The lie that'll destroy women for generations

Anything to do with gender and the status of women and men.

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iambiguous
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

Post by iambiguous »

reasonvemotion wrote: Sat Oct 15, 2022 3:20 am Where does the father on the issue of abortion stand.

Does the law give him any rights?
Reminds me of that scene from Woody Allen's Another Woman:

Man: How arrogant! How self-centered and feelingless!
Woman: I told you I didn't want a baby!
Man: What do you mean, "didn't want a baby"? It was partly mine!
Woman: Except it's my life that gets derailed. You go on doing what you want and I have to stop and bring it up.
Man: But we'd share the responsibility.
Woman: You know it would devolve down to me.
Man: I wanted this baby!
Woman: I told you, it was not part of my plan.
Man: But you [aborted it] it without consulting me.
Woman: Consulting you?! It's my baby! Do I have to consult you for every move I make? It's only your ego that's hurt.
Man: You said you wanted children.
Woma: I do, but not now.
Man: I don't have the future stretched out in front of me indefinitely.
Woman: It's easy for you to say. You've done your work. I'm just starting out, trying to make something of myself!
Man: But you could do it without asking me! Or giving me a chance to argue you out of it!
Woman: I didn't want to be argued out of it. We've talked this to death! lt was unwanted! Do you want to bring a child into this world? Really, you're the one that hates it so much, forever lecturing me on the pointlessness of existence.
Man: I hate you so! To be capable of such a lack of feeling! Knowing how I felt!


As with most questions like this, each of us will have his or her own "personal opinion". And that opinion, in my view, is rooted existentially in the individual life that we lived. And continue to live. Different historical and cultural contexts, different personal experiences, yield different historical and cultural narratives, different personal convictions.

So the point always becomes this: As philosophers, are we able to "think up" and then to demonstrate to others what all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated [re Kant and others] to believe about gender roles and abortion?

Then those here who insist that how they think about it is how the rest of us either think about it in turn or they are simply wrong.

Re one or another God or secular dogma.
reasonvemotion
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

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Walker wrote:
This 4 minutes by Bill Burr is just brutal.
I have watched many of his topics.

Hilarious but brutally honest.

Thanks for that Walker.
reasonvemotion
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

Post by reasonvemotion »

iambiguous wrote:
........ are we able to "think up" and then to demonstrate to others what all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated [re Kant and others] to believe about gender roles and abortion?
According to some, even if the embryo were by means of observation proven to be characteristic of humankind, the women's rights are still considered the primary consideration.

Aristotle argued, ‘All living things, including mindless plants, have a good or an end proper to their species toward which they naturally tend to develop from a formless or potential state.’

To argue exceptions are made for cases of rape or incest, then the innocence of the fetus is being clearly ignored.

"Ayn Rand claims that ‘to equate a potential with an actual is vicious: to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable."
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

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An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?

Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a “right to life.” A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable. . . . Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living: the right of young people to set the course of their own lives. The task of raising a child is a tremendous, lifelong responsibility, which no one should undertake unwittingly or unwillingly. Procreation is not a duty: human beings are not stock-farm animals. For conscientious persons, an unwanted pregnancy is a disaster; to oppose its termination is to advocate sacrifice, not for the sake of anyone’s benefit, but for the sake of misery qua misery, for the sake of forbidding happiness and fulfillment to living human beings.

If any among you are confused or taken in by the argument that the cells of an embryo are living human cells, remember that so are all the cells of your body, including the cells of your skin, your tonsils, or your ruptured appendix—and that cutting them is murder, according to the notions of that proposed law. Remember also that a potentiality is not the equivalent of an actuality—and that a human being’s life begins at birth.

