After 50 years, the ruling for Roe v Wade establishing abortion as a right has been overturned by the Supreme Court. The implications of this ruling are worth exploring, but not my intent here. I was initially somewhat surprised that it was overturned, and that feeling immediately started to wane. Increasingly it feels like an inevitable outcome of this moment. The current ruling may be as much about the 50 years of conservatives fighting to overturn Roe as it is the larger social context in which it happened.
Across social media I have seen a number of memes that start, "If men were the ones who got pregnant..." or "If every time men had sex they faced death..." All of these memes are clear on who doesn't need abortion and thus assumed to be attacking the right. None of the memes clearly state who abortions are for and who needs the right. This seems significant.
W. Burlette Carter, Professor Emerita of Law at George Washington University has suggested that the court loss was deliberate. It may help the electoral prospects of the democrats in the fall. This may be arguable, but the weak basis of the losing argument is not, whether deliberate or incompetence. The court noted that, "[I]nstead of seriously pressing the argument that the abortion right itself has deep roots, supporters...contend that the abortion right is an integral part of a broader entrenched right." In other words, they were arguing less for abortion as a discrete right but for something more broad and less defined, which includes abortion.
Carter explains why this was doomed to failure. "I think the effort to replace biological sex with gender made the advocates for Roe/Casey incompetent to argue for women's rights. Men are not women and the difference matters on a lot of levels. The left & Biden marched forward with a brief that ignored women and their history." An argument for female bodily autonomy is undercut by a belief that any kind of biology can be a female body. Polling bears this out. Vox conducted a poll in 2015 that found support for abortion increased when the question focused on woman. Based on my own anecdotal experience I wonder if support for abortion would decrease among the pro-choice if framed exclusively as the women's issue it is.
The people who were called women 5 years ago are increasingly called cis women, uterus havers, people who menstruate, bleeders, and people who get pregnant in the name of "inclusivity". They are reduced to bodily functions and parts because the word woman excludes males without those bodily parts and functions. It is also being done for the vanishingly small number of women who identify as trans who want to exclude themselves from being women while fulfilling the quintessential role that makes them women, their role in reproduction. The irony is that it is increasingly promoted by organizations exclusively focused on women and women's reproductive health. Many organizations formed to meet the needs of women seem to no longer know what a woman is. This is the social context in which Roe v Wade has been overturned. The people who support abortion rights have convinced themselves that it is wrong to recognize sex differences while advocating for the unique needs of one sex.
Words are being stripped of meaning in support of the imposition of gender ideology and the ongoing attempt to replace the universal concept of sex with the subjective undefined concept of gender in law. The propaganda for gender ideology attacks foundational knowledge, concepts that are so universal across cultures that their definitions have been long self-evident, even absent articulation-- woman, man, sex. These concepts that are the basis of the continuation of every multi-cell species and necessary for animal husbandry since Mesopotamia have become so complex they require graduate degrees to understand. At least, this is what I have been told when I assert that sex in humans is still binary and immutable. The strangest thing is that it is the most educated who are most accepting of this ideology. It is an invention of academia. Apparently, it takes a lot of education to believe that women can have a penis and men can get pregnant; to simultaneously know what a woman is while believing anyone can be one.
Conservative commentator, Matt Walsh, released the documentary, What is a Woman? in June. He asks that question of academics, medical professionals, activists at a women's march, and people on the street. None define a woman as more than, "anyone who identifies as a woman." He also asks members of a Massai tribe questions of gender ideology like, "Can a women have a penis?" to laughter and confusion. It helps to illustrate both who this appeals to and the way in which this ideology is entirely constructed of gossamer. It starts with inverting the function of words as symbols of shared meaning that stand in for concrete reality. Instead, words are used to attempt to create a new false reality. This is why words are being stripped of meaning, they can't support gender ideology and reality because the two are entirely contradictory.
 |
The secret of gender ideology is that there is no definition of gender that matches the way that it is used. There is nothing that makes a man into a woman because he chooses to identify as trans. There is nothing that turns an identity, the way a person wants to see himself, into a material reality for other people. There is no individual attribute that negates a person's sex. There is not a growing number of categories into which people place themselves based on their relationship to their sex. Every time someone who promotes the ideology is asked to define gender they either describe how they want the word used, or they offer the dictionary definition, which is essentially sex stereotypes. When the way we use a word matches no definition, we mean a different word. In this case, the only word that matches the ideological use of gender is fantasy. In fact, the assertions of gender ideology only make sense when the correct word is used: |
- Sex and fantasy are different.
- There are at least 200 different fantasies.
- Children can know their fantasy as early as three.
- My fantasy identity doesn't match my sex.
- People don't change their sex, they change their fantasy.
- You can't know someone's fantasy without asking first.
- Don't assume someone's fantasy based on their appearance.
- Rapists belong in the prison that matches their fantasy.
- A person's fantasy may change from day to day or hour to hour.
- Athletes should be allowed to compete in the group that matches their fantasy.
- Fantasy affirming surgery/fantasy affirmation
- We call them pregnant people in the name of fantasy inclusivity.
Comments
Post a Comment