According to a new Economist/Yougov poll, “Just one in four Americans – and one in three women – call themselves feminists today.” I have no idea how reliable the methodology is, but I’m intrigued by the use of the word “just” in their report – as if “one in four” is a small number.1
Andrew Sullivan seems to agree, linking to the survey while saying “not many Americans” are feminists. And whenever a survey like this comes out, anti-feminists rush to gloat.
Which makes me wonder: Since when is a quarter of the country “not many Americans”?
To put that number in perspective, The Big Bang Theory, the most popular TV show in America, is watched by 23 million Americans, or 7%. The World Cup Final was watched by 26.5 million Americans – a little over 8%.
If this poll is accurate, about 60 million Americans self-identify as feminists.2 With all respect to Andrew Sullivan, I’d call that a lot of Americans.
* * *
Interestingly, according to the Economist/Yougov poll (see page 35 of this pdf file), 41% of Americans age 18-29 consider themselves feminists. I doubt that’s a result my friend Cathy Young will be reporting anytime soon. (Update: Cathy says she’ll cover it.)
So what about other polls?
Another YouGov poll (pdf link), conducted in 2013, found that 20% of Americans – about 48 million – call themselves feminists. This poll is interesting because it asked respondents to choose between feminist, anti-feminist, and neutral.
Notice that in this poll, young people weren’t more likely to identify as feminists.
A 2005 CBS poll found that 24% of US women identify as feminist.
Various Gallop polls from 1991 to 2001 found that between 25% and 33% of Americans self-identify as feminist.
Finally, a Ms Magazine poll of voters found that a little over half of female voters identify as feminist. (Note that this is a poll of voters, not of Americans in general.)
* * *
Although it’s comforting to think of there being 60 million feminists in the US alone, it’s a mistake to focus too much on these numbers. Feminism’s victories aren’t in how many Americans call themselves feminist; they’re in the ways feminism has changed America.
- YouGov asked a follow-up question, defining “feminist” as “someone who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes,” and then asks people if they self-identify as a feminist. Unsurprisingly, asking the question this way leads to much larger numbers identifying as feminist. I’m not convinced that’s a meaningful result, so I haven’t focused on those numbers in this post. [↩]
- 60 million excludes the 23% of Americans who are under age 18, since the YouGov poll was of Americans age 18 and up. 25% of all Americans, including those under 18, would be about 78 million. [↩]
Those numbers are _way_ higher than I thought.
As many Americans identify as feminists as identify as Republicans.
Mind-blowing.
yrs–
–Ben
By that definition I’m a feminist.
Oui, l’avant-garde. À la lanterne! Comrade.
Much the same as the Tea Party movement will claim victory in that even if they lose a primary, they force the GOP candidates to move towards their positions – and leftist politicians the same for Democratic candidates.
Yup. This is one of the rare cases in which I think the Tea Party folks are correct – the Tea Party’s success lies in how it’s changed the overall GOP culture, not just in electing candidates.
ETA: Unfortunately, I really don’t think that the left has had much equivalent success in influencing the votes of Democratic Congressional members. My impression is that there are many more Tea Party primary challenges of Republicans than there are lefty primary challenges of Democrats.
That is a lot of people. Or it’s not a lot of people, depending on what the comparison is about.
I’m going to go with “not a lot” as reasonable here, though I concede that either spin is OK.
For example, 1/3 is lower than other reports.
If you had 73% of women saying “yes” to some obviously feminist stuff back in 1985, and only 1/3 signing on to being feminists now, that seems interesting–though of course they’re not the same question.
And on that note, there was a very low cost of entry here. IOW, it’s not as if the question was “Do you support or oppose feminism?” but merely “are you a feminist or not?” So to look at it from the other side: 2/3 of women refused to associate themselves with feminism.Even when it would have cost them nothing to support it. Even though the movement has been around for a pretty long time. Even though feminism has had ample opportunity to “sell itself”–it is certainly in the public discussion. Even though feminism is established enough to have helped establish ~650 Women’s Studies programs at colleges and universities across the country. Even though it is, in name and deeds, aimed at advancing the interests of women. Even with all of those traits… fully 2/3 of women won’t call themselves feminists.
