Quote Originally Posted by Spun Silver View Post
^ I would be interested to hear more specifics on the employment data you refer to, MM. My impression has been that men have been hardest hit by the recession. The latest (I think) US BLS data do show a .5% decline in the male unemployment rate while women's has not changed - but men's is still higher than women's. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/mmls.toc.htm This is not true of Hispanics, though. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t03.htm

Your (MM's) comment on women's self-determination and the birth rate reminds me of another facet of feminism I dislike - the tendency to regard women's well-being and that of children in oppositional terms. The most famous examples of this are the arguments for abortion that liken pregnancy to kidnapping and the fetus to a powerful intruder who can only be stopped with deadly force.
http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/P...02/thomson.htm
http://harvardmagazine.com/1997/03/right.fetus.html
You make it sound like feminists hate children and will do anything in our power to avoid giving birth. In fact, feminists have been responsible for much of the child-centred legislation and protections for children which exist under our current laws. Prior to the rise of feminism, children had no legal rights at all and feminists were in the forefront of the movement to imbue children with rights, something that the reactionary right-wing folk have a really difficult time accepting because their parents should have all power over the children.

Feminists have pushed for quality day care for children of working mothers. Maternity and parental leave, and family leave to care for their families. They've fought for better pre-natal and post-natal care for young mothers.

Your whole anti-abortion rhetoric also rings completely false. Although given your link to an extreme right-wing evangelical organization, I shouldn't be surprised. I guess you have no problem with thousands of women all over the world dying in botched abortion attempts because, after all, they were killing their unborn children.

The thing of it is that as a feminist who opposes abortion, I had no worries that anyone was going to force me to have an abortion I didn't want and couldn't afford. If you oppose abortion, don't have one. Simple as that. But I don't try to force my beliefs on others and I've gone to the hospital to support friends who made a different choice than mine because it's not my place to judge whether or not what they did was right and I know they didn't come by their decision to terminate a pregnancy easily. No one does.


Quote Originally Posted by Spun Silver View Post
So now I'm a neanderthal, Dragonlady? Well - no point in someone as stupid as I am trying to reason with a genius like you.
For someone who resented having words put in their mouth, you're pretty quick to do the same in return. I DID NOT call you a neanderthal. I said:

None of these things are related to feminists ideas or ideals, but that that won't stop neanderthals for blaming feminists for every ill society faces.