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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 2024

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A man can absolutely get a vasectomy without his partner's approval or knowledge, but a lot of women would consider doing so without consulting her (especially if she wants children) to be a deal-breaker. And it would be a dick (heh) move to do that without talking to your partner.

And a woman can have her tubes tied without her husbands consent. So here women and men have equal rights, but with abortion what is destroyed is inherently a product of two people, unlike fallopian tubes or vas deferens. A woman who never interacted with a man has nothing to abort, but she has fallopian tube.

More generally, making any kind of huge financial or life decision ("I am going to quit my job," "I just bought a new Cybertruck," etc.) is the sort of thing you can legally do but most people would agree is a shitty thing to do unilaterally.

Abortion:

Woman: legally allowed to make a decision on her own

Man: legally allowed to argue

Quitting a job/buying a car:

Woman: legally allowed to make a decision on her own

Man: legally allowed to make a decision on his own

I fail to see the parallel.

Most people probably understood that a wife was probably going to have some influence on her husband, but it was also understood that a husband could and would vote however he wanted without consulting his wife.

Yes, when women couldn't vote this was realized, but I am talking about today. Of contemporary political affiliations, only anti-suffragists (Edit: and those who hand around them) are familiar with the argument that women had political power, even if the vote was denied to them.

Edit: As spaces have increasingly clamped down on rightists deviations, it is increasingly unlikely for normies to have heard this.

And a woman can have her tubes tied without her husbands consent. So here women and men have equal rights, but with abortion what is destroyed is inherently a product of two people, unlike fallopian tubes or vas deferens. A woman who never interacted with a man has nothing to abort, but she has fallopian tube.

So? Men can't get pregnant. This is not a convincing argument unless you're pro-life, in which case "It's not fair that the woman has the deciding vote" is not your actual objection. If you object to abortion on principle, that's fine - we don't agree, but you'd still be against abortion even if we made it a law that the mother and father both have to agree to it. If you'd be pro-choice if the father gets a veto, that would be interesting. Is that your position?

Yes, when women couldn't vote this was realized, but I am talking about today. Of contemporary political affiliations, only anti-suffragists (Edit: and those who hand around them) are familiar with the argument that women had political power, even if the vote was denied to them.

No, this isn't some secret knowledge that women, even in highly patriarchal and oppressive societies, have always been able to influence their husbands.

I don't think even Amanda Marcotte believes that women had literally zero influence or agency prior to the 19th Amendment. The argument is that having some "influence" exactly to the degree that your husband allows it isn't the same as having autonomy. If your argument is that women shouldn't have autonomy, fine, I understand that argument. But not being able to vote in a democracy is absolutely a lack of autonomy.

Abortion:

Woman: legally allowed to make a decision on her own

Man: legally allowed to argue

From the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women:

Article 16

1. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women:

...

(e) The same rights to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights;

If a woman can unilaterally decide to abort or carry her baby to term, can men truly be said to have the same right to "to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children" if all he can do is try to persuade her?