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The “Forced Paternity” objectors

You know these guys.  I know these guys.

These are the men who protest, loudly, that women can choose to have an abortion and the father gets no say in it, but if they keep the kid, the man is liable for child support.  "It is unfair," they cry with wild abandon, "if a woman can choose not to care for a child, then a man should also be able to!"

That these fellows (read: morons) cry foul here got me to thinking though, about the fundamental disconnects many men seem to have on this issue, and it is this that I am hoping to be able to articulate well.

One of the confusions is this: These people do not understand that there is a difference between person and property.  A person’s money is property, not part of your person.  A woman’s reproductive system?  That is part of her person, and the she has the right to make decisions regarding the medical care of her body.  All of it, by the way, not just the parts that don’t directly contribute to the making of babies.

Now, we may go hither and yon about how these idiots just don’t want to pay child support, and that is a fair accusation, but I’m not concerned about the motivations behind their arguments, but the failings they have that I haven’t seen expressed.

The insistence that they are required to provide for kids at the whims of women are fall apart quickly.  ...

Living In a State of Sin

I’m a middle-class cisgendered white male in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship.  I know, great way to start a post on a feminist journal, right?

I’ve always thought of myself as the progressive sort, but as time goes on I’m starting to realize how much privilege has permeated my life, and how that has affected my judgements and my perceptions.

I think about the people I spent time with in high school and college.  About the jokes wrought with racism, classism and sexism that were "okay, because we don’t really mean it".  I don’t want to get into it, but the drill’s pretty familiar.  Rationalization is great: it’s okay to be wildly offensive and make light of other people’s trauma because ...

I’m a middle-class cisgendered white male in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship.  I know, great way to start a post on a feminist journal, right?

I’ve always thought of myself as the progressive sort, but as time goes ...