The question of abortion involves much more than the termination of a pregnancy: it is a question of the entire life of the parents. As I have said before, parenthood is an enormous responsibility; it is an impossible responsibility for young people who are ambitious and struggling, but poor; particularly if they are intelligent and conscientious enough not to abandon their child on a doorstep nor to surrender it to adoption. For such young people, pregnancy is a death sentence: parenthood would force them to give up their future, and condemn them to a life of hopeless drudgery, of slavery to a child’s physical and financial needs. The situation of an unwed mother, abandoned by her lover, is even worse.


Ayn Rand. Well well well...
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iambiguous
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

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reasonvemotion wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 11:42 pm iambiguous wrote:
........ are we able to "think up" and then to demonstrate to others what all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated [re Kant and others] to believe about gender roles and abortion?
According to some, even if the embryo were by means of observation proven to be characteristic of humankind, the women's rights are still considered the primary consideration.
Again, though, my own main interest here is not in noting what some believe while others do not, but in exploring how, existentially, out in particular worlds historically, culturally and personally, each of us as individuals, in accumulating unique experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge, come to acquire moral and political prejudices.

Subjective/intersubjective prejudices. That is until philosophers, ethicists and political scientists are able to agree on that which all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to believe regarding when the unborn become bona fide human beings and/or if it is moral to abort the unborn given particular sets of circumstances.

Me, I believe the unborn are human beings from the point of conception and that aborting them is the killing of a human being. I also believe that women ought to be permitted to abort the unborn at any time based on their own assessment of their own situation.

How do I reconcile that? I don't. I don't because I can't. It is simply part and parcel of what William Barrett described as "rival goods". A moral and political conundrum built into the "human condition" given a No God world.
reasonvemotion wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 11:42 pmAristotle argued, ‘All living things, including mindless plants, have a good or an end proper to their species toward which they naturally tend to develop from a formless or potential state.’
Okay, how is that applicable to the moral conflagration that is the abortion wars here in America? Is there an Aristotelian/Platonic rendition of the "philosopher king" we can fall back on here? The "Golden Mean" solution?
reasonvemotion wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 11:42 pmTo argue exceptions are made for cases of rape or incest, then the innocence of the fetus is being clearly ignored.
Exactly. It's not the innocent embryo/fetus that brought it's own existence into play here. It's just another example of how complex and convoluted these things become for mere mortals in a No God world.
reasonvemotion wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 11:42 pm"Ayn Rand claims that ‘to equate a potential with an actual is vicious: to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable."
With her though comes the irony embedded in how she championed the individual but then castigated -- even "excommunicated" -- all those who refused to think exactly as she did about, for example, everything under the sun.

The objective individual. The objective truth. But only and always on her terms.
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iambiguous
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

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vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 9:51 am An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?
And on and on and on.

The classic "arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian" mentality. She merely asserts things like this to be true. That is demonstration enough that, in fact, they are true for those of her ilk. Just as those on the other end of the ideological spectrum embrace the same sort of moral and political dictums in spouting their own prejudices. With or without God as the font of choice.

What made Roe v Wade here in America "the best of all possible worlds" for many is that it gave both sides something but not one side all. Now the right-wing ideologues are hell bent on getting it all. And many of them are evangelical Christians. So, there is no "reasoning" with them.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

iambiguous wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 8:14 pm
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 9:51 am An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?
She merely asserts things like this to be true.
Actually they are true. Which is why I posted it. Which part of the full quote isn't true? What could be more autocratic and authoritarian than forcing a woman to continue with a pregnancy she doesn't want, and for purely religious, misogynistic reasons? Are you ever likely to need an abortion?
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iambiguous
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

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vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 9:12 pm
iambiguous wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 8:14 pm
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 9:51 am An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?
And on and on and on.

The classic "arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian" mentality. She merely asserts things like this to be true. That is demonstration enough that, in fact, they are true for those of her ilk. Just as those on the other end of the ideological spectrum embrace the same sort of moral and political dictums in spouting their own prejudices. With or without God as the font of choice.

