I think this is a laudable invitation to new readers - I admire your courage of convictions and that you don't play hide the ball with your audience.
Just want to make a plug for new readers to stick around! The water's great, the content here is consistently interesting, and while Leah pulls zero punches, the vibe here is welcoming and tolerant of a lot of different viewpoints.
Even if your conception of self includes "I'm definitely not the kind of person who would read pro-life content", purely as a thought experiment, stick around for a few months and see how a slight modification to your media diet updates your beliefs - if at all!
I am especially interested in content that talks about how we can support those moms and babies once the kids are on the ground! There is not enough talk about that in pro-life circles.
Part of my day job is expanding family supports, including the Child Tax Credit, and making the case for a baby bonus (an immediate post-partum payment)
As a man, asymmetries between men and women is something I don't want to touch with a 10-foot pole. Certainly, I find the stereotypical Victorian / 1950's ideal flies in the face of both my experience and moral intuition--my best bosses have almost without exception been women, I find gender-segregating communities grate on the soul, and so on. I certainly would not have had the patience you did in that debate.
And yet, the idea that a "human" should not be imagined as a detached male (either single or with a wife who is required to take care of the kids) strikes me as both profound and very common-sensical. People talk a lot about how American wealth is built on our "realistic" or "free" treatment of employees as interchangeable individuals without any social expectations or support. To my eyes, though, liquid capital destroys community among those forced to endlessly move, and warps what should be a naturally-supported act of creating new life into a luxury good (or at least, this is how it is imagined in the upper classes.) The idea that there should be a fundamental right to paid maternity (and paternity!) leave, that this is the cost of employing a human being, for instance, seems common-sensical. And so on and so forth.
So I'm very interested in your project in general, even if I'm very suspicious of the idea of distinctly "male" or "female" virtues or vices.
So happy to be here! I’ve known about your work for some time, but have been too focused on other areas to read more of it.
My story is a bit the opposite of yours.
I’ve been pro-life all my life - at least, that is, since I first learned about abortion from a friend in high school. She had brought pictures of abortions to school. I could never get those images out of my mind. From the start, it was always clearly not an either/or but a both/and situation for me - both mother and baby needed protection.
I’ve never considered myself a feminist, growing up as the only girl surrounded by brothers and boy cousins. I knew they had it hard, too (the physical bullying that men endure!). I was also never discouraged to pursue anything because I was a girl. Indeed, my father pushed me more academically because he saw I had more self-discipline at a younger age than my brothers.
It wasn’t until I had my own daughters that I began to realize how tailored the world really is towards men - and how even feminists accept the male paradigm unquestionably.
It really hit home when I started to realize that the way we use the term “feminized” reveals how feminism has not fully succeeded. The word almost always carries with it highly negative connotations (weak, irrational, overly emotional, anti-intellectual, etc.). Even women still use the term in this way - feminists, too! It’s especially bad in the church.
I’ve found myself on a little crusade to challenge followers of Christ in how they employ the term and the harm it does to women - especially young women such as my daughters. Many do it unthinkingly - certainly not on purpose.
Elizabeth Bruenig wrote movingly about how a post-Roe America would be a much better and safer world for pregnant women, no matter what situation they are in in. I don’t think that’s been realized, and I’d like to see more discussion of what needs to happen. Also, a lot of difficult and heartbreaking things can happen during pregnancy. I am bringing this up because it’s something you’ve specifically discussed on Twitter.
what touched me about your comments with Ross Douthat and Helen Andrews was your core humanity....that moderates strident rhetoric and feminist purity tests. So I will never embrace your Catholicism and pro life politics, but still think you are an interesting voice to hear.
My copy of Dignity of Dependece has been waiting patiently for me for a few weeks on my desk. Looking forward to diving in! A note on the car design, my 17 year old daughter is about 5 feet tall. Earlier this year she totaled our car. Thank God she was okay, but her face was seriously beaten up by the steering wheel and airbag. She looked like she had been in a serious fight and it took close to 5 days for it to heal to a place where she felt comfortable going in public.
I’ve been here for a couple of years and eagerly awaited your Dignity of Dependence. I am halfway through and LOVING it. I’d be so curious to hear your thoughts at some point regarding the pushback (sometimes vitriolic 😬) of the existence of “conservative feminism” especially as a response to the NYT debate!
I am also reading Invisible Women and enjoy her analysis of the reason women's restrooms need more stalls-- helping children, menstruation, etc!
Until I became a mother at 35, I was a women=weaker men who can have babies feminist. Now I see the ways in which society fails to accommodate women and children (as well as other oppressed groups) much more clearly. Nothing is more disheartening than pro-life conservative politicians (mostly men) with their utter lack of solutions for helping moms stay in the workforce as economic participants. Consider, for example, the asinine proposal several years ago to finance childbirth leave by drawing on one's own (already meager) Social Security benefit.
