[ SECRET POST #2008 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2008 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 088 secrets from Secret Submission Post #287.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

But that holds up in cultures where women, simply because of their gender, are more likely to gain custody of their children; where women, because of their gender, have control over the life and death of their children before birth; where men have no control over the birth of a child they do not want; where women are not required to inform men of the births of their children; where women, on account of gender, are less likely to be found guilty of abuse; where child support can sometimes be retroactively enforced regardless of whether the father wanted the child; where women can choose to deny custody by not naming the correct father or any father on a birth certificate; and where women have made DNA testing a necessity to determine paternity and child support.

So, yes, women are considered worse for abandoning children in some societies. But in those societies, women also hold an overwhelming amount of power than men in regards to children. It's not fair that women get a stigma- but it's also not fair that men are denied a great deal of choice and power regarding their children.

[(Anonymous)]

men have no control over the birth of a child they do not want; where women are not required to inform men of the births of their children

Men have the power to avoid these situations by either not having sex with women or being very choosy about which women they have sex with (i.e. finding a woman who is on the same page re: children). Just because a man's choices occur earlier in the process does not mean that he doesn't have them and isn't actually responsible for the outcomes of these choices.

[(Anonymous)]

not this bullshit

[(Anonymous)]

This does not counter my point in any way: women have a different and greater amount of power with regards to their children than men do. Because women are given this greater power, they are held to a higher standard when they abandon children. Since they have a greater say in the process, they are looked down on more for giving up children.

You've pretty much corroborated with me. A man has to go to greater lengths to ensure a similar amount of control over his children that the typical woman has than a woman does. A woman has many options that can be undertaken independently; a man almost never does and is then forced to take responsibility for or is denied control over his children. When the power imbalance is so ridiculously unfair, there are consequences to the party with the greater amount of power. I don't really agree with the OP that women are unfairly maligned since men are pretty darn looked down upon for abandoning children, but it's impossible to say that the power imbalance doesn't exist.

[fadeinthewash]

Men have the power to avoid these situations by either not having sex with women or being very choosy about which women they have sex with

Oomph. Women have those choices, too, and I can't imagine anyone here sincerely going the slut-shaming route that's usually attached to that sort of statement and declare they ought to suck it up and keep any babies that result.

[meadowphoenix]

where women, because of their gender, have control over the life and death of their children before birth; where men have no control over the birth of a child they do not want

This part is about biological sex, not gender, fyi. Since, you know, it hasn't been socialized that only women have children, which would actually relevant to gender issues.

where child support can sometimes be retroactively enforced regardless of whether the father wanted the child

If he didn't want the child, then he probably shouldn't have participated in an activity which biologically leads to it, and in which the only method with a 100% rate of prevention is abstaining from said activity and when he already knows he has no other biological control after there is a fetus.

where women can choose to deny custody by not naming the correct father or any father on a birth certificate; and where women have made DNA testing a necessity to determine paternity and child support

If you know you have the child, that's what court is for. Even if the right name is put down, while they have first claim to the kid, they'd still have to go to court for their rights.

Again, DNA testing is mostly a biological issue. If women and men could have sex and then wherever they had sex a seed was planted into the ground and sprouted into a baby like a mandrake, then for whoever wants to claim, or not claim, the child would have to have a DNA test, man or woman. But this isn't how biology works. I'm sure that cheek swab is traumatizing, however.

Biology doesn't grant responsibility automatically. You're right that gender does, in that we have been socialized to think that. But they aren't the same thing.

[(Anonymous)]

Men don't have a say in abortion unless women allow them to. Children may be given up for adoption without the father's approval because the woman can elect not to name the father. None of that is firmly rooted in biology.

But why aren't women then told that the only way to give up responsibility is to abastain from sex or use contraception? Saying men shouldn't have sex if they don't want children could be applied to women who choose to abort or give up children for adoption. Since this is unreasonable for women, it can't be used as a logical argument for men.

DNA testing is important when the woman cannot be trusted to properly identify the father. Trust in the mother can force a man to be the parent of a child that is not his but that he feels socially obligated to care for. It is unfair that men have to go to these lengths to ensure that they are being asked to care for their biological children.

The point is that women are more maligned for abandoning children because it is easier to determine parenthood, the woman has complete say over the child's life or death before birth, and courts are biased in favor of mothers, as well as a societal belief that women are better parents. There is a consequence to this belief and that is a greater amount of vehemence when a woman chooses to abandon her child.

