To many, those who advocate for a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy be it for medical reasons, a rape, a strategic career move, or simply to avoid financial responsibility, pro-choice advocates among feminist organizations miss a crucial point (as they usually do) in their advocacy. That point, as feminists are notoriously known for ignoring, is that there is another side to this issue. There are fathers who took part in the conception of the said child, or fetus, depending on what type of pro-choice or pro-life advocate you speak to. That father may or may not want the responsibilities of the child as well. The father may be trying to advance in a career or maybe he just doesn’t want a child at the moment. However, the decision for the father is solely that of the mother. If a woman is pregnant, be it planned or an accident, whether or not any responsibilities for the child will be set forth is up to her alone. This is the way many feel it should be for the simple fact that mothers carry and birth children.
Personally, I feel that a father should have some say in whether a pregnancy is terminated or not. He did have a hand in creating the life after all. On the other hand I can understand the feminist perspective of the issue (as crazy as that sounds) seeing as how if I had a life growing inside of me I wouldn’t want someone to be able to tell me I have to go to a medical facility and terminate that life, nor would I want to need someone’s consent to terminate that life. Granted, many believe that there is no life until birth but regardless of who is on either side of that debate, the law states that the termination is legal and I would not want someone telling me I can’t exercise a legal right without the consent of someone else.
So the issue of whether or not a woman should be able to terminate her pregnancy is not, in my mind, an issue at all. Let her abort all she wants, it’s her body and her choice. This however, raises the question of what occurs when a father does not want a child. Feminists, as always, have jumped on any sliver of a chance to demonize men when it comes to any issue, human or otherwise. According to feminists, men who don’t want the financial responsibilities that come with a child are cowards or “deadbeats.†The fact that the term “deadbeat dad†was not created by feminists is not lost on me. However, it is a term they are not afraid to use when claiming that men are somehow oppressing women and that the advocacy anti-feminist groups make against forced child support and alimony is nothing but a bunch of irresponsible fathers looking for an easy way out of their obligations.
The questions I ask every feminist I hear these accusations from is, why exactly is a man who wants to opt out of his responsibilities as a father a coward and a woman who does the same thing with abortion “empowered†and “beating the patriarchy†or something like that? Why are these obligations that feminists are so concerned about only male obligations? The response I always get is a shameful diversion of the question along the lines of,
“who ultimately carries the child”
or
“who gives birthâ€Â
and an assortment of other cliché responses. I have not met a feminist who can answer this question without trying to turn the debate away from a man having similar rights that a woman has when it comes to parenthood, to trying to make it seem as if I am advocating against a woman having abortion rights.
I think it is sensible to make legal the opting out of parenthood for both men and women meaning that if both a man and woman want a child then they can have one. If a woman doesn’t want a child she can let the father have it if he is willing or put it up for adoption or abort if he is not, or even if he is willing and she just wants to abort. On the other side, the equality side, if a father doesn’t want a child and a mother does then he should not be forced to pay child support and or alimony, be he an ex-husband, boyfriend, or one night stand. It is simple logic and the truest form of equality that I feel can be reached when it comes to allowing both men and women complete control over their bodies and finances. However, as one would expect, feminists support one side of this issue, allowing women to abort but actively protest the abolishment of forced child support and alimony. Just as abortion is a choice so to should be child support and alimony. Why support legal freedom of one side and protest the other? Why shout to anyone who listens that a man forcing a woman to have a child she doesn’t want is inhumane but at the same time advocate that a woman who goes to court and forces a man to pay child support for a child he doesn’t want is just and empowering? Why claim that forcing a man to pay child support is in the best interests of the child and a child’s interests trump those of a father and at the same time claim a woman’s interests trump those of a child when she chooses to abort it? Why do feminists who are shown the double standard in this line of thinking respond with despicable clichés such as
“if you don’t want to pay child support then keep it in your pantsâ€Â
and several others? Maybe those over at N.O.W can explain it better than me, because the concept brings about nothing but confusion when I try and wrap my head around it. I ask anyone be they an anti-feminist, (if they can stomach this request), a “moderate†feminist, or an average person who doesn’t care about any of this to go to the N.O.W website and type in alimony or child support on their search bar. I clicked through a few of the articles and reports that popped up and found it extremely hypocritical at how they oppose any group that wants to put an end to forced child support. It is also rather comical. There are several “action alerts†posted up from years past urging feminists to call their congressmen and vice president and voice their protest of bills and title reforms proposed by anyone, be they anti-feminists or completely unbiased that would bring some form of relief to the countless fathers across many countries that are barely getting by because of forced child support and alimony payments. They are also working to find “solutions†to getting men who have fallen behind on payments to reimburse women as if the threat of prison isn’t good enough in forcing them to forget about their own financial security and make sure their ex gets her “entitled†cut of his hard earned money. These people openly broadcast their bigotry yet are still allowed to influence government decisions. Why?
Another abortion of equality I will touch on is the standards of rape that have been set in the legal system. I think anyone, be they an anti-feminist or a feminist would agree that a man or a woman who forces themselves on someone else sexually is a rapist. You’ll notice that the most simplistic outlooks on crimes that are committed can be agreed upon by any groups that agree with or disagree with the current legal system. However, this two sided human issue that has been kidnapped by the one side female supremacy advocates known as feminists is another shameful disgrace that proves feminists have as much place in government politics as the Nazis or the Roman Catholic Church of the dark ages. The standard that men (and only men) must follow in regards to intimate encounters is to make sure that a woman verbally gives consent before actually getting intimate even if she initiates in a non verbal manner. The standard that women follow is to pick a guy that they want to have sex with and go get him, consent or no consent. Even after this, consent given and enjoyed, the woman is at a crossroad and the man is at her mercy.