That’s surprising, isn’t it? I think so. It’s a heck of a lot more surprising to me than the fact that you can get 1/3 to say that they DO think of themselves as feminists. It would be like finding out that 33% of black Americans supported the efforts of the NAACP–yes, 33% is a lot but it would be a surprise anyway*.
And of course it’s quite low for men. Right? (Reporting it as “25% of Americans” clouds the fact that only 15% of men said yes.) 15% is a lot of people to be sure, but is still a very small minority from a political perspective. If you made a list of “political views held by at least ____% of men,” or “party associations held by at least ___% of men” the list would be damn long, and strange, by the time you got down to 15%.
*I may be surprised. I have no idea what %age of black Americans support the NAACP. I just assume it’s more than 1/3.
Meaningless poll is meaningless. Asking people “Are you the following convenient label?” ignores the people who don’t consider themselves that convenient label. That can be a large variance.
Asking a person “Do you agree or disagree with the following statements… and how strongly?” lets you know what people believe. THEN shove them into conveniently labeled boxes. Most people have NO IDEA who they agree with as a group. So asking group identity just confuses them for the split second it takes them to guess.
Here’s how it’s done IMHO.
http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx
http://www.people-press.org/quiz/political-typology/
I agree with gin-and-whiskey.
I don’t know why you would compare feminism with tv viewing, it’s a political movement, it isn’t competing as a light entertainment choice. If you compare it with other political views in the poll – and some very odd positions have more support, 30% think Israel is too dangerous for a US embassy, 29% approve of Ron Paul – it’s low.
It is an issue that feminism jumps from 25% to 60%, once it’s phrased as meaning equality, as that’s not a message 35% are getting unprompted.
Not to be a dick. But the classy thing to do would be to comment on the massive drop off in support for feminism in the working population, or that income gradient, or that heavy white/asian thing, before saying someone else won’t have the guts to report bad news.
The numbers just read to me as just supporting the young, rich, white, college girl stereotype. I suppose that’s the base the slut walking, rape culture opposing, career centered, everyday sexism opposing, new online feminism speaks to.
Franz meine Schatzi that’s just adorable. I wouldn’t say this particular poll or any other with a random sample of Americans shows a drop off in support for feminism THE CONCEPT. No one is seriously suggesting repealing the 19th Amendment are they liebchen? Are the “Duck Dynasty” crowd selling red white and blue burqas ? Have there been protest rallies demanding that single moms be tattooed with Crimson As? No, of course. Though all three ideas would make amusing performance art bits if anyone wants to help me stage them.
Because of language shift over time, “feminist” has become a pejorative in blue collar America, sure. But only because it has become a term used to tar-and-feather unattractive males abasing themselves in an attempt to mate with the rest of the herd, or to self identify renunciate Andrea Dworkin wanna-bes. Just as “liberals” had to rebrand as “progressives,” feminists need to rebrand as…..
Help me out here. Egalitarians maybe?
By drop off for support in the working population I mean, workers.
All ages 25%
18-29 41%
30-44 19%
45-64 19%
65+ 25%
This is U shaped. We see very high ratings among the young demographic of students and those new to working life (and sadly the unemployed). Retirees are as supportive as the population on average. The demographic of people mainly in employment 30-65 is markedly less supportive.
“Aren’t we awful among the middle aged” is the flipside of “Aren’t we doing great among the young”. I supposed whether that’s okay or not depends who you think the market is and who’s the most oppressed demographic.
It also ignores the fact that different people have different definitions for that convenient label – which see my earlier comment. I’ll wager that the 1/3 of Americans cited who accept that label would argue long and loud among themselves as to what the label “feminist” means, and the result might shift that number around.
RonF, valid point and a very good catch there, I missed that aspect.
When I do addiction counseling, my clients can argue for hours, days, weeks on what “recovery” or “sobriety” means to give them excuses to do whatever the hell they want and attempt to negotiate away the consequences. It’s been giving me a rather obvious bias that for some people OBFUSCATING LANGUAGE is their addiction of choice.
