Nancy Morgan on the “Feminist Meltdown”

Call me a glutton for punishment but, at times, when I have nothing to do I scour the web with my handy dandy stumble upon browser for “conservative politics” pages. Subsequently, as I read, I tear their fallacies apart. If the article/blog/what have you is disturbing or intellectually inept enough it may find its way to my blog. In the wee hours of this morning I had the pleasure of finding this gem:
http://rightbias.com/News/052107melt.aspx
I find this woman’s utter lack of comprehension of feminist ideologies amusing at its best, frightening at its worst. I found myself laughing, mostly, with the exception of just a few sentences. I know I shouldn’t let it get to me, but the things that come out of conservatives’ mouths sometimes just floors me. One particular sentence which lit a fire under my ass is, of course, “By going along with the fiction that men and women are equal…”
*sigh* I defy you to prove to me that men and women are not equal beings. Yet I can produce evidence of countless ways in which men and women are equal. Ms. Morgan goes on to say that equality has caused lower standards in our firehouses, police departments and military, yet she fails to provide any evidence of this.
Ms. Morgan exhibits all the traits of the classic anti-feminist, making her a perfect example. I find it most funny however, that she does not possess the most common trait of the anti-feminist: she is not male. What is so funny to me is that the very thing she speaks out against is the very same thing that has given her the power to speak out. Without feminism, it would have been blasphemous for her to get a head for politics.
From the very start of her post she exhibits one of the most common and at the same time most fallacious tactics of anti-feminists. She begins her post by talking about the horrors of misogyny that take place in other countries and about how American feminists are busy fighting for things like gay marriage instead of combating what she considers to be the real malignancies to women. This is a classic distraction/straw man technique. She fails to address the fact that feminists fight all kinds of intolerance and inequality, including the violence in other countries, as well as the violence here at home. Feminists fight for equal rights, big or small.
And the things she considers to be insignificant and/or immoral are far from unimportant. She mentions the lobbying to change the definition of marriage to include lesbian, gay, and transgendered relationships. Violence in other countries does not taking away from the fact that discrimination against the so-called “abnormal” sexuality in this country is appalling.
“Meanwhile, their American sisters are busy lobbying for hate crime penalties for anyone who dares to hurt the feelings of a gay or transgendered person.” There are two things wrong with that sentence. The fight for hate crime legislation is a necessary and important one. Also there seems to be some confusion as to the meaning of the term “crime”. Moving down a paragraph I am greeted with possibly the craziest misinterpretation of the pro-choice movement I have ever seen: “This would make legal the practise of killing a baby in the mother's birth canal.” The delusions of that sentence are so laughable it’s not even worth commentary.
Ms. Morgan goes on to suggest that the glass ceiling theory is delusional and empowerment through works like “The Vagina Monologues” is a painful reminder to women who have suffered vaginal abuse. She then states that women’s studies and queer studies courses “teach that men are bad, Christianity is outdated, and traditional values are merely a social construct designed to keep women down.” One out of three isn’t bad. Her final attempt at straw man tactics harps one of my personal favorite feminist fights. She claims that our attempt to change society’s views of masculinity is an attempt to “make shameful any vestige of manliness”. She even goes so far as to say that it is a common practice of feminists to “dope up” boys “to keep them from displaying male traits”. Delusional people are so funny to me!
As I said before, she then ends her attempt at the straw man technique in favor of outright feminist hate. Ms. Morgan begins to talk about how feminists are entirely responsible for things like the decline of the traditional family structure, insinuating as anti-feminists often do that anything but a nuclear family is inherently immoral. She engages in the usual slut-shaming, of course, for what would an anti-feminist post be without a remark on the morality of women being confined to their sexuality.
As I said at the beginning of this post I found this article hilarious with the exception of a few sentences. The other two sentences are ones in which Morgan actually implies that a woman does not have the right to her own body. I find this, not shocking as with the idea that men and women are not equal beings as before, but sickeningly disturbing. She says that “[Men] are compelled to keep up with the latest politically correct semantics or risk legal action. Think Duke Lacrosse.” and “Just as you're both ready to engage in that first kiss, he pulls back and asks your permission… Another neutered male - thank you, feminists.” It is disgusting to think that she actually believes that if a woman is raped she is just being too pc, and that the simple act of respecting a woman’s personal space automatically means that a man is sans testicles.
Overall, this is the article of a delusional, hypocritical and disturbingly socially backwards woman who is apparently in desperate need of a dictionary since she can’t even define the simple word “feminist” correctly.

