Fraser Sherman's Blog

Sunday I reviewed some books dealing with the idea that cleanliness, purity and order are subjective concepts, and that this also affects our modern society: it has to be tightly ordered, with everyone knowing their place and staying there. And the places are not even: “One category of persons is assigned to privilege, power, and dominance, and the other category is designated for a life of subordination. This prescribed order has been ‘ordered’ for you, not by you.  If you’re in the subordinate category, you’re taught you have no choice but to submit and stay in your place.” Robert Altemeyer makes the same point in The Authoritarians: people who believe in a fixed, authoritarian hierarchy are terrified of change, fearful any disturbance to the way things are will topple society like a house of cards.

For some people, the terror reaches levels that would be laughable if they didn’t d0 real-world harm. Misogynist complementarian preacher John Piper, for instance, thinks a man having to ask a woman for directions is a terrifying spiritual crisis: in that instant the woman is taking the lead, the man following her instructions. Only handling the moment carefully can avert upending them both spiritually.

As Fred Clark sums it up, complementarianism — men dividing the world between women and men without consulting the women — “sounds like a sweet deal for men. It means you’re in charge by virtue of having been born in charge, and hierarchy brings all manner of privileges. You get paid more. Your legal rights are better protected. Society is literally designed to meet your desires and appetites and emotional needs. Plus someone else is going to make you food, clean up after you, launder your clothes, and tend to your children. Being “above” and being deferred to by default is, all things considered, a pretty terrific arrangement for you. It’s good to be the king.”

But unearned, unjustified power is an unstable thing, Particularly in the modern U.S., where women have the right to walk out of their marriage if it’s not working, something men such as Piper, Matt Walsh or James Dobson frown on (at the link, Dobson explains abused wives trick their husband into hitting them so they can justify a divorce). For instance right-winger Stephen Crowder, caught on video verbally abusing his wife, is furious she has the right to divorce him (she is). Maybe this explains why Michigan Republican Tudor Dixon thinks school libraries should ban books with divorced characters. Equality anywhere is a threat to inequality everywhere. And for those who benefit from inequality, that’s terrifying.

For more critiques of misogynist bullshit, check out Undead Sexist Cliches, available as a Amazon paperback, an ebook and from several other retailers. Cover by Kemp Ward, all rights remain with current holders.

The Washington Post reports that 12-week bans such as North Carolina’s are the new Republican forced-birth approach: see, they’re not trying to ban all abortions, only after the first trimester. They’re moderate — now, forget about abortion and vote Republican!

As the article notes, it’s not “before 12 weeks you have a right to abortion.” There’s a 72-hour waiting period after the first appointment, added regulations on clinics and, as Vox says, a ban on mifepristone at home. Oh, and the doctor must send a detailed report on the patient’s abortion/pregnancy history to the state. As LGM says (I don’t have the link), some forced-birthers point out that France (for example), has a ban after 14 weeks; before that, however, they don’t bog the process down with regulations and it’s covered by state health insurance. Not the same.

As noted at the second link, neither NC nor most other states with strict abortion bans have done much to expand the social safety net for pregnant women and mothers (Florida, at the same link, may become an exception). They are, however, perfectly fine with throwing money at crisis-pregnancy centers (including money marked for poor families) even though they don’t provide birth control, don’t give accurate information and often don’t have medical personnel on staff. But hey, regular ob/gyn care is nose-diving as doctors back away from right-to-life states — maybe bad medical help is better than none (said sarcastically).

It’s not just these details that give the lie to Republican pretense of moderation (and never forget, the forced-birth movement lies a lot), it’s that this is nothing but a temporary political tactic. This is not “we’ll compromise and settle for a 12-week ban,” it’s “we’ll compromise until we have the power to get what we want without any electoral consequence.” Maybe that’s by gutting voting rights (something NC, like Florida, has been working on for years) or the theocratic takeover some of them dream of; either way, if they can get away with it they’ll be all in on bans.

The Idaho GOP has already rejected life-of-the-mother exemptions; I doubt they’re alone. And even with exceptions, the bills are written to scare doctors out of abortion, no matter how awful the case. Many of the movement may not be as extreme as this guy, but as I’ve written before, that doesn’t mean they’ll stand up to extremists. After all, underlying the right-wing, as Kristen Kobes Du Mez says, is a horror of women defying men’s control. How can a man be master in his house if he knows his woman can divorce him?

Don’t get me wrong, 12 weeks with insane restrictions is preferable to six weeks. But it isn’t good. And the people pushing it definitely are not moderates on the issue.

For more on forced-birth bullshit, Undead Sexist Cliches is available as a Amazon paperback, an ebook and from several other retailers. Cover by Kemp Ward, all rights remain with current holders.