Our family is pretty well off and we have moved heaven and earth to give our kids proper child care, schooling, community, and parenting. Most people could not afford this.
Waitlists for child care support across my state of Texas are months long. The Austin-area guide to the government sponsored child care waitlist is seven pages long.
That “Rob Peter to pay Paul” pitch on Social Security ticked me off so much.
I’d love to see us adopt caregiver credits a la France where years spent caring for small children or aging parents get credited as though waged and paying in.
Interestingly, I was raised on the opposite side of the abortion debate. Having worked in international health ministry for 25 years, I now see abortion (and many issues like it) with a great deal of nuance because I have witnessed the complexity. What I wish pro-lifers would understand is that the legal route to decrease abortion is not only insufficient, it misses the larger picture of the inherent value and dignity of women and children.
> Women, with shorter legs, sit closer to reach the brakes. In moderate accidents, we sustain serious injuries from airbags still exploding outward when they hit us, trying to reach the imaginary male a few inches further back.
Oh. Well, at this point, I don't think we need to choose between "Approximate Driver-Size A" and "Approx Driver Size B." Surely we have the technology to fix this by now in new cars... to assess driver location and distance-from-dashboard in real-time on each trip, and build custom airbags that are engineered to have a variety of options or inflation-volumes.
Leah, I think your ideas and deeds are good and refreshing. I take issue with the container though. Feminism is a very loaded concept, and - as a man - I can't ever be one, let me say, constitutionally. In fact, women and men, are at the same time the extreme sameness and the extreme otherness. This apparent contradiction, which is a blessing, when properly undestood, can't be overcome.
That's why I take objection with the word 'Feminism': it's both tainted and a barrier. It's like pouring an excellent, rich Barolo, like your ideas and your writing, in a cheap flask.
I started following you years ago. I really appreciate your willingness to try and dig into real solutions to problems instead of sticking to the usual responses from the usual sides. I am hoping to receive your book for Christmas. Recently I have tried to readjust my attitude with menstruation. It’s something all women have to deal with, even if you don’t have children. I have tried to embrace it and see it as a gift and a time to slow down and evaluate how I’m feeling in my mind and body. We’ve been taught it’s a nuisance and to try and do everything we can to pretend it does not exist. Yes, it makes us more dependent but it also gives us wisdom and clues about our bodies and minds that are very valuable.
Rather than a rebuttal, is a consideration about Euro NCAP.
Considering that men travel about half more miles per year than women, it should be the case that dummies reflect the mix, so it skews male, but its size and height is below the median European male size - reflecting the presence of female drivers. Euro NCAP crash tests also include small females (lower 5% percentile) and several children dummies.
So, one can't blame Euro NCAP for considering men "the default". They just take into account the fact that men drive more miles. Since airbags can't be made into different sizes, the choice of using dummy drivers slightly smaller than the average man makes sense.
What woudln't make sense, is not considering the actual drivers' demographics.
Instead of one dummy with a weighted average of men and women's miles, it makes sense to use a range of dummies that reflect real drivers. (Criado Perez points out that the "female" dummy sized as a fifth percentile male still doesn't reflect women's pelvic differences and other factors that lead to disproportionate injury. Women are not just petite men!)
I wandered in from another post and will probably be gone soon, consensually or otherwise. ;)
I think the sexes are basically like a squabbling couple or rival ethnic groups in a country, bound together by biology--we're different, have conflicting interests, and while there are things that can benefit or hurt both sides (to take an extreme example nuclear war or climate change would be bad for everyone), we each have to get our people to fight for our side and reach a compromise that's mutually agreeable. It never really ends as society always mutates and any change can affect the sexes differently. It's like those myths where night and day wrestle and one periodically gets on top but it never lasts.
I'm your exact opposite--a non-feminist who's pro-choice. I favor abortion rights on purely libertarian grounds--the government shouldn't tell anyone, male or female, what they can do with their body, and of course because it decreases the chances of a man being forced to pay child support. ;)
You're welcome to stick around, even as a libertarian ;)
I'd say men and women are non-interchangeable, as my way of expressing what you call "conflicting interests." It's not a zero-sum game, and *both* sexes can wind up shortchanged when we ignore sex differences in favor of building our society around an imagined generic human.
I think this is a laudable invitation to new readers - I admire your courage of convictions and that you don't play hide the ball with your audience.
Just want to make a plug for new readers to stick around! The water's great, the content here is consistently interesting, and while Leah pulls zero punches, the vibe here is welcoming and tolerant of a lot of different viewpoints.
