, one assumes that she is equally free to respond to his opinion. That sounds like conversation, not domination.

[Lauren]

Actually, Hugo, I have to agree with sophonisba:

So by your reasoning above, I can kick back and shrug off my commitment to women's reproductive rights: it's really, truly, not my problem.

You shuck taking a stance to be nice, but we don't need niceness, we need allies. When our bodily automony is being threatened by laws and lawmakers, I'd prefer that you not patronize us with an I'm pro-life, sorry.

[NancyP]

A public policy supporting bodily autonomy for women is a way to make "women" less of a "marked" class in a patriarchal society. Without it, "women" is a shorthand term for "women, those creatures who can't be relied upon not to get pregnant every 10 months and screw up your work scheduling". There's plenty of covert discrimination against women who presume to get pregnant and take a short leave of absence even once. Without birth control and abortion for bc failures, I'd expect to see the classifieds divided into "Men wanted" and "Women wanted" again, as was true when I was a child.

I can understand "Feminists for Life" in a society where in order to hold major political office, having borne children gave more electoral advantage than having served in the military; where subsidies and raises were given working women for bearing children; where the majority of child-rearing responsibilities, and the consequent lower-pay, lower-responsibility "mommy track" jobs, were borne/held by the fathers. But to advocate making abortion illegal in a society, like the USA, which doesn't value either childbearing or childrearing in any monetary/powerbearing way, and doesn't bother prosecuting rape effectively, is incompatible with the ideals of feminism as applied to heterosexual women and all women at risk of rape.

[Jon Trott]

Thank you for a very enjoyable, insightful, stimulating site. The issue of abortion as it relates to feminism is one I continually find myself chewing like a cow (bull?) chews cud. Like you, I share so much in common with feminists (Christians for Biblical Equality is one evangelical group reflecting my own views). I sense I tread in a strange place, though, when it comes to abortion. I am pro-life -- that is, against abortion as defined by Roe v. Wade -- yet as a moderately self-aware male, realize that position is (to pro-choice women) doubly suspect. As a Christian, I am viewed as a defender of patriarchy. And as a male, how can I presume to speak regarding the incredibly complex nexus of the womb, a growing fetus, and a patriarchal society? Thanks for more "cud" for this bovine to chaw. My own sites, http://bluechristian.blogspot.com and http://highromance.blogspot.com, reflect some of the feminist threads you do so well articulating here.

[Noumena]

Great post, Hugo. I've previously posted as Sozialismus, but have lately decided to adopt a new handle.

Sophonisba and Lauren, what I took away from this post, having just read Hugo's other posts on abortion just last week, is not so much 'abortion doesn't apply directly to me, so I can't/shouldn't have an opinion' as 'abortion doesn't apply directly to me, so I should think over my opinion very carefully' combined with Hugo's own uncertainty about the ethicality of abortion. The first is, as you say, a cop-out; I'm pretty sure the second is what he means by humility, and entirely appropriate for a progressive of any stripe -- but especially a feminist man!

Just as a matter of full disclosure, I'm a feminist (or pro-feminist, if you prefer) man who is pro-choice without qualification or doubt.

[Lauren]

Noumena, my problem is that Hugo, as a prominent voice of feminism in the classroom and on the internet, is also a prominent voice for the consistent-life theory. There isn't anything wrong with the consistent-life ethic -- except as it applies to abortion. Because abortion is something Hugo will never have to experience, simply saying "I must think carefully about my pro-life advocacy" doesn't cut it. Part of feminism is the belief in full autonomy for women, and as such, full autonomy over the body. Because the state sees a direct interest in the habits and uses of my body, I think Hugo's advocacy is dangerous. But if it isn't your body at stake it doesn't seem quite so dangerous and is something you can ruminate over on your blog.

That said, I'm being quite sharp here with Hugo -- whom I still respect -- because I DO think this statement is a cop out, particularly in regard to the article he addresses, but also overall in his stance as a pro-feminist man who works very closely to shape and guide young women and men and their views on the body politic. It's a good day when the partriarchy questions itself, but it shouldn't stop with the questioning.

[Noumena]

That's true if Hugo is strictly anti-abortion. But my impression is that he's undecided -- neither completely pro-choice nor completely anti-abortion. Wouldn't want to put words into his mouth, of course. :)

[John]

Would you ask for the same humility in women talking about masculine issues? Or non-parents talking about parental issues? Or non-Christians talking about Christian faith and theology?

