Letters to the Editor
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Durden is Correct
one fo the reasons I am so free with the virulence of my discourse against women is that I give it back as hard as I see women throwing it at us men.
it is harsh but effective eventually because it forces people to face up to the fact that women do not have to listen to or care about men or even to argue LOGICALLY, only to dictate to us men their list of demands.
I will not stand for that. I want better for my boys and other men in the future and I have made it my mission to change this current man hating system.
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I don't know if ther's much point now.but I'm wondering erica how do you know this?
Far more children in this country grow up fatherless than grow up with a father tricked into caring for them.
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To Tyler Durden
...who cited the following quote of mine as an example of "man hating":
"Does a guy have to "go all the way" (with no condom!) two seconds after meeting someone or forfeit his "manhood" all to hell?"
In point of fact, I have never been involved with a man like this; even as a teenage girl I didn't know boys like this. That's why I asked the question. It's so far out of the range of the males I've known (including the one I was married to and the one with whom I'm currently involved), that it almost seems to be the behavior of a separate species.
And no, these weren't affluent men either, more of them were closer to broke than to rich. If these guys can manage to use the gray matter they were given in matters of human relations, if they can manage to think of women as partners and best friends instead of trophies, if they can manage to think of women as their allies instead of harpies who are out to steal them blind, why can't the others? I don't buy this "that's just how men are" thing one bit. Speak for yourselves, guys.
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Men think before sex but they don't think the same way women do
Which makes it tough to get everyone on the same page
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Partial solution?
I'm glad you've come to your senses on the "herding pregnant women into abortion clinics at gunpoint" thing. I was pretty sure that wasn't actually what you meant.
A partial solution to the dilemna could be to ensure that the child's welfare is secured by a third party, say the government. In the more sensible parts of the developed world, where it isn't seen as quite right to throw your most vulnerable citizens to the wolves, the basic needs of a child are guaranteed. Food, shelter, protection, health care, education, emotional support- the government does its best to ensure all children have access. That's the ideal of course, in practice its rarely perfect. But then, neither are families...
This removes some of the urgency of the problem, allowing men to decide how much of a parent they want to be, independant of matters of financial duress.
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djbollman...
You're right, I didn't take a poll or anything, and the survey numbers and statistics I have seen I don't have memorized (although I have seen them). I'll go anecdotal -- I know lots and lots of kids without fathers, lots and lots of single mothers where the guy just took off. I don't think it's a huge revelation to say that that's a major problem in our country (although yes, it is getting better because of deadbeat dad laws). I've never met anyone before who even claimed that he or she was tricked into having a kid. I'm sure it happens, but I seriously doubt it happens on anything like a large scale.
(I should note that I also know lots and lots of really good dads and moms!)
I agree that women and men think differently before sex, but that's honestly part of my frustration. It's fun for all, sure, but is it too much to ask for the guys to use a little empathy? Because if the condom breaks or they're both drunk or the .01 percent failure rate kicks in, the woman does not have a choice. She can decide whether or not to keep the baby -- not a light decision, and God forbid she actually has moral qualms about abortion -- but she'll be going to the doctor's office and likely facing some emotionally difficult times either way. She has no choice but to deal with it. The worst that can happen to an unwilling father is, he has to help her financially support their kid. He doesn't even have to be good at it. If she does have the baby, she will most likely bear the brunt of childrearing. Not only her money, but her entire lifestyle will from then on revolve around the kid. The idea that, while she's saddled with this terrifying choice and weighing finances and (possibly) morality and stigma and what this means to the rest of her life, and her body is starting to mutiny, the guy is standing there shifting from one foot to the other, saying, "uhh, look, sorry, I can't deal with this"... I really don't mean to be unempathetic, this is all big, scary stuff for everyone involved, but can you at least see the frustration? The whole "opt-out" idea just seems to legitimize a deep-seated fear, that he's just using you for sex, that you're the one who's going to have to suffer the consequences, that you'll be alone in this.
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Salon did a better job addressing this issue in the past
For a much more articulate and thoughtful analysis of this issue, I encourage reading this Salon article, written 5 years ago:
http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/10/19/mens_choice/index.html
The article addresses the rather puritanical attitudes I've been seeing in these letters.
Some excerpts:
"Feminists often argue, correctly no doubt, that many pro-lifers are motivated less by concern for the unborn than by the belief that women who enjoy sex should pay a penalty for it. But maybe even more people today have a similarly punitive attitude toward men. In some comments I have heard, from both men and women, about the danger of "letting men off the hook," the real fear seemed to be not that the children would suffer, but that the men would get off scot-free."
"It should make us realize that, if men who want a right to be released from their parental obligations seem callously egocentric to many people, that's how women who want abortion on demand look to many anti-abortion advocates. It should make us ponder the fact that, while paternal desertion is often cited as evidence of male irresponsibility and selfishness, more than a million American women every year walk away from the burdens of motherhood."
"Advocates of choice for men like to cite a passage from a Planned Parenthood statement, '9 Reasons Why Abortions Are Legal': 'At the most basic level, the abortion issue is not really about abortion. ... Should women make their own decisions about family, career and how to live their lives? Or should government do that for them? Do women have the option of deciding when or whether to have children?' Substitute 'men' for 'women,' and it's hard to deny that coerced fatherhood drastically curtails a man's ability to make key decisions about how to live his life, including when or whether to have children with a woman he loves."
Go read the whole thing for a much better analysis of the issues than the recent Broadsheet posts.