What made Roe v Wade here in America "the best of all possible worlds" for many is that it gave both sides something but not one side all. Now the right-wing ideologues are hell bent on getting it all. And many of them are evangelical Christians. So, there is no "reasoning" with them.
Actually they are true. Which is why I posted it. Which part of the full quote isn't true?
Over and again, it depends on the assumption you start out with. You that the unborn is not a full-fledged human being, others that human life begins at conception. You that the political right of the pregnant woman takes precedence, others that the life of the unborn take precedence.

And, beyond merely asserting it to be the case, how exactly does either side go about demonstrating their own "axiomatic" objective truth?
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 9:12 pmWhat could be more autocratic and authoritarian than forcing a woman to continue with a pregnancy she doesn't want, and for purely religious, misogynistic reasons? Are you ever likely to need an abortion?
That's you. Others will argue in defense of the unborn: "What could be more autocratic and authoritarian than shredding the life of a human being unable to do a damn thing to stop it?"

The irresistible force objectivist vs. the immovable object objectivist.

And you can argue that a zygote, an embryo and a fetus are not real human beings, but not a single one of us around today was not at first a zygote, an embryo and a fetus.

It's like Ayn Rand differentiating the acorn from the oak tree. As though there is a single oak tree out there which was not at one time the acorn.

Besides, there are those who rationalize even the killing of the already born. Why? Because it's not the gender they wanted [think China]. Or they have the wrong skin color or practice the wrong sexual orientation or worship the wrong God or are of the wrong ethnicity or espouse the wrong political dogmas.

And I myself have taken that existential leap to a woman's right to choose. I just recognize it as a particular political prejudice rooted in the life I live. I don't argue that those who are opposed to abortion are basically idiots because they don't think like I do.
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

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In her opening address at the literature event in Mumbai, Greer came dangerously close to sounding like a pro-lifer, someone who is against a woman’s right to abortion, when she called the fight for abortion rights “a historical accident” and suggested that in the end it has facilitated a kind of eugenics with surrogacy and made-to-order babies. “Feminists must realise some of their victories were pyrrhic,” she said, and that there was no getting away from the fact that “abortion is killing, don’t pretend it isn’t”.

So what is her position on abortion, including sex-selective abortion?

“Oh well. This is a really ticklish point. We’re dealing with female agency. And part of the decision-making when it comes to sex-selective abortions, is made by the woman as well as the man. Or maybe not the man at all,” Greer responded.

But in India, it is not a choice women make independently, I point out, that it is “the family”, including the husband, which decides that it is better to abort a female foetus than give birth to a girl.

Greer says she has revised her position on this issue after she learned of a Sikh woman in England and the choice she faced. After four and a half years of marriage, during which she gave birth to three girls, she found she was pregnant again. When she went for her scan after 12 weeks, she discovered it was a girl, again. She asked the doctors to terminate the pregnancy but was refused as it was against the law. So she went to a traditional birth attendant. And bled to death from a botched abortion.

“What annoyed me”, said Greer, “was that the coroner who sat on the case said she brought it on herself. It was her fault because she tried to do something immoral, which was to terminate a pregnancy because of the sex of a child. Damn it. You can terminate a pregnancy for the simple reason that you don’t want to bear the child. And you’re not going to explain it to someone who’s not even remotely involved. ”

Greer’s position on abortion remains unchanged but nuanced. “I’m not against abortion. But it’s even worse than that. The way people talk about the liberalisation of the access to abortion is to make it sound like a privilege. It isn’t a privilege. If you really can’t have a child, not because you don’t want to have one, but because you’ll lose your job, lose your place at university, or your parents will kick you out, or your boyfriend will dump you, if everything is pushing you towards the decision, you will hurt, you will be guilty, because you will not have wholly accepted your own behaviour. You’ll be saying, look what you made me do. I didn’t want to do that. Women’s lives are difficult.”
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

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Who the fuck cares what these people say anyway? Can't any of you think for yourselves??
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iambiguous
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

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vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 11:33 pm Who the fuck cares what these people say anyway? Can't any of you think for yourselves??
One possible translation:

"The only reason I give a fuck about what others think is that some do have the audacity to think for themselves and not as I do."