Bar and club settings are there for two reasons, to go and get drunk and dance with friends or to go and get laid. I’m sure there are many people who have wound up married to the person they met at one of these places but it is doubtful that was their initial intention. Scores of men and women dressed in attire meant to attract the opposite sex frequent these establishments. They drink, they dance, and they drink some more. Not too many decades ago it was a male demonizing norm to view men as the “punch spikers†who “got women drunk†in order to take advantage of them. The only ones who hold on to and spread that insulting idealology now are of course feminists who all but claim that alcohol was invented for the sole purpose of being a tool a man can use to get in a woman’s pants. However, anyone who actually goes to bars and clubs will see that within the huge crowds, both men and women consume large amounts of alcohol of their own free will. You will also spot many men and women who barely know each other laughing and holding hands as they stumble their way out of the establishment to drive drunkenly back to either the man or woman’s apartment. What happens next is obvious; however, what happens after that, as with the double standard in parental rights, is completely up to the woman. Usually when a man wakes up next to a woman and finds that she is not the super model his “beer goggles†once led him to believe she was the reaction is usually a sigh of disappointment, a hope that his buddies will not find out, or a hope that a meaningful relationship is not expected. Unfortunately, far too often in these same scenarios, when the woman wakes up and finds that Tom Cruise is really Kevin James, instead of a sigh of disappointment a fear of embarrassment envelopes her and instead of just admitting she made a decision while intoxicated that she would not make sober, she instead chooses to claim a rape occurred. There are several reasons this happens other than embarrassment yet oddly enough, rape is the only option of how to explain away the consent of a sexual action that is exclusive to women. If the same guy mentioned before happened to be cheating on his wife or girlfriend with the girl next to him, an assortment of ways to cover up the deed would circle around his mind yet rape would not be one of them. Men are not angels and will lie to get out of trouble but any lie that a guy would come up with in this particular situation, that millions of men throughout recent history have been in whether they were cheating or not, would not condemn the woman next to them to twenty years or more in prison. Furthermore, men are more prone to just actively deny cheating or sleeping with a not so gorgeous woman until the evidence is too heavy to deny than come up with some elaborate scheme. After that the scorn or laughter is taken and they move on.
The reasoning behind why women can be so cruel as to send a man to prison just to avoid being made fun of or to hide infidelity is not lost on me. Women do not do these despicable things just because they are women. They do these things because there is no legal punishment that would discourage the crime, a crime, that to many, mainly feminists, is not a crime at all. That said; there is a clear understanding between many anti-feminists that women are not inherent liars because they are women but because they are human. This simple fact can be illustrated in the fact that if the table were turned and anyone would believe a woman raped a man simply because he said so and there was little to no punishment involved for lying, I believe it is safe to say there would be several false rape allegations made by men. Although the point that human beings being liars is not the issue, it does hold weight within the main issue of false rape charges. One of the many claims and theories feminists use to defend false rape accusers is that society believes women are inherent liars and that any woman claiming she was raped is a whore. Whenever the advocacy of severe punishment for false rape accusers is brought up, feminists are the first ones to jump in front of the equality train. They will claim that bringing public attention to and punishing those proven to be lying about a crime as serious as rape that could and in many cases already has put thousands upon thousands of innocent men in prison is damaging to real victims of rape.
This I believe is one of the main reasons feminist organizations have begun losing court battles and members. This is also why I believe any movement be it a women’s movement or men’s movement that only focuses on their side of an issue and advocates for their advancement at the expense of other will eventually fall due to one simple fact. Feminists that have advocated for the advancement of women at the expense of men have not realized or have simply (and rather arrogantly) ignored the fact that the same women they are placing above men, instead of beside them (equality?) have brothers and uncles, sons and fathers, and friends and lovers. These women that become disgusted with feminism see their male family members and friends being torn down for no other reason than the fact that they are men and decide to help put an end to the discrimination. Feminists are not blind to the rise of this inevitable phenomenon, they have just simply shrugged it off and kept their feet firmly planted on the equality train tracks, shoving away anyone that does not agree with their perspective on what men and women should believe, what defines them, or how men and women should act when given a certain situation. They try and in a lot of instances succeed in reducing a debate on a serious issue such as abortion or rape to a schoolyard argument over whether boys are better than girls. When those boys and girls grow up the argument evolves to which gender is screwed over by the legal system more or who is the bigger victim.
I for one do not care which gender is unfairly represented by the law more than the other. I simply feel that taking away the unfairness put down on one gender without causing unfairness for the other is the most logical route to take. Granted, complete fairness in all aspects of every issue is probably impossible, however, giving men the right to say “my wallet my choice†would not in any way take away a woman’s right to abort or birth a child if she so chooses. Leaving drunken consensual sex out of the category of rape and punishing those proven of lying about it on par with those proven (with evidence, not testimony) of committing it would decrease the number of false allegations without increasing the number of rape victims.
Feminists disagree with these logical proposals and feel that only a woman should have the freedom to choose whether or not she will support a child. They feel that a woman who has sex with a man while he, she, or neither of them was intoxicated has been raped if she regrets the decision days, months, or even years later. There are few feminists who acknowledge the double standards of these notions (when facts no longer allow them to deny it) yet do not protest it to anyone that can affect change in the broken movement that is feminism.
Feminism has aborted equality and given birth to the many double standards men face throughout western society. Their bigotry, once gone, will be remembered, it will be studied, but it will not be missed.
By Jared “jmnzz” W.
