From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Forward to the Past: Quote Choice for Men Unquote
Date: 10 Sep 92 20:50:56 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
| >I'm a feminist.  Am I oppressing you?  

gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes:
| I'll give you the full list in some other time,

Hillel, Hillel, doesn't your soul yearn to cry out against
feminist oppression?  Come on.  Let it out.  Don't put it off
while you feed the dog.

| but for a start you are against "choice for men."

This is the third or fourth go-'round for this subject.
It has been, as I recall, in soc.women, alt.flame, maybe
talk.politics.misc, and soc.feminism.

Just to set the record straight, I opposed Hillel's "choice
for men", not because I thought it was unjust, but because I
thought, and think, that (a) it's not very bright, and (b)
it's politically impossible anyway.  It's silly to discuss
it.  I suspect, in fact, that its proponents know this, but
find in it a way to attack or irritate feminists (or flog
themselves into a fine anti-feminist lather, which is almost
as much fun).

But, let's be silly, let's give it another turn.

The problem is that women get pregnant, and have children,
and the children have to be supported, and the impregnators
don't always want to participate.  There are several possible 
ways to deal with this.  Here are some of them:

1.  Make the biological parents do it.  A political favorite.
    If parents can't do it, give them welfare; if they
    won't, force them by law.

2.  Communize support; each child gets a check from the
    state, or something like that.  No one has to care who 
    the father is, or the mother, for that matter.  Many 
    difficult details.

3.  Do as some American Indian nations allegedly have done:
    disestablish the patriarchal family, child-care is
    exclusive role of mother, who has economic resources
    assigned to her for that purpose (among the Navahos,
    arable land).  If mother dies, female relative takes
    over.  Fatherhood is inconsequential, as in Plan #2.

4.  Have no requirements, and let indigent children beg,
    steal, and die in the streets.

5.  Compel women to have abortions or to assume all
    responsibility, etc.

One can think of others, but that is not relevant here; I'm
just giving examples.

The point I made was that, when a man starts to have vaginal
sex with a woman, Plan #1 is written before him, as in words 
of fire, not because God or the feminists made it that way,
but because the American voters made it that way.  It is the 
rule of the game.  The man is not forced to have sex; there 
are lots of other things he can do, like take a cold shower.

(This way of looking at things goes back to the glory days 
of patriarchy, by the way, when men were men, by God, and
responsible for their actions.  Can you imagine John Wayne
or Abraham wimping out on their get?)

To some extent, a lot of social situations are defined by
rules that are laid down by society beforehand, and having
sex with a fertile woman is not only one of them, it's at
the top of the list.  The American voters, for the most
part, think that single motherhood is a problem, especially 
if it looks like it's going to occasion welfare costs or
impoverished urchins running wild in the streets.  On the
other hand, a great many of them are sentimental about
fetuses.  So the Hillel plan has the chance of a snowball 
in hell on a warm day in August.

I would rather see Plan #2 or Plan #3 implemented, but I'm
not going to hold my breath; there is no substantial
constituency in America for either.  Meanwhile, I'll wait
for this thread to find its way to another newsgroup.  How
about comp.risks?
-- 
 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )