Really. No sarcasm here.
In my last post, I made a comparison of women who give into peer pressure and have sex before they’re ready to women who claim that men have no say in abortion because it’s not “their” body.
My first problem was that I was frustrated and decided to make a short, snappy statement without any support behind it. My motives were that it seems that if you make a long, debating post, no one pays any attention. You know, tl;dr. But that doesn’t mean I should just surrender and post something that could be taken to mean other than what I was thinking in a voice that sounds mocking rather than insightful. I just wanted to get in and get out, make my point, and be done with it. Still, that was very wrong of me, because when you argue that way, all it does is make people angry. My goal with my posts is never, ever to make people angry, but to make them think, and if desired, start an open and nonjudgmental discussion about the issue.
While I was trying to make a point, I was unaware that so many different interpretations of “let themselves be pressured” could be made. Just to clarify - I did not mean rape or date rape or anything where a woman makes it clear that no means no and is forced to anyway, nor was I putting women who are pressured into sex at fault, nor was I saying that women don’t really want to have sex and are just pressured into it constantly.
My second - and probably more severe - problem was that I used a comparison as sensitive as sex. I apologize. But in discussing with others who argued my last post, I have come up with a better comparison.
As I’ve said before, I’ve learned my lesson. So one tl;dr post coming right up!
I continually hear the argument that men should not have any say in the issue of abortion because it is not their body. I find this very ironic, because it seems like, as far as society is concerned, women as a whole do not have very much control over their body anyway. From a very young age, we are told how we’re supposed to look and how we’re supposed to act. Be skinny. Wear a size 0. Don’t eat cake. Drink diet soda or vitamin water. Get a tan. Wear short skirts. Wear this kind of make up and style your hair this way. Pluck your eyebrows and plump your lips. Wear mascara. If you have children past a certain age, you’re being selfish. If you have children before a certain age, you’re a slut. Use tampons instead of pads. If you sleep with too many people, you’re easy. If you don’t sleep with anyone, you’re a prude. Wear heels all of the time. Straighten your hair. If you ever get a gray hair, dye your entire head. Have a boyfriend constantly, or something must be wrong with you. Pierce your ears. But any more than a double piercing is trashy.
Any of these sound familiar to anyone?
The problem is that as a society, we give into these pressures. Look at teen magazines. They’re all about how to be “sexy.” The articles are hardly ever about something other than make-up and wardrobe tips. If you’re over 25, your magazines are going to teach you how to lose weight and have the perfect figure. If this kind of stuff didn’t work on us, we wouldn’t buy these magazines, and they would have to start writing about other things.
None of this is to say that I’m somehow not at fault. While I don’t buy the magazines, I exercise three times a week - I was not initially motivated because I wanted to be healthy, but because I gained the freshman five and it freaked me out. Even with the freshman five, I was still 15 pounds underweight, yet I felt like I had to lose it. I refuse to leave the house without make-up. Society absolutely has a say in my body, and even though I don’t know how to get around it and break free from the pressure, I know that it’s a bad thing.
The ironic thing to me, though, is that many women will agree that men are not allowed to state their opinion about abortion. They say it’s their body and men should not get any say. At the same time, women are constantly being told by society - and you know that society is heavily influenced by what men think of them - how to look and what to do to their body.
While I would argue that abortion is different because it is, in fact, neither the man or the woman’s body, but the baby’s body, the concept is still there. It’s unfair that men are able to hold such a say over women, except for in an issue that men - fathers - need to have a say in.
Again, I apologize for how crude my last post was. I hope this more accurately expresses the point I was trying to get across before.
