I thought last September that Twisty Faster of I Blame The Patriarchyhad permanently gone off to the Austin-ian hinterlands to ride her horse (Lester?) hang out with her dog (Zippy?) and return to civilization only occasionally for fresh Chardonnay Oak-Smoked Fleur de Sel sea salt at Whole Foods. Instead she had killed two stereotypes about men, women, and technology by switching to a new newsfeed.
Twisty Faster of I Blame The Patriarchy notes that in rescinding the global gag rule President Obama said
[I]t is right for us to rescind this policy and restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development.”
Twisty would have preferred he’d put even more directly
“It is right for us to rescind this policy because women are human beings who are entitled to personal sovereignty.”
I think that’s about right. Women are human beings. Human beings are entitled to personal sovereignty.
An awful lot of problems in this world would be a lot more solvable if human beings recognized that there are more human beings in this world than they’re willing to recognize. (And yes, while I often mangle syntax and grammar I meant that last sentence word for word.)
Twisty and I part company in places, but it mostly has to do with whether it’s possible for humans to do that or not. She leans pessimistic, I lean optimistic. She’s also right about Chardonnay Oak-Smoked Fleur de Sel, though typically, wrong about it being good on watermelon.
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The bit about economic development in the President’s executive order would sound more like a non sequitur if economic development didn’t tended to go up when, where, and to the extent women’s personal sovereignty (especially in but not limited to reproductive choice) is recognized. Seems to me there are a couple reasons for this. First, because women with personal sovereignty can decide to do something besides have and raise children if they want to… like, oh, read, write, teach, work, invent, and lead. Second, it takes work to deny human beings personal sovereignty which means that by acknowledging women’s personal sovereignty men have time and energy for something else like, surprise!, reading, writing, teaching, working, inventing, and leading. All of which paves the way for authentic (i.e. non-resource-extraction-for-export) economic development. Bit of a win/win then.
Submitted by 2683 (not verified) on Sat, 2009-01-31 19:38.
That's a great point. Why would women need to be protected if they are fully empowered?
(I just read A Thousand Splendid Suns, and that story was especially disturbing in that it shows how in a strongly anti-woman society, it's not much of an option to just "rise up" and defend yourself. At least, that's what I got out of it. It's hard for me to conceive of such a constrained life.)
["Why would women need to be protected if they are fully empowered?" Yeah, that's how I see it. To *give* someone power since, sort of by definition, the power to give implies a power to take away. Acknowledging sovereignty, at least in diplomacy, avoids that implication. Thanks, Monique. --fl]