As I clicked on it, I was hopeful. 'Yay,' I thought, 'finally, something that's not going to denounce women for being sexual beings.'
And then I read it.
On the surface, Paul Sheehan seems to have decent enough opinions, at least, in regards to sexual freedom. He's all for women being sexual, being free to be sexual, and renouncing all stigma associated with being female and sexually active, even sexually promiscuous.
But really, it's just because Paul here sees women's role purely as the baby-maker.
At first, I thought he was joking, or being sarcastic, and maybe I missed the "jk" hidden in the article, alerting us all to his 'i'm really not sexist' sarcasm. But I didn't find it, and I don't think it exists.
He has occasional, pseudo-redeeming points in his otherwise offensive article, like:
"Our aim should be to have children born into a culture where there is plenty of support for child care in addition to the mother, thus liberating mothers to more fully exploit the possibilities that advanced society can offer them."
Ok, so that's really just about the only good one he's got.
Some priceless gems:
"A woman's body is at its fertility peak between the ages of 17 and 23. So when young women advertise or flaunt their sexuality they are being driven by a force far stronger than the Judeo-Christian ethic. They are driven by the power of peak fertility and a million years of evolutionary biology. Nature has programmed them for pregnancy, genetic diversity and keeping the species going. A big job....These women are just doing their job....
"This is society's real problem. Teenage pregnancy is trivial by comparison to suppressed pregnancy."
As far as I can tell, Paul's being completely serious throughout the whole thing.
Even if you look at this not from a feminist standpoint (which I suck at doing, but try sometimes anyway), "society's problem is suppressed pregnancy"?
Um.
Are we on the same planet here? You know, the one that's wayyyy overpopulated and, if anything, needs for people to stop having so many kids and over-repopulating the over-exerted world?
And then, from the feminist perspective...I'd like to think that women have more to do in this life than propagate the species. Yeah, we can do that too. But it's not "our job," because that implies that it's mandatory that we make babies. I'm sorry, Paul, but no kid's coming out of this vagina. Or the vagina of an infertile woman. Or lots of other women's vaginas who simply don't want to do "their job."
How about we focus on reproduction as less of a "job" and more of a choice, please? Thanks.
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