There's an economic rationale for anti-feminist men to oppose reproductive rights for women....

[YoungDemCA]

Think about it. If a woman doesn't have control over her reproduction, she will be at a significant disadvantage for getting a job, for maintaining a job, and for getting promoted in whatever her occupation is. Her best option then would be to depend on her husband (if she is married, that is) for being the economic provider.

That is what the traditional gender divide was built on; a (married) woman was the property of her husband. This is also part of why marriage was more prevalent in the past, and why women would marry at a young age; since women didn't have the reproductive rights they have now until relatively recently in American history, their economic options would be severely limited if they didn't marry. Plus, the social shunning of unmarried women coming from these traditional gender roles and expectations.

It is no coincidence that the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s really got off the ground with reproductive rights (the pill in 1964, IIRC) and went further into that territory (Roe v. Wade in the early 1970s), along with an economic revolution: women going to work en masse, and getting better, higher-paying jobs than they had in the past. Increasingly higher educational levels among women, of course, were crucial to all of this as well.

When MRAs and other anti-feminist men (and women-they exist, too, unfortunately) scold and berate feminists, they are-consciously or unconsciously-promoting social and economic structures that benefited (white, hetero-normative) men, at the expense of everyone else-the largest overall group being women. Their virulent opposition to feminist goals, tactics, and challenges of traditional sources of power and privilege underscores their devotion to a past system where a woman could be raped by her husband, where she could not legally get an abortion, where she had no sexual autonomy to speak of, where she could not work (except in underpaid, working-class occupations where she would be paid much less than her male counterparts), where the authority of the male as the head of a household was universally dominant in society, and where a woman had few options (all of them bad options) outside of marriage to a man, who owned her as his property.

My $0.02 for tonight.

[BainsBane]

1. My sense is that those economic interests

Last edited Thu Mar 13, 2014, 05:55 AM - Edit history (1)

coincide with opposition to abortion expressed in moral terms. Economic self-interest and morality often coincide, though people are seldom aware of the connection. The same people invested in a traditional male-headed household are also likely to buy into the cultural right's notion of abortion as murder.

MRAs, I think, are another breed. Their fundamental characteristic is a pathological level of self-pity. They feel themselves complete losers in life and blame women for that. Then there is another group of men, so-called liberals who maintain a male-centered view of the body politic. I actually find them harder to tolerate than the conservatives because they exalt the absence of morality (which means the absence of social justice) as an end onto itself. Social justice is based on a sense of what is right and wrong ,and that is morality. Absent social justice, politics is a contest between elites, political parties, and interest groups, essentially a meaningless exercise.

While I am unyielding on a woman's right to make her own reproductive choices, I can at least understand a concern that abortion is taking a life. The misogyny of the libertine crowd who calls itself liberal is more troubling to me because of its fundamental dishonesty. The thing is, the two groups have virtually identical views when it comes to women's rights (except for abortion, but even then the latter doesn't care about women's choice as much as their own freedom from the responsibility of unwanted children). I can handle the conservatives better because they are honest about their opposition to feminism. The latter group has so little respect for women, that they believe themselves entitled to tell us that we aren't real feminists because we don't defer to what they want. I tend to think they don't really believe what they say because it's hard to imagine anyone so lacking in awareness that he thinks only he as a man can decide what feminism is. As I said, their positions on issues are identical to the conservatives who say they oppose feminism, only the so-called liberals seek an even greater level of control over women because they think they as men should determine which rights women can speak out for. That level of dishonesty and hypocrisy is why I cannot respect them. If they are going to advance the same views as right-wingers, they could at least be honest about it. Many of them are every bit as hostile to the voices and concerns of minority groups as well.

[theHandpuppet]

3. It's been my impression that the erosion of reproduction rights...

... has only emboldened a lot of closet misogynists. It matters not whether they are even aware of the creep but it's become pretty blatant.

[YoungDemCA]

4. Excellent response

..their positions on issues are identical to the conservatives who say they oppose feminism, only the so-called liberals seek an even greater level of control over women because they think they as men should determine which rights women can speak out for. That level of dishonesty and hypocrisy is why I cannot respect them. If they are going to advance the same views as right-wingers, they could at least be honest about it. Many of them are every bit as hostile to the voices and concerns of minority groups as well.

This, times 1000. Self-serving, selective "progressivism" is something that I cannot stand.

[ismnotwasm]

2. I believe that's supported by analysis of history

In the macro sense. Abortion wasn't always illegal, not even condemned by the Catholic Church-- that came early, but not immediately.