Why Teen Sex Is Not the Immoral Act That the GOP Seems To Think It Is

This is a long one, be prepared!

So lately feminism has been plaguing my mind. After doing a bit of philosophical and critical thinking I got onto the subject (in my head) of teen sex. I was reminded of where George and I had left things in our discussion on when our children can have sex. He had won, and it’s not that I have issues about needing to be right all the time, but within my relationship with George I have trouble leaving things where one person still does not agree. He had won the argument, because I had no counter argument at the time, but I still disagreed with him. Well, in my critical thinking binge I finally came up with a counter-point after months of brooding over it (I am not above admitting I do have some issues), and I presented my argument respectfully to him, and he agreed with me.

So what was the whole argument about? We had left things off in that our children would be allowed to have sex at 16. I had said that I don’t see anything wrong with 15. He argued on the grounds that no fifteen year old is ready to be a parent and he felt that it would be irresponsible for us to let them engage in an activity which could lead to pregnancy. I could not think of any rebuttal, so I let it sit. And so for the argument that won him over:

No one knows but you when you are ready to have sex. I want to tell our children this, and arm them with the power to understand sex and love and decide for themselves when they are ready. We knew when it was the right time, why won’t our children know if they are taught enough about sex to understand when it is right? A sixteen year old is no more ready to be a parent than a 15 year old, nor is an 18 year old even. So why is 15 special? Everyone is different and matures at different times, we agree on this, which is why we agreed each of our kids would be allowed to do different things when they are ready, not when we are ready for them. We can’t possibly presume to know when they are ready for sex better than they will.

The reason this is so important to me is because when I was 15 I fell in love with a boy and began having protected sex with him (something George already knew, but I am including this story in my blog post for reader clarification). I didn’t tell my mother (I have a step father but even after the second marriage mother remained sole disciplinarian), not because I was hiding it, but because I didn’t feel it was any of her business. It was my life, my body, and my choice, and talking about sex with your mother isn’t exactly common practice. I had always been under the impression that sex really wasn’t a big deal, so I had no reason to believe that this would bother my mother. But it did. When she found out I was having sex, she freaked the fuck out. She was convinced I would get pregnant, though I had told her we were having protected sex. And for some reason which she had no evidence for, as she has told me in recent years, she was convinced that I thought it was no big deal if I got pregnant. Well instead of talking with me about her concerns, asking me how I felt about sex, asking me if I felt I was being responsible, or at the very least doing some sort of her own evaluation of my intellectual ability to consent to sex, she screamed at me for being irresponsible and told me I was what she called “grounded”. My mother’s version of grounded meant that I was not allowed anywhere but home and school, and was not allowed to talk to anyone on the phone. I feel like that is harsh, but that it’s still not too unreasonable, if it weren’t for the fact that this went on for over a year. I digress. My point in including this story was to point out that I have had to go through a period in my life where I did not own the rights to my own body. To continue:

I won’t take my kids’ sexual freedom away from them. George has never known what it is like not to have the rights to your own body. It is a dehumanizing, infuriating experience that I don’t want to put my kids through. Of course I don’t want our kids to impregnate or be impregnated, and I fully understand that they won’t ever be ready for that as teens, but a .1% chance is not enough to take away their right to their body. I say a .1% chance because that is the chance of pregnancy if using both condoms and birth control, and of course, I absolutely won’t condone having sex without condoms or pills. If our kids are found to be having sex without their use I fully expect us to reprimand and punish them. Also, I don’t want to just out and tell them that they are allowed to have sex at 15, or 14, or even 16 or 17. My whole point is that I don’t want them to feel like they need permission to make their own decisions about their bodies. We don’t have the right to tell someone else, no matter how they are related to us, what to do with their body.

