The latest school massacres

[DanaC]

I'm sorry, but those two things do not equate. If you're not a driver, you shouldn't make laws about cars? Maybe, I could go with that. If you've never taught, you sholdn't make education law? Fine.

But having a gun and having a fucking vagina are not the same thing.

One gender making laws about what the other gender can do with their body is not the same as a set of people who don't own some things, making laws about whether someone else can own those things.

There are plenty of good arguments against gun control, and clearly there is some kind of identity level shit going on with gun control, but equating rights over vaginas and rights over guns is ridiculous and icky. Seriously, that shit makes my skin crawl.

[it]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I'm sorry, but those two things do not equate. If you're not a driver, you shouldn't make laws about cars? Maybe, I could go with that. If you've never taught, you sholdn't make education law? Fine.

But having a gun and having a fucking vagina are not the same thing.

One gender making laws about what the other gender can do with their body is not the same as a set of people who don't own some things, making laws about whether someone else can own those things.

There are plenty of good arguments against gun control, and clearly there is some kind of identity level shit going on with gun control, but equating rights over vaginas and rights over guns is ridiculous and icky. Seriously, that shit makes my skin crawl.

But is the point really about choice, or about impact?

We all can get hit by cars or shot by lunatics, regardless of whether we own a car or a gun. likewise, whether it is forced fatherhood against someone's will (with possible jail time) or the other way around - killing someone who they believe in and view as their living breathing child - men are affected by them. Not to mention consent laws applying to both genitalia, and unfortunately censorship laws, because of.. reasons...

Note that I am pro-choice, but I disagree that they can't be equated - The point isn't a pro life one, but rather that anything which gives us the means to impact others becomes the business of others who don't want to be negatively impacted, regardless of the level of agency in the process of acquiring it, and regardless of whether we try to deal with it on a case by case basis through life or organize around it as a society.

[tw]

Originally Posted by traceur

The point isn't a pro life one, but rather that anything which gives us the means to impact others becomes the business of others who don't want to be negatively impacted, regardless of the level of agency in the process of acquiring it, and regardless of whether we try to deal with it on a case by case basis through life or organize around it as a society.

Since my thoughts and words can affect others, then others should have the right to regulate my thoughts and words?

That reasoning stands on a very slippery slope.

[it]

Originally Posted by tw

Since my thoughts and words can affect others, then others should have the right to regulate my thoughts and words?

That reasoning stands on a very slippery slope.

I am not saying it generates rights - whether your reaction to how it can effect you has a right to be forceful or part of social organized force is another matter altogether - even if only women had a vote for "womb regulations" it would still be an application of organized force by whoever side won over the side that didn't, whether they had a right to do so would still have the same questions and problems, and is not granted by the fact they'd all be women.

Rather, I am saying that the "if you aren't x you don't get to decide comment or have opinions on things related to x" line of arguments is nonsense - you don't have to be something to have invested interest in it, whether it's womb owners or gun owners.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by traceur

I am not saying it generates rights - whether your reaction to how it can effect you has a right to be forceful or part of social organized force is another matter altogether - even if only women had a vote for "womb regulations" it would still be an application of organized force by whoever side won over the side that didn't, whether they had a right to do so would still have the same questions and problems, and is not granted by the fact they'd all be women.

Rather, I am saying that the "if you aren't x you don't get to decide comment or have opinions on things related to x" line of arguments is nonsense - you don't have to be something to have invested interest in it, whether it's womb owners or gun owners.

I agree - I have never really liked the 'if you don't have X experience then you don't get a view' argument. I have never been a soldier, but I'm damn sure I have an opinion on what my country's soldiers do when they are in someone else's country. I don't drive, but I have an opinion on the state of the roads.

My only real problem with the earlier points was the equating of vaginas and guns. Women's bodies are routinely objectified in a way that male bodies are not. Time and again I hear people make the argument that girls and women should take precautions against rape, for example, by equating the woman's body to an unlocked car or house risking burglary and theft.

I get what you're saying about men having a sense of the child as theirs, in arguments over abortion - but the 'get out of my vagina' argument is not just about the right to an abortion - it's about contraception, family planning, and enforced and medically unnecessary procedures for women who are seeking abortion as a way to make those abortions more difficult to obtain. And, probably more importantly, it's about recognising the awesome power over another person's body that this implies.

Self-defence is also a matter of power over one's own body - I can see that part of the equivalence - but, classic's snarky comment about transgender women aside, we don't get to choose our gender it is something we are born with. The reason the 'get out of my vagina' trope came about is that there is a profound gender imbalance at a political and law-making level. And this is just where we are now - coming from a historical perspective where that imbalance has generally been much more profound and women's bodies far more a matter for male legislation and ruling.


I don't, as it happens, believe that men should not have a say in issues around abortion. That's ludicrous - it is a thing in the world that they live in. But I am sick of women's bodies and the things that are done to them being equated with inanimate objects and the things that are done to them.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by traceur

I am saying that the "if you aren't x you don't get to decide comment or have opinions on things related to x" line of arguments is nonsense - you don't have to be something to have invested interest in it, whether it's womb owners or gun owners.

This is the first thing you've said which I agree with ... no I am questioning myself.

[it]

Originally Posted by classicman

This is the first thing you've said which I agree with ... no I am questioning myself.

Awww, I am sorry, I thought of it as such a casual thing... If I knew I was taking your being right virginity I would have tried making it a little bit more special.

[xoxoxoBruce]

He didn't say he was wrong, he said you were right for a change.