Even if your conception of self includes "I'm definitely not the kind of person who would read pro-life content", purely as a thought experiment, stick around for a few months and see how a slight modification to your media diet updates your beliefs - if at all!
I am especially interested in content that talks about how we can support those moms and babies once the kids are on the ground! There is not enough talk about that in pro-life circles.
Part of my day job is expanding family supports, including the Child Tax Credit, and making the case for a baby bonus (an immediate post-partum payment)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/newborn-needs-the-case-for-an-american-baby-bonus/
As a man, asymmetries between men and women is something I don't want to touch with a 10-foot pole. Certainly, I find the stereotypical Victorian / 1950's ideal flies in the face of both my experience and moral intuition--my best bosses have almost without exception been women, I find gender-segregating communities grate on the soul, and so on. I certainly would not have had the patience you did in that debate.
And yet, the idea that a "human" should not be imagined as a detached male (either single or with a wife who is required to take care of the kids) strikes me as both profound and very common-sensical. People talk a lot about how American wealth is built on our "realistic" or "free" treatment of employees as interchangeable individuals without any social expectations or support. To my eyes, though, liquid capital destroys community among those forced to endlessly move, and warps what should be a naturally-supported act of creating new life into a luxury good (or at least, this is how it is imagined in the upper classes.) The idea that there should be a fundamental right to paid maternity (and paternity!) leave, that this is the cost of employing a human being, for instance, seems common-sensical. And so on and so forth.
So I'm very interested in your project in general, even if I'm very suspicious of the idea of distinctly "male" or "female" virtues or vices.
One of the places where I think men are particularly shortchanged by treating people as generically human vs responding to asymmetries is school, btw.
A very quiet, still room is harder on little boys than little girls (it’s overlapping bell curves, so there will be exceptions on both sides).
Limited recess is hard on all the kids, but it goes wrong for boys (on average) sooner and more dramatically.
So happy to be here! I’ve known about your work for some time, but have been too focused on other areas to read more of it.
My story is a bit the opposite of yours.
I’ve been pro-life all my life - at least, that is, since I first learned about abortion from a friend in high school. She had brought pictures of abortions to school. I could never get those images out of my mind. From the start, it was always clearly not an either/or but a both/and situation for me - both mother and baby needed protection.
I’ve never considered myself a feminist, growing up as the only girl surrounded by brothers and boy cousins. I knew they had it hard, too (the physical bullying that men endure!). I was also never discouraged to pursue anything because I was a girl. Indeed, my father pushed me more academically because he saw I had more self-discipline at a younger age than my brothers.
It wasn’t until I had my own daughters that I began to realize how tailored the world really is towards men - and how even feminists accept the male paradigm unquestionably.
It really hit home when I started to realize that the way we use the term “feminized” reveals how feminism has not fully succeeded. The word almost always carries with it highly negative connotations (weak, irrational, overly emotional, anti-intellectual, etc.). Even women still use the term in this way - feminists, too! It’s especially bad in the church.
I’ve found myself on a little crusade to challenge followers of Christ in how they employ the term and the harm it does to women - especially young women such as my daughters. Many do it unthinkingly - certainly not on purpose.
I look forward to learning from you. God bless!
Elizabeth Bruenig wrote movingly about how a post-Roe America would be a much better and safer world for pregnant women, no matter what situation they are in in. I don’t think that’s been realized, and I’d like to see more discussion of what needs to happen. Also, a lot of difficult and heartbreaking things can happen during pregnancy. I am bringing this up because it’s something you’ve specifically discussed on Twitter.
what touched me about your comments with Ross Douthat and Helen Andrews was your core humanity....that moderates strident rhetoric and feminist purity tests. So I will never embrace your Catholicism and pro life politics, but still think you are an interesting voice to hear.
At the risk of glossing over your post full of many worthy explanations....... I gotta say I'm really loving the meme here.
My copy of Dignity of Dependece has been waiting patiently for me for a few weeks on my desk. Looking forward to diving in! A note on the car design, my 17 year old daughter is about 5 feet tall. Earlier this year she totaled our car. Thank God she was okay, but her face was seriously beaten up by the steering wheel and airbag. She looked like she had been in a serious fight and it took close to 5 days for it to heal to a place where she felt comfortable going in public.
I'm so sorry!
^Dependence!
I’ve been here for a couple of years and eagerly awaited your Dignity of Dependence. I am halfway through and LOVING it. I’d be so curious to hear your thoughts at some point regarding the pushback (sometimes vitriolic 😬) of the existence of “conservative feminism” especially as a response to the NYT debate!
I just ordered a copy of The Dignity of Dependence and am so excited for it to arrive! Thank you for the code!
Yay!
I am also reading Invisible Women and enjoy her analysis of the reason women's restrooms need more stalls-- helping children, menstruation, etc!