[Seth]

This reminds me so much of a conversation that I had with a British guy in hostel a few years back. We got around to talking about the woes afflicting Africa and why the West seems to not be doing anything about hunger, AIDS, deforestation, etc. All of his solutions had to with simply giving more money to the governments or forgiving loans. Even when we talked about the barbaric ( in my mind) practice of female genital mutilation, he seemed to defer to local tribal practices in fear of seeming like a white colonialist. When I asked him point blank if the British were wrong to strongly discourage FGM in Kenya during the colonial period he said, "Yes, we had no right to impose our values on an indigenous people." It did get me thinking. Can white people (white women included) make ANY value judgements about the practices of another race?

[sophonisba]

When I asked him point blank if the British were wrong to strongly discourage FGM...

It didn't occur to him to say that it might be a bad idea for colonialists to try to ban local practices because it forces women to choose between protecting their bodies and protecting their cultures, which is not a choice that ever works out well, or a choice that other people are generally asked to make? And that finding women within those cultures who objected to the practices and supporting them from below, rather than giving them orders from above, might be a better idea? Wow.

Can white people (white women included)

Thanks for that little note - who knew people included women?

make ANY value judgements about the practices of another race?

The practices of a race? What - as the saying goes - the fuck?

But if you meant culture, or country, or tribe, or civilisation, then the answer is, of course, yes. As might seem likely from the obvious fact that we do, all the time.

[aldahlia]

"Can white people (white women included) make ANY value judgements about the practices of another race"

We can (and do) make any judgements we want. Whether (and how) we should/shouldn't enforce those judgements is the question. I agree with sophonisba in that you can't just pop in and ask women to denounce thier cultural customs. But, you can sure as hell question those customs.

[Amba]

Seth, I recall reading an article by Katha Pollitt in which she said that FGM was falling out of favour in Kenya before the indigenous elite decided to resurrect it as a matter of national pride. Ironically, if the British hadn't banned FGM, it might have petered out naturally. Attempts by colonialists to ban objectionable practices tend to backfire: what usually happens is that said practice is transformed into a cultural symbol that has to be defended at all costs. People definitely have the right to make value judgments about the practices of other cultures, but the actual work of changing those practices is probably best left in the hands of those within the given culture.

[Jennifer]

"A public policy supporting bodily autonomy for women is a way to make "women" less of a "marked" class in a patriarchal society. Without it, "women" is a shorthand term for "women, those creatures who can't be relied upon not to get pregnant every 10 months and screw up your work scheduling. There's plenty of covert discrimination against women who presume to get pregnant and take a short leave of absence even once. Without birth control and abortion for bc failures, I'd expect to see the classifieds divided into "Men wanted" and "Women wanted" again, as was true when I was a child."

NancyP, it seems as if you're kind of saying, well, we're going to be discriminated against if we get pregnant in this patriarchal society, so we need abortion to make us more equal with men somehow. That we need to accept the status quo of discrimination and use abortion to keep our jobs instead of demanding changes that support women and children. I'd rather say, hell yes I need maternity leave, and you my employer, the government, etc. better do something about it! Why should I have to choose between my child and my job? That's government control of my body, in my view.

Hugo, there's a lot of talk about "autonomy," but can you reflect on that more as a Christian? Many seem to be using it as a primary value for feminism - control over one's body - but what does that mean for us Christian feminists?

[Mr. Bad]

Hugo cited Amanda here: At Feministing, there's some good discussion in the comments section about Sartwell's piece. Amanda makes the following point with her customary incisiveness:
Can you be pro-life and a feminist? I don't know. But I do know that I strongly dislike reading a man write an article where he attempts to override his wife's definition of feminism. Jesus Christ, talk about missing the point.

Amanda’s comment is asinine – talk about missing the point.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter whether or not Amanda likes the fact that Sartwell has his own definition of feminism that differs from his wife; he has every right to develop his own definition, independent of his wife or any other feminist. Were we to take Amanda’s point of view, then e.g., only racists would be able to define racism – everyone else would be “overriding” their definition. Such a viewpoint is absurd.

Men have every right to speak, write, etc., about feminism (and any other topic they choose), just like feminists have every right to do the same about, e.g., masculinity. If feminists don’t like it that’s just too bad.