And, of course, those on the other end of the political spectrum are thinking exactly the same thing about her.

What they won't admit is how, in one crucial respect, they are basically just replicas of each other. It's not what they believe about gender roles and abortion but that what they believe about them allows them to self-righteously divide up the world between "one of us" [the smart, good guys] and "one of them" [the dumb, bad guys].

Human history as it were.

Well, so far.
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

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reasonvemotion wrote: Mon Oct 10, 2022 12:34 pm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4aL5JCjX9Y[url][/url]

For the first time ever since records began 50.1% of women are childless by age 30.
One thing my Dad told me when I was a kid. "Try not to be a c*nt". Obviously no one every told Jordan Peterson.

The trouble with the guy is that he is an addled but reformed drug addict and constantly fails to see his won inherent contradictions.
And this particular video is one of the worst examples of this failure.
Men are telling women lies!!! THey are controlling what women do and chose fo themselves. and THAT is exactly what this misogynistic p**** is doing too.
What right has he got to tell women what they want? Surely its up to them to make that decision for themselves. And sure enough around half of women are choosing to be independant and not having children.
JP might not like that, being the pr1ck he is, but yah boo. It's not up to him to tell women what they want.
What a totally arrogant twat.
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

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Sculptor wrote:
One thing my Dad told me when I was a kid. "Try not to be a c*nt".
What did he mean when he said that?
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

Post by Iwannaplato »

reasonvemotion wrote: Tue Oct 11, 2022 8:23 am Women should have children is part of the oppressive patriarchy and that is not good. 
Or instead of saying or what certain very conservative or religious people say, we could say take out all the shoulds. Women can have children and many find this extremely satisfying or right for them. Women can have carriers and many women find this extremely satisfying. And some women do both and find this works. And regardless of their own satisfaction and values, we want them to be able to choose. So, both of the supposed two sides with their shoulds can just shut the fuck up.
What our society does to 19 year old women is lie to them.
It's always done that, though the lies change and shuffle around between groups. It used to tell women that they were too stupid to do all sorts of things it turns out they are capable of doing. Lies didn't start in the 70s.
The first lie is, there is nothing more important than your career, more or less by definition.
Well, that might be true for someone, some women. But as a generalization it is obviously not true. Just as other people with other values are lying when they make their generalizations.
The second lie is, there will be nothing more important to you in your life than your career.
Same point as above, and important to whom is the obvious elided question.
The third lie is. there should be nothing  more important in your life than your career and then implicit in that is the idea that children are a burden and that the idea that women should have children is part of the oppressive patriarchy and should be resisted.
Same point as above.
Finally, who are men to tell me what I can do with my body.
That seems like a good question. Who are THOSE men to tell me what is important to me and important in general.

It's not like we lack babies.
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Re: The lie that'll destroy women for generations

Post by FrankGSterleJr »

Yet people continue to procreate, some prolifically even, regardless of their questionable ability to raise their children in a functional and healthy manner.

But a physically and mentally sound future is every child’s moral right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter. Society needs to genuinely care about each other, especially with child-development health thus needs. And simply mindlessly 'minding our own business' too often proves humanly devastating.

However, owing to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my family is doing fine?’ or ‘What is in it for me if I care about other people’s children troubles?’

While some people will justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the self-serving OIIIMOBY can debilitate collective human sustenance and progress, even when such sustenance/progress is most needed. And it seems this distinct form of societal penny wisdom but pound foolishness is a very unfortunate human characteristic that’s likely with us to stay.

Still, the health of ALL children needs to be of real importance to us ALL — and not just concern over what other parents’ children might or will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — regardless of how well our own developing children are doing.
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