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I understand what is supposed to happen. My concern is what happens when something goes wrong.
Blue tribe is happy to hand wave away men's vulnerability to women's overwhelming reproductive power as "biological" in origin. I am unsure how biology writes our laws in any sense other than the most reductive and worthless—but on the other hand, I am not opposed to the implementation of cultural protections in lieu of legal ones where the latter may be too unwieldy. Blues would insist that any legal protection for men is impossible to practically implement. I may mostly disagree, but I can see how it might be hard to implement within a marriage context. Cultural protections may be appropriate here.
The problem is that this form of protection isn't offered to men by blue tribe in nearly enough volume to justify the power differential. Blue tribe culture may be willing to condemn reproductive coercion of men by women as being kinda mean, and wag a finger at women who do it, but that isn't nearly enough, and proves that blues don't really care about this abuse of power.
If we're taking this seriously, reproductive coercion of men by women really ought to be considered at a similar level of transgression as infidelity. This is a good example of a love crime that we do actually take quite seriously, and offer serious cultural protection against in lieu of legal protection. If we were to apply this kind of protection as a safeguard against women's reproductive power, things would look very, very different. It would look like blue tribe looking at a sobbing woman whose husband left her because she tried forcing another baby on him dead in the face, and, shedding no pity whatsoever, assuring her that all this ruin is only what she wrought upon herself. It would look like, in the other timeline, blue tribe lionizing a husband as downright saintly for finding it in himself to forgive this kind of transgression, given to an individual wholly undeserving of mercy, even if the true intended beneficiaries are the children.
But in the current blue milieu, unexpected babies in marriage are something that just kinda happen. Like, it's a little bad if the woman is being deceptive, but comon dude, shit happens. You need to move on and focus on making room for the new kid. I don't even want to know how much of the asshole he would be if he up and left due to this betrayal. Sticking around is simply being a decent human being and awards no cookies.
Again, I'd have less of a bone to pick with Blue Culture if the protections it claims to offer to men were real, but as it stands right now calling it a fig leaf would be offering too much credit.
I don't think people do actually have much sympathy for a woman whose partner leaves her because she wants a(nother) child and he doesn't. It's just an unfortunate irreconcilable difference.
(I also don't think husbands leaving their wives because they don't want any more children is very common.)
He's still financially responsible for any children he produces, though. That's an ever-present potential consequence of having sex that both parties have to live with.
Let's keep things in scope and specify that this is happening within an otherwise stable marriage and there's an unexpected pregnancy. If you're still willing to assert this, I'm open to reviewing evidence, but as it stands I'm believing my own eyes.
I'd like to point out that men don't produce children, but I realize that the definition of "producing" always shuffles around based on who and whom. When it's calculating who bears the most bodily cost and therefore who ought to have the say, she's doing the producing. When it comes to who pays, well it bears his genes so it's 50-50. (Even if he said no to the sex, because why not.)
It's a risk for one party, but a choice for the other. I will continue to point this out until I am blue in the face, shouting into the abyss, probably until the day I die.
I can't say I have seen your scenario often enough to say who's right about frequency of reactions, but my opinion if an otherwise stable marriage ended because she suddenly decided she wants a child and he doesn't would be "I'm sorry, that sucks" to both parties.
As for risk and choice, it's obviously a risk for both parties.
(And if "he said no to the sex" - are you talking about a man being raped by a woman and having to pay child support? I guess that has happened a time or two. About as often as a woman having a rapist's baby and having to share custody, perhaps.)
I'm willing to agree to disagree on this point. Your reaction provides a good enough working example.
Right, and I'm saying that's not good enough and proves you're unserious about protecting men from women's disproportionate reproductive power. Your reaction to this abuse of power needs to not be "oopsies, oh well shit happens", but rather, "you suck, fuck you".
No, it is a choice for women. A baby does not fall out of a woman's uterus immediately after sex. It is the finished product of a long and in this day and age deliberate process, that only one party has any official control over. This reality simply cannot be rhetorically smoothed over and ignored.
Sure, and notice how that the cavalry arrived for one of these people and not the other. This is a cultural problem.
By "abuse of power" are you talking about a woman who baby-traps an unwilling man with a surprise pregnancy, or just a woman who changes her mind about wanting children? Because if it's the latter, that's honestly insane to me that you want me to scream at her about how much she sucks.
As for your edge cases, no, the most extreme and unlikely scenarios you can imagine are not societal problems. Just how many female-rapist babies do you think there are, anyway?
Any time a woman in a marriage decides to go and have a baby without mutual consent. Sure, for reasons of bodily autonomy or whatever she can still choose to betray the privileged trust of marriage and stab him in the back, but the cultural and social consequences for exercising this choice need to be dire.
Let's keep things on rails: I said that the broader reaction to it is a cultural problem, which is anything but an "edge case". Not the anomalous event itself.
Okay. If you're talking about a woman who deliberately goes off birth control despite knowing her husband doesn't want a baby, I agree, that sucks, and he's be justified in considering that a betrayal and leaving her (but he's still responsible for the child - that's the deal when you get married). I would certainly sympathize with him more than with her in that case, though I wouldn't join in the public shaming and stoning you seem to want.
But other than anomalous edge cases, you haven't described a "cultural problem" other than that you think it's unfair that men can't either force or forbid women to have abortions.
I disagree that this is a problem, and I disagree that the reasons are a double standard.
Ok cool, that's way more than most would offer, but it also needs to be the case where the pregnancy is a true accident, and all other cases sans the truly exotic. Not only in the most egregious and difficult to prove case.
You shouldn't sympathize with her at all, and the social stoning is the point. People should be socially deterred from cheating on their spouses and bringing children into that family that aren't fully wanted.
This bad faith interpretation of my words can talk to my hand. You're welcome to bring a real objection to my position forward if you'd like.
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