“Feminists for Life” = Vegans for Pork Chops
By Adrian Bleifuss Prados • Oct 3rd, 2008 • Category: U.S. Politics and Issues, UncategorizedIt’s interesting how our terms and categories are evolving over time. Recently, some friendly faces on the T.V. have been telling me that Sarah Palin is a “pro-life feminist.”
According to Patrick Buchanan (a longtime defender of feminist causes), there is a fresh new trend in feminism that would entrust the female body and its reproductive system to the stewardship of the benevolent authorities.
Feminists in this tradition include Phyllis Schlafly, Mother Angelica, Minnie Mouse and Elizabeth Hasselbeck.
Until recently, I had thought that feminism was about fighting for a society in which women would be free from the age-old structures and institutions that have historically confined, controlled, brutalized and exploited them. But my T.V. friends have taught me that real feminism or “feminism without the feminists” is about ladies being “tough” and “feisty.”
Sarah Palin is tremendously feisty. When not scanning the Bering Sea for signs of Russians, Vikings and sea monsters, Palin finds the time to get deadly feisty with caribou, moose and various other quadrupeds. Her feistiness is unquestionable.
She showed true grit when she told congress “thanks but no thanks” on that 19th-century utopian socialist novel, The Bridge to Nowhere. Alaska has had terrible experiences with bridges ever since the Libruls allowed masses of Siberian illegals to sneak across the Pleistocene land bridge. Will those people ever learn English?
This new development in feminism is really win-win for women because in this age of information overload and consumer “option fatigue,” the right not to choose is a blessing. As a feminist, Governor Palin understands that some decisions are best left to the experts.
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Andrian, your pieces always make me laugh.
So suddenly, ‘we leftists’ get to decide what is and what is not feminism? I think this, like the terms ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’, is an attempt to circumvent debate. The issue is not whether or not a woman has a right to choose what happens to her own body. To argue anything else without descending into misogyny or lunacy is impossible. It’s whether or not an abortion is an act that decides what happens to someone else’s body, a question that no-one I’ve ever spoken to has a clear, objective response to. I just don’t get why, because I identify as a leftist and feminist, I’m supposed to line up and agree with a certain set of principles that may or may not be sound.
Sorry, a follow-up. I misspoke - the question is very much whether a woman has a right to choose what happens to her own body and life. It’s just not the only issue at play.
I take a kind of feudal view of the body. So long as a person is sound of mind, their body is a kind of inviolable fiefdom and they are its lord.
Just as a king cannot interfere with the ancient and particular privileges of his subordinate vassals in their manors, a democratic community cannot infringe upon the individual’s lordly rights over her own body and its contents.
An embryo does not fall under society’s jurisdiction because it is contained within the body of a woman. She alone determines its future and the rest of us have nothing to say on the matter.
That was actually a very compelling argument, not that I didnt agree with you to begin with though
Adrian,As both a firm vegetarian and a prolife feminist for many, many years, I have to laugh at your suggestion that “feminists for life” are like “vegans for pork chops”–’taint necessarily so. (Pork chops…yuk, yuk, and double yuk!)Now, being a thoroughgoing leftist myself, I cannot speak for Sarah Palin or anyone else who is both conservative and self-identifies as prolife feminist.So I am speaking here of those who identify as liberal-to-leftist and prolife feminist–no, I’m not the only one, by any means! You are welcome to visit the global resource directory I help with, Nonviolent Choice, nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com and learn more.From such a standpoint, liberal-to leftist and prolife feminist, a woman of course has a right over her own body. Of course anyone has the right to make nonviolent choices–and there is a collective responsibility to make these possible or easier for people.But pregnancy is the interconnection of two bodies, two lives, in an overall cultural environment that often pits them against each other…and that’s where the disagreement over abortion comes in.