Finally winning this argument with George was a victory for me, and it got me to thinking about people in general. Why is it that teen sex is so “immoral”? Is it because teenagers are incapable of making their own decisions? Anyone who has ever spent time actually talking to someone under 18 should know that they may not (generally) be the most intelligent of people, but they are far from stupid. If you look at it from the standpoint of they might make a mistake that they regret later, then adult sex should be just as immoral. Adults have sex with strangers or with people who aren’t good for them etc. all the time. I understand that as adults we are all free to make our own decisions because it is our constitutional right, but if adults are just as capable of making a mistake as teens, then why don’t teens get those rights too? Is it that teens are less capable of coping than adults? Individuals are unique, there are some adults who have trouble coping with sex at all, just as there are some teens that way as well. However, I know that the majority of teens in high school have sex and aren’t any the worse for it, just as with adults.

So, if it isn’t their decision making capabilities, then what? Is it that premarital sex is banned in the bible? (note: this argument is based strictly on grounds of morality, not legality) Well, unless you are a complete asshat, most Christians agree that the Bible is up for interpretation. Otherwise shaving would be wrong but raping your enemy’s women, not so much. In that case if you choose to believe that biblical ideas of premarital sex are correct, why? Why that passage and not what which says that pigs are unclean? Or the passage about dashing “thy little ones against the stones”? So, for all intents and purposes, we should say here that the Bible is not the know-all of everything moral and so, for the purposes of this argument, should not be used as a definitive guide to morality. So if it is not because of religion, why is it immoral?

I suspect it to be one of the above reasons which are either illogical or unable to be proven, or that it could be one other reason. I suspect that it could be the GOP believes teen sex to be immoral, because that is what they think. In their minds, they think it is immoral, so it is. I honestly have no problem with that, if their moral compass points them this way. They are entitled to their opinion. However, just because it is their opinion, that doesn’t make it correct. There is no real proof that teen sex is immoral.

Sweden Rules Gender Based Abortion 'OK'

Well, I've taken an interest this past week in reading up on some feminist bloggers. In doing that, I inadvertently came across this:

http://www.thelocal.se/19392/20090512/

First, perhaps it would be best for me to explain my stance on abortion. I used to feel like abortion was completely ok, in my teens, because my mother had brought me up to feel that way. In my first semester of college, I took a class in personal health and was required to write a research paper on a topic of my choice. I chose "Reciprocal Effects of Mother and Fetus During Gestation." The research required me to take an in depth look at the stages of fetal development. I discovered that in my personal opinion, during the first three months the fetus is, just that, a fetus. However, though I do not consider it to be yet human, it is alive. And so, having an abortion is the destruction of a living thing, and a potential human being. Yet I remain to be pro-choice. I feel that the government has no place in decisions of morality. I also feel, as is only logical, that a woman has every right to an abortion if her baby is dead, her baby will die shortly after birth, being pregnant has caused severe and potentially life threatening complications to the mother, giving birth will cause severe and potentially life threatening complications for the mother or the baby, or the woman has been raped. Basically, my stance boils down to abortion is not a form of birth control and should not be considered a method of birth control. If you were irresponsible enough not to use birth control in sex, then it is your responsibility to pay for that mistake, instead of letting a potential human being suffer for it.

Now, about the article. It appalls me that there is a woman who wanted an abortion based on gender, much less that there was actually a judge that ruled in her favor. This is a new level of right and wrong which goes beyond abortion as a method of birth control. This is destroying a potential child because it isn't what you want it to be. Destroying something that isn't what you want, in itself, isn't so bad when it's maybe a blog post, or an art project. But to destroy a living thing, regardless of human or potentially human or even a dog or potential dog or a bug, I don't care what it is, if it is life, is beyond immoral. Not only should gender based abortion be illegal, but anyone considering it should be committed.

I take issue with this for two reasons. If it is a living thing it shouldn't be destroyed just because it's inconvenient. That's actually how I feel about all abortions really. And the second reason this disturbs me is the same reason it is disturbing to me for people to get plastic surgery. Instead of dealing with imperfections, or dealing with the fact that you don't meet someone else's standards, you change or destroy yourself. Only this is worse. Instead of someone destroying themselves for not meeting someone else's standards, someone is destroying them for not meeting their standards.