[(Anonymous)]

But why aren't women then told that the only way to give up responsibility is to abastain from sex or use contraception? Saying men shouldn't have sex if they don't want children could be applied to women who choose to abort or give up children for adoption. Since this is unreasonable for women, it can't be used as a logical argument for men.

Women are told this all the time. I frequently hear it as an argument for why abortion shouldn't be legal - "If you didn't want kids, you had no business having sex." I don't believe in it as an argument against sex regardless of gender and wish people would stop using it it. I can, however, see the utility in applying this argument to men in order to get people to wake up and see how sexist and slut-shaming towards women this argument is.

[(Anonymous)]

Since this is unreasonable for women, it can't be used as a logical argument for men.

Are you agreeing or arguing with me? It's an unreasonable argument for women and an unreasonable argument for men. I just happen to sympathize more with the male side since women are given much greater freedom to decide what to do with unwanted, unborn children.

[anonymouslyyours]

Because it literally impacts their body and health? If there was a way to viably extract and sustain a fetus without any harm or side-effects to the mother I would be pretty appalled if abortion was legal. But there isn't and a woman owns her body and has a right to decide what happens to it. It doesn't really have anything to do with deciding what happens to your biological heirs as much as it does deciding what happens to your body.

[(Anonymous)]

LOL

[(Anonymous)]

"Men don't have a say in abortion unless women allow them to."

Well, on purely legislative grounds... Men have been pretty much telling women what they could do or not with their bodies for decades.

[meadowphoenix]

Except that after viability, no one has a choice, neither mother nor father and viability is pretty biological. That women have the right alone before viability is biological too, since the health of the any fetus will be dependent on the health of the mother. I will grant you that not knowing a man has a child is a problem for asserting his rights. But that is the only one. Whether they are automatic rights or not is a matter of biology, since as you mentioned, the only certain parent is the mother, being that a baby can only come out through the mother.

It's perfectly fair. There isn't equal consideration for disparate impact. Men's health is never in jeopardy because of a pregnancy. Women's health is, and you can't declare that one health decision completely waives another. There's also a cultural rule that women are primarily responsible for birth control, anyway.

But again DNA tests are needed because of a biological reality.

You're going to have to give me receipts that abandoning children wasn't just as reviled for women when men had control over the life and death of their child, as much as you can with it being in another person, they were automatically assumed to have complete control over their family life, and they were considered the one with final parental control, and that men were just as reviled for abandonment as women are now. Because you are not only assuming causation, but you are assuming a certain order of causation for apparently no reason, considering that history says otherwise. This contempt for abandoning mothers has more to do with diminishing the role of women solely to mothers, so that any rejection of that role made them socially useless.

[diet_poison]

If he didn't want the child, then he probably shouldn't have participated in an activity which biologically leads to it, and in which the only method with a 100% rate of prevention is abstaining from said activity and when he already knows he has no other biological control after there is a fetus.

I can't believe you actually said this seriously. Because when this argument is applied to women, all fucking hell breaks loose.

this is probably a bad idea, seriously not trying to start anything

[anonymouslyyours]

There is a difference in the situations. If birth control fails or a vasectomy reverses for a man there is a difference in what happens when the same occurs to a woman. If a man wants an abortion the consequences are to the woman, not to his body.

Re: this is probably a bad idea, seriously not trying to start anything

[diet_poison]

I'm just making the point that if a person suggests that maybe women should *gasp* avoid having sex if they want to avoid the potential consequences, people start screaming misogyny. It's just common sense imo. I'm not even talking about abortion here - and I'm not condemning sex either, just pointing out the basic fact that actions have consequences and I'm really surprised to see someone applying that principle to one side of this discussion since when it's applied to the other sense you become a horrible heartless troll.

[meadowphoenix]

That's because you're asking for equal consideration with disparate impact. At no point will a man's right to control his health be in conflict because of pregnancy. A woman's health will be, and one decision on your health does not waive the right to control it completely. So the decision not to use birth control, which is a health decision, cannot waive the right to make other health decisions completely.

You're also ignoring that culturally, woman are thought to be primarily responsible for birth control anyway.

[diet_poison]

And you're missing the point - I wasn't even talking about abortion or birth control. Just saying that the principle of "you shouldn't sleep around if you don't want to wind up with the potential consequences of that action on your hand" was applied here to men but nobody ever applies it to women because if they do they get accused of being a horrible person. But I think it's a good principle for *everybody* to keep in mind - actions have consequences and risks are involved; it's something people should be aware of before making decisions like who to have sex with and when and even whether to have it. And it's a principle that's rarely brought up in this sort of discussion, because people are quick to call one a prude or say someone is trying to stamp out others' rights to sexual freedom etc.