Hugo goes on: Regardless of whether or not I am pro-choice or pro-life, I am incapable of truly understanding -- on a visceral and emotional level -- what it means to live as a woman in a body that many believe ought to have its natural processes regulated by the state.

This too is nonsense – men have their natural processes regulated by the state all the time. For example, my dog can pee or crap in the park while on a walk, but if I need to drop trou and do the same, I’m liable to be arrested and charged with a crime. Masturbation is a natural “process,” but we can’t just choke the chicken in public, and in some areas not even in private if the cops somehow find out; this is especially true if we’re gay. So the idea that we can’t imagine having the state regulate our natural processes is false. It’s done all the time in the name of public health, and the same argument could be made for regulating pregnancy and abortion: For the public health and good of society.

Hugo continues: ”Personal experience is not a vital qualification for effective teaching, even in gender studies, but humility is. ‘What is the essence of that humility?’ A willingness to recognize that male biology grants us the freedom from being pregnant, and that privilege inevitably blinds even the most sensitive and compassionate among us to the reality of what it means to carry a child inside of us -- particularly an unwanted one.”

Men are saddled with unwanted children all the time – once conception occurs we have no say whatsoever re. parenthood. I personally think that the vast majority of the “privilege” lies with women and that they are the ones who could use a healthy dose of humility.

And finally: ”…it does mean recognizing that biology does shape our world view, and those of us who are biologically protected from the reality of an unwanted pregnancy must be very, very careful when we share our thoughts with those for whom that unwanted pregnancy is a real possibility.”

Men are not biologically protected from unwanted parenthood - in fact, they are more exposed to coerced parenthood than women are. Thus, we have every right to comment on pregnancy, abortion, parenthood, etc., and just as much right as women do because it most definitely affects us. In fact, because of the potential for coerced parenthood, IMO men need to speak out and be heard even more than they are now, and certainly at least as much as women.

[djw]

Why all the "rights" discussion? Nothing in Amanda's statement suggests he doesn't have the "right" to define feminism as he sees fit. Furthermore, you have the "right" to define feminism as you see fit, even if that definition is as stupid and nonsensical as "women trying to assert their superiority and dominance over men" or "six bananas in the back seat of a late model Honda". People have the right to say lots of stupid and incoherent things, and others have the right to mention that the things they said are stupid and incoherent. This is all pretty much a given. What do you think you're arguing against with this point?

[Mr. Bad]

djw, good point.

What was asinine is that Amanda's whole point was that she "disliked" the fact that he defined feminism differently than his feminist wife (who IMO is a self-centered bore - I've heard her commentary on NPR).

I should have said that any man has the right to define feminism any way he wants and not worry about whether feminists like Amanda and Hugo approve of the way he does it. We don't need to worry about being "sensitive," "humble," etc.

Thanks for helping me clarify my position on this matter.

[Amanda]

So he's got a right to say what he wants but I don't to disagree and get irritated? Check.

[Mr. Bad]

No Amanda, of course you have the right to get irritated. But I need to ask: What's the goal here? Are you publically complaining in an attempt to shame him into silence or self-censorship, as is so often the case when feminists are confronted with opinions and arguments with which they don't agree? It's one thing to be irritated and keep it to yourself, and quite another to make a public stink about it.

If you're simply saying that it irritates you that he disagrees with his wife's definition of feminism, then fine; it's also his right to say "tough shit, too bad, deal with it like a big girl." But if you (or anyone else) takes the easy next step and like Hugo tries to say that he should "be more humble" or "more sensitive" - in other words, self-censor himself just to spare you irritation - then IMO that's stepping over the line.

So, which is it?

[Michael]

Hugo cited Amanda here: At Feministing, there's some good discussion in the comments section about Sartwell's piece. Amanda makes the following point with her customary incisiveness:
Can you be pro-life and a feminist? I don't know. But I do know that I strongly dislike reading a man write an article where he attempts to override his wife's definition of feminism. Jesus Christ, talk about missing the point.

Amanda,
I've never noticed you hesitating to define MRA's on Pandagon (or here either for that matter).. You frequently override men's comments about what MRA's are about, even though those comments are often off base. What's the difference? When discussing Feminism, are men just supposed to stay in their place and keep their opinions to themselves?

those of us who are biologically protected from the reality of an unwanted pregnancy must be very, very careful when we share our thoughts with those for whom that unwanted pregnancy is a real possibility.

Do we have to watch it less if we agree with their position or just when we we disagree?
Are men's opinions more valid if we agree than when we disagree? This is not hubris, its sexism... Ok.. Maybe both..

