Reproductive Freedom and Degenderizing Insults
I saw the following headline on My Yahoo! earlier: S.C. official: Sterilize bad parents.
The first thing I thought when I read the headline is, "Yet another indication that reproductive freedom isn't just about abortion." And it's not. This is the kind of suggestion you usually hear about the poor and women of color (under the guise of the term "drug addicts" but the meta is women of color). The general line is that they're not fit to be mothers and shouldn't be allowed to have children. This can translate into "take their children away" to suggestions of sterilization. It's rarely how can we help drug addicts recover.
Then I read the article itself. The reporter states that the comment was made about the gender-neutral tem "parents". The quote itself? Read it:
"We pick up stray animals and spay them," Larry Shirley said in a story published Saturday by The Post and Courier of Charleston. "These mothers need to be spayed if they can't take care of theirs. Once they have a child and it's running the street, to let them continue to have children is totally unacceptable."
So much wrong with that quote. First, the comparison of women to animals. OMFG. Yeah, we do a lot of things to animals that we don't do to human beings. People will sometimes give shelters their dogs who pee on the furniture. Who wouldn't be horrified if someone suggested that as an acceptable thing to do with children who wet their bed?
Second, did I miss the word "fathers" in the quote? Was it silent? No, it was non-existent. Mr. Shirley wasn't referring to "parents". He was referring to mothers. Note how nothing is ever the fault of the fathers. If a child does something wrong, that reflects poorly on the mother, not the father. This is even true if we're talking about a man who grows up to abuse women. It's that his mother didn't raise him right, not that he picked up this behavior from his father. One thing I was raised to believe is that if you want rights, you have to accept responsibility. Note to the father's rights activists: If you want rights, take responsibility. It's not feminists who have made fathers invisible, so stop blaming us. Mr. Shirley is clearly no feminist.