And for the record, I think both men and women are responsible for birth control. And that's another part of the choice - if you wish to have sex and minimalize the potential for negative consequences, not only should you protect yourself but make sure your partner is also using protection.

[meadowphoenix]

Are you serious right now? Women have been blamed for the consequences of sex for fucking ever. And I do mean blamed and I do mean forever. That's my point about birth control. I think your opinion on responsibility and birth control is healthy but society absolutely does not see it that way. In society, women are responsible for prevention. And I assure you, girls get socialized to that standard. Boys do not. When you say nobody applies it to women without accusation, the reality is that people get upset because you're repeating a mantra that started in the Classical period and never stopped.

It is slowly changing from that double standard, but you're kidding if you think that principle (women's choices on sex should and do have more gravitas) is not the underpinning of every discussion on sex.

No seriously, though. Why do you think there hasn't been far more research on male contraception, when there was so much variety for women? Or that on the whole, women know far more about condoms, then men know about birth control pills, cups, sponges, rings, diaphragms, female condoms (I'm saying anyone of those things singly). Notice that although there are female condoms, there aren't male birth control pills or shots or rings.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh the poor oppressed menz. Won't someone think of them?

"Overwhelming power" puhleeze. In those same societies women are held in abusive relationships by men who threaten and sometimes act on "I'll kill the kids if you leave"; are terrified that every time they co-operate in contsact their children will be abducted or injured by violent ex partners, that at the very least the kids will be systematically turned against them.

I've seen it happen, I'm not interested in your inaccurate MRA sob story.

[loki]

Yeah, my partner's a family lawyer, and the number of stories I've heard... the possessive rage, born of a long long history of men asserting their rights over women's reproductive rights, comes to bear in the lawyer's office, and there's a silent button you can call for security. It's a very risky profession, statistically.

And every time I hear about a man killing children, I wince and die a little inside, because I know in 95% of cases he will be an angry jilted father using his kids as disposable possessions to get back at his female ex.

I don't know about other countries, but thanks to feminism, in Australia, men and women in practice have equal rights of access to children, and this works out, as long as the bio-father is willing, which he isn't always, and he isn't an abusive fuck, which isn't that uncommon. Thank god the conservative previous government's MRA-fuelled law that saw convicted paedophile fathers given access to their children FOR THE MENZ RIGHTS, was overturned.

If a child is conceived the traditional way, then the bio-father is considered legally to have an equal stake & responsibility in the child's life, no matter what he or anyone else thinks of that. (Is this fair or feminist? It certainly cuts both ways.) If you want to conceive a baby that the bio-father does not have rights over, then you'd better do it with a vial and syringe

And don't even get me started on the men who call up Legal Aid and demand that their partner or ex be somehow forcibly restrained from exercising will over their own damn bodies by terminating an unwanted pregnancy. It's called patriarchy for a reason. This is why Republicans.

/tl;dr fjkfsdlj rant

[(Anonymous)]

None of these are things women are unable to enact on men, so that's not really a good counter-argument.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not talking about able or unable, I'm talking about what happens in practice [see the first response to my comment from the lawyer's partner above for a taste] and how male power is upheld and encouraged by social expectation and conditioning.

In theory, women are "able" to physically/emotionally abuse men. However, men are not, in practice, more than a small minority of abusees, specially in het partnerships. So to talk as though the situation is entirely equal in this, and in custody disputes, and free of the context orf *what actually happens*, is disingenuous of you and my point stands.

[(Anonymous)]

You have to take into account, though, the shame put upon abused men and the different attitudes towards boys who are sexually abused by women. Women are encouraged to report abuse; men are laughed at for it. Underage girls who have sex with men are seen as victims; underage boys who have sex with women are seen as studs. Law enforcement is much quicker to act on cases of men abusing women than women abusing men. Women abusers are far less likely to go away for their actions because there is an assumption that any abuse is warranted. In cases of abuse, a woman's word holds more weight than a man's. So you can't say men are rarely abused so it doesn't matter if they are.

The thing is, there are a lot of things women can do regarding their children that men can't, a lot of privileges they have that men don't. Abuse doesn't temper these in any way. Society encourages women to report abuse, rape, and sexual assault, but finds it a personal fault if a man is abused and there is a strong belief that a man cannot be raped or sexually assaulted by a woman. This makes any statistics unlikely to be an accurate reflection of the truth.

[diet_poison]

I think abuse of men by women is way more common than you think. It's almost always emotional/psychological abuse in those cases and it definitely happens.