Until I became a mother at 35, I was a women=weaker men who can have babies feminist. Now I see the ways in which society fails to accommodate women and children (as well as other oppressed groups) much more clearly. Nothing is more disheartening than pro-life conservative politicians (mostly men) with their utter lack of solutions for helping moms stay in the workforce as economic participants. Consider, for example, the asinine proposal several years ago to finance childbirth leave by drawing on one's own (already meager) Social Security benefit.
Our family is pretty well off and we have moved heaven and earth to give our kids proper child care, schooling, community, and parenting. Most people could not afford this.
Waitlists for child care support across my state of Texas are months long. The Austin-area guide to the government sponsored child care waitlist is seven pages long.
That “Rob Peter to pay Paul” pitch on Social Security ticked me off so much.
I’d love to see us adopt caregiver credits a la France where years spent caring for small children or aging parents get credited as though waged and paying in.
Interestingly, I was raised on the opposite side of the abortion debate. Having worked in international health ministry for 25 years, I now see abortion (and many issues like it) with a great deal of nuance because I have witnessed the complexity. What I wish pro-lifers would understand is that the legal route to decrease abortion is not only insufficient, it misses the larger picture of the inherent value and dignity of women and children.
> Women, with shorter legs, sit closer to reach the brakes. In moderate accidents, we sustain serious injuries from airbags still exploding outward when they hit us, trying to reach the imaginary male a few inches further back.
Oh. Well, at this point, I don't think we need to choose between "Approximate Driver-Size A" and "Approx Driver Size B." Surely we have the technology to fix this by now in new cars... to assess driver location and distance-from-dashboard in real-time on each trip, and build custom airbags that are engineered to have a variety of options or inflation-volumes.
Leah, I think your ideas and deeds are good and refreshing. I take issue with the container though. Feminism is a very loaded concept, and - as a man - I can't ever be one, let me say, constitutionally. In fact, women and men, are at the same time the extreme sameness and the extreme otherness. This apparent contradiction, which is a blessing, when properly undestood, can't be overcome.
That's why I take objection with the word 'Feminism': it's both tainted and a barrier. It's like pouring an excellent, rich Barolo, like your ideas and your writing, in a cheap flask.
I started following you years ago. I really appreciate your willingness to try and dig into real solutions to problems instead of sticking to the usual responses from the usual sides. I am hoping to receive your book for Christmas. Recently I have tried to readjust my attitude with menstruation. It’s something all women have to deal with, even if you don’t have children. I have tried to embrace it and see it as a gift and a time to slow down and evaluate how I’m feeling in my mind and body. We’ve been taught it’s a nuisance and to try and do everything we can to pretend it does not exist. Yes, it makes us more dependent but it also gives us wisdom and clues about our bodies and minds that are very valuable.
Rather than a rebuttal, is a consideration about Euro NCAP.
Considering that men travel about half more miles per year than women, it should be the case that dummies reflect the mix, so it skews male, but its size and height is below the median European male size - reflecting the presence of female drivers. Euro NCAP crash tests also include small females (lower 5% percentile) and several children dummies.
So, one can't blame Euro NCAP for considering men "the default". They just take into account the fact that men drive more miles. Since airbags can't be made into different sizes, the choice of using dummy drivers slightly smaller than the average man makes sense.
What woudln't make sense, is not considering the actual drivers' demographics.
Instead of one dummy with a weighted average of men and women's miles, it makes sense to use a range of dummies that reflect real drivers. (Criado Perez points out that the "female" dummy sized as a fifth percentile male still doesn't reflect women's pelvic differences and other factors that lead to disproportionate injury. Women are not just petite men!)
I wandered in from another post and will probably be gone soon, consensually or otherwise. ;)
I think the sexes are basically like a squabbling couple or rival ethnic groups in a country, bound together by biology--we're different, have conflicting interests, and while there are things that can benefit or hurt both sides (to take an extreme example nuclear war or climate change would be bad for everyone), we each have to get our people to fight for our side and reach a compromise that's mutually agreeable. It never really ends as society always mutates and any change can affect the sexes differently. It's like those myths where night and day wrestle and one periodically gets on top but it never lasts.
I'm your exact opposite--a non-feminist who's pro-choice. I favor abortion rights on purely libertarian grounds--the government shouldn't tell anyone, male or female, what they can do with their body, and of course because it decreases the chances of a man being forced to pay child support. ;)
You're welcome to stick around, even as a libertarian ;)
I'd say men and women are non-interchangeable, as my way of expressing what you call "conflicting interests." It's not a zero-sum game, and *both* sexes can wind up shortchanged when we ignore sex differences in favor of building our society around an imagined generic human.