[davejones]

A woman's right to choose

Right to privacy

Women's reproductive rights

Full bodily autonomy

Those of you on the pro-abortion side wrap yourself in these statements to try to shuck and jive those who disagree with you and those in the middle. These statements are all canards because at some point during a pregnancy a baby is a person who could survive outside the womb. Well before this a baby could survive with some medical assistance. Unless you believe that a baby can be aborted up to the day s/he is born all four statements above are seriously flawed.

Someone above mentioned that it's a good day when the patriarchy questions itself. Agreed. I submit, however, that it's also a good day when pro-abortionists question beyond the “me, my body, my autonomy, my rights, men just want to control women” attitude and understand that some things may be bigger than they are.

I'm sure you know that babies can feel pain in the womb, much earlier than originally believed. They can taste, stretch, suck their thumb, hiccup and yawn. 4D imaging technology sure paints a different picture of babies than just globs of cells. They even have faces, by golly. What is the choice here? All you vegans and vegetarians out there that won’t eat anything with a face, will you abort something with a face? We can’t intrude on kangaroo rat and snail darter habitats but abortions are A-O-K.

Look at pictures of aborted babies or read about the procedures to abort them and reference what a baby looks like or is doing at that stage of development. I see a gruesome disconnect between the rhetoric of on-demand abortion champions and the biological reality of a baby inside its mother. That's why I left the pro-choice side of the aisle.

There’s a reason why aborting a baby is a painfully difficult decision. Perhaps it’s because an innocent life is being snuffed out in barbaric fashion.

[NancyP]

We also know we lose gestations (aka "spontaneous abortion" in medical terminology) all the time, including ones sufficiently developed to not give one the willies looking at it. Approximately one-third to two-thirds of all conceptuses fail, generally very early and more often than not before women recognise their pregnancy. Causes are many: severe genetic anomaly, random developmental anomaly, poor uterine environment (this is a biggie in third world countries where genital tuberculosis is common). Many laywomen are sufficiently aware of what late first trimester/ early second trimester fetuses look like, having delivered dead ones, and many more are aware what early first trimester gestations look like, or rather, don't look like, since they just see big blood clots passed. All medically trained personnel (M.D.s and R.N.s) are perfectly aware of fetal development, and the M.D.s also know brain anatomy. Those folds (gyri) on the brain surface, providing more surface area/ volume for neurons - first and second trimester fetuses don't have them. There aren't enough neurons yet, and they aren't connected fully. The earliest connections occur at the spinal reflex level, so motion appears well before cognition.

So, anti-abortion Christians, how do you feel about "saving" all those conceptuses in the third world, by providing major money to help eradicate tuberculosis and other causes of uterine infection? By providing vaccines against common sexually transmitted diseases that can result in tubal pregnancies or chronic uterine infections that prevent implantation? We have already heard a conservative Christian outcry against a newly developed HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine that likely would reduce the incidence of cervical cancer (a sexually transmitted disease caused by HPV infection) - vaccinating teens would encourage them to have sex. Riiight. How do you account for a Providence that allows the human species to be so spectacularly inefficient at reproduction, to lose half of conceptuses?

As for Jennifer's point that feminists "accept the status quo of discrimination" and resort to abortion instead of lobbying for child-friendly employment practices - that thar' is a straw woman. Real feminists can walk, chew gum, AND follow more than one policy lobbying effort at the same time. Trouble is, policy changes take years or lifetimes, and actual women are forced to make the best decisions they can at any given time, not wait for pie in the sky. True, women haven't been sufficiently politicized to go on a general strike a la Lysistrata - possibly the only thing that might wake up men - but perhaps abortion IS a part of that general strike - no reproduction until the men get off their lazy asses and actually care for, as opposed to occasionally "babysit", their offspring. The declining fertility in industrialized countries is pretty universal.

Against abortion? Promote EC.
Against abortion? Don't have one.
Against abortion? Lobby for good and affordable daycare, health care.
Against abortion? Lobby for universal comprehensive sex ed. and universal free birth control for minors as well as adults.

[bmmg39]

Jennifer: "Why should I have to choose between my child and my job? That's government control of my body, in my view."

Amen/Awomen.

[bmmg39]

Jennifer: "Why should I have to choose between my child and my job? That's government control of my body, in my view."

Amen/Awomen.