I’ve blogged multiple times about the misogynist horror of women having sex “without consequences.” Using birth control, in their eyes, is slutty and irresponsible. Having sex while using birth control is loveless, no different than rape, and traumatizes your children (one right-to-lifer wrote years ago that showing your children you don’t want more implies they’re a horrible burden — you should prove your love by having lots and lots of kids!).
None of this has anything to do with the supposed goal of the forced-birth movement, saving fetuses from the “American holocaust’ of abortion. Nor do arguments that if women choose to use birth control, they’ve already committed to not having a baby, therefore they’ll have more abortions. The stats show birth control and good sex ed cut the unwanted pregnancy rate and the abortion rate. What it’s really about is right-wingers’ absolute horror at women becoming sexually active before marriage, let alone without any risk of pregnancy. To be sure, there’s a slut-shaming strain in the rest of society but like most misogyny, the right wing takes it and makes it a fundamental principle.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that along with enthusiasm for teen marriage, the Toddler’s administration is refusing to issue grants to sex-ed groups unless they go abstinence-only (if the gift link is dead, click here). Abstinence-only education is ineffective — Texas clung to it for years and had the country’s highest teen pregnancy, teen abortion and teen STD rates — but it sends the message that sex is bad and icky un less you’re married. At which point anything goes, including marital rape.
Here’s another bit of bullshit that was equally predictable. When the No Trans Girls In Sports bullshit kicked off, several feminists pointed out that the sudden rush to “protect” women’s sports was coming from people who didn’t give a crap about it — the kind of sexists who are the reason Title IX, guaranteeing funding for women’s sports, exists. Unsurprisingly, they came for the trans girls in women’s sports, now they’re coming for women’s sports. Misogynist whiner Scott Yenor wants schools to switch girls out of competitive sports, which he imagines conflict with their real nature — their “gentle, graceful, cooperative tendencies” and being “oriented toward motherhood and traditional feminine graces.”
Instead of competition, why not give girls ““cheerleading, dance, yoga, hiking clubs, recreational intramurals”? Which sound great as options, not as replacements. And they should be options for boys too — I’d have been happy to join a yoga club in school. Instead Yenor wants schools to protect and expand sports for boys — men’s soccer could be world-class except the feminazi Title IX requires spending money on chicks playing soccer! To be fair, he does talk about providing sports-alternatives for boys; however if schools don’t do that — boys get sports, women get yoga and cheerleading, end of story — I can’t imagine such a raging misogynist will fuss about it.
Yenor brings up that sports can affect women’s fertility; Mother Jones says the research isn’t conclusive. But we know school sports can inflict harrowing damage on men, too, from broken bones to brain injuries. I doubt Yenor’s going to the mat to protect them. It’s about the misogynist view that the female body is just a support system for the precious womb.
The boom in girls’ sports isn’t because they’ve been shanghaied into them. A lot of women enjoy playing sports and a lot of women can be as cutthroat as any man. Mia Hamm, Serena Williams, swimmers such as Esther Williams and Annette Kellerman And lots of men have objected, as this screenshot from the book Swimming Pretty shows:
Sound familiar?
