Feminists Don’t Have to Be Pro-Choice

If there’s one thing that the doomed selection of Sarah Palin has proved, it’s that feminism has become abortionism – both to most anti-feminists and to many feminists as well.

What was the most common criticism of Palin, after the chuckling over her multiple, shall we say, faux pas? Something along these lines: She’s not a feminist because “she wants to take away a woman’s right to choose while banning sex education in schools, so that essentially the only choice left for a girl is to become an uneducated teenage mother” (Bi-College News).

Come on now. Susan B. Anthony couldn’t get a legal abortion and certainly never had sex-ed, yet somehow she managed to do OK-ish.

The real problem is deeper than this one hyperbole, however; over and over, in the past weeks, the response to the idea that Palin is a feminist has been “she can’t be because she’s against a woman’s right to choose!”

Let’s be clear: Palin is hardly a feminist role model; only smart women get to be feminist role models. But this insistence that one be pro-choice to be feminist stems from a fundamental ignorance of basic ethical philosophy.

Pro-lifers are all, whether they know it or not, members of the deontological school of ethical thought, that is, they don’t take the consequences of their decisions into account. This is not an insult; all it means is that, if a woman’s life is hard hit financially or emotionally by having a baby, a pro-lifer may (or may not) feel badly about that, but the consequences to the woman don’t alter their decision. The idea here is that you should do what’s right come hell or high water. In most contexts, this is undisputably noble: Antigone insisting that she bury her brother even though she knows she will be sentenced to death for it, for example.

Pro-choicers, on the other hand, are utilitarians. Utilitarians think that you can’t possibly judge whether a deed is good or not without looking at all of its ramifications. Pro-choicers judge the ramifications of legalized abortion to be better than the ramifications of abortion being illegal.

For too long, people who argue about abortion have treated it like it’s a special case, a debate unto itself. It’s not. It’s one more example of a fundamental (and pretty tangled, the more you look into it) philosophical problem.

NF is solidly pro-choice. But NF also recognizes that a problem in philosophy that has attracted minds like Kant, Bentham, and R.M. Hare is not one with a definitive answer. Nobody, therefore, should treat those who disagree with them on this with hatred, as long as the disagreement is an intellectual one (raving loonies don’t count). And no feminist is required to be a utilitarian; therefore, no feminist is required to be pro-choice.

The Hook-Up Culture

Independent Women’s Forum loves to talk about hook-up culture and how it damages women. The latest essay on this subject is a representative entry: Kylie Harrell, Duke student, argues that casual sex takes an emotional toll on women because women produce a hormone during sex called oxytocin. This hormone produces a sense of bonding, which is why women feel “heartbroken” when their male partner doesn’t want to turn a one-night stand into a relationship. Conclusion? “There is a biological explanation for the way you feel and the way he doesn’t feel,” writes Harrell, but this truth is being obscured by a “radical feminist agenda.”

Interesting, but oxytocin also is associated with reduced stress – so, if women are heartbroken the morning after he doesn’t call, they should by the same token recover that much more quickly. (Or, hell, maybe women should just become lesbians / woman-identified women — but something tells New Feminist that that logical extension of Harrell’s argument would be classified as “radical feminism,” so it must be stupid).

Furthermore, focusing on some hormone ignores other explanations for these women’s sadness. Maybe they feel used because they were used, not because they’re chicks.

Men implicitly get a free pass in this article for the highly scientific reason that they’re dudes and dudes do dude stuff. Evidently the conservative-leaning IWF doesn’t believe in free will.

In short, Harrell’s, and the IWF’s, insistence on biologizing everything is questionable and one-sided.

However, having said all that, New Feminist actually agrees – sort of – with Harrell’s conclusion, though not her premises. Casual sex isn’t a good idea. The very definition of casual sex is sex without emotional attachment – that is, using another’s body to pleasure oneself. In a responsible situation, the using is mutual, a bargain struck – I’ll let you use mine if you let me use yours. But it is still using.

New Feminist isn’t a fan of people using people. To NF, this comes under the heading of objectification, which doesn’t get any better just because more people do it, or because people agree to it. If consent were all that mattered, then every battered woman who says, “Well, I was asking for it,” would thereby make her own situation A-OK.

Consent is not enough – objectification is not good. It’s a moral and feminist issue and biology is frankly irrelevant. Is it easier for men to use women and treat them as objects? Interesting, but they still shouldn’t do it. Is it harder for women to use men and treat them as objects? That’s nice, and they shouldn’t do it either. They also shouldn’t give men a free pass and blame their failure to feel good after getting entangled in patriarchy on their lady-hormones.

Hate Feminists? You’re Gay.

A segment of the web-world loves to jabber about how dumb feminists are. Occasionally they decide to search for like-minded others, and then they somehow find this site, not realizing that the words “stupidity” and “feminism” can come up in more than one context.

These men hate women so much, and make such a point of talking about how ugly they are. Just admit it, fellas – it’s OK – you’re gay. You’re not comfortable with being gay. You can’t get a date with a woman. You’re not attracted to them. So you bitch constantly about how it’s all women’s fault and feminism’s fault instead of just admitting that women don’t do it for you. You’re gay.

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