Maybe I need to start coaching people in E-Prime. If it became the common tongue the whole blogosphere would contract to a pinpoint. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime
Allow me to introduce you the the Men’s Rights movement via We Hunted the Mammoth. You’d be surprised by what people in that cesspool are suggesting.
I suppose I should have qualified it by saying “no one being taken seriously by anyone outside their pathetic circle. I was unclear. ;) There are always going to be lunatics. I have had clients that could argue for hours that aliens sang them to sleep through their dental work or similar obsessions. That doesn’t mean there is a SERIOUS anti-alien movement on the cusp of taking power. They are just there to be mocked, not concerned about as a force in society.
I’ll have to look into these men’s rights idiots. From 1998-2004 trolling STORMFRONT and the Nuwaubians was my favorite diversion. Maybe I need to dust off a pseudonym and target these guys until they some are so vexed they decide to become “an hero.”
BTW anyone had time to find surveys on percentages of Americans that subscribe to “feminist” BELIEFS, since belief matters more than labeling?
Those numbers seem very high. I live in a fairly liberal area and I am reluctant to identify as a feminist because they have such a bad reputation based on the extremes.
I almost lost a new friend when I told her I was a feminist. This woman is a middle-aged, gay, blue-collar, proud union member. She said she should identify as a feminist but she doesn’t. She went to the MI Womyns Musical Festival and was appalled at the feminists who excluded transgendered women. She said when I first told her that she was leery of becoming friends but liked me anyway.
The right has always been antifeminist but the left is becoming so as well. I have heard several progressive, liberal women turn their backs on feminism for being racist, classist etc. I just don’t understand opposing equality for women but the word turns a lot of people off. It is too bad that the right has successfully demonized it and the left is now following suit.
JennyRose:
Feminists are a semi-coherent group. They’re not just “anyone who wants equal rights for women.” There are broad categories of ideology, theory, and practice that go well beyond that. Feminists, in the name of feminism, have done real harm to (to name a few): trans women, disabled women, lesbians, black women, religious women, working women, poor women, sex workers, and sexual assault survivors.
Not all feminists, of course. But you can see why members of those groups, despite being 100% behind gender equality, might want to distance themselves from the label. Like politically unaffiliated people who nonetheless vote party line in most elections, they’re still part of the process of women’s rights, just not as self-identified feminists.
(I say this as someone who, after struggling with this shit, identifies as a feminist anyway, because I just choose to identify with the good parts.)
This is part of why I’m kinda shocked there are so many self-identified feminists in the US. I would have guessed 10% at the high-end.
Amp:
I would propose that this is because the equivalent process occurred a generation earlier for the Democratic party.
Uhh….. No it didn’t. The hippies/yippies/anti-war movement TRIED I’ll give you that. But the pendulum didn’t get moved anywhere to the left. Give the devils their due, the oligarchs studied the way the left failed and astroturfed themselves a grassroots movement that succeeded thanks to a bigger budget than the Chicago Seven and the Catonsville Nine had. (As a VERY little kid my parents were friends/acquaintances with 4 of the Catonsville 9. I regret not paying more attention to them then, but hey I was 5… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyHabFrICz4 )
Carter and his era was all 2nd Generation New Dealers. And in the Reagan era, the Democratic Party started triangulating to the right to try and get back the blue collar/Southern voters that got leached away by Nixon’s southern strategy and Reagan’s better marketing.
By the Clinton era except for a VERY few in Congress, pretty much none of the Senate and maybe a couple Governors, those calling themselves 90s Democrats were either still pushing New Deal mainstream policies or copying Reagan-era politics to try and swing back the voters they lost in the 80s. Actual New Dealers and fans of Progressive era reforms that never happened got left in the dust.
As Lewis Black so succinctly put it once, “The left moved to the center, the center moved right, and the right moved to the crazy house.”
BTW, I admit to missing a lot of how “feminism” became a dirty word to those on the left. Can anyone point me to a good summary somewhere on how that failure in marketing an idea happened?
I wouldn’t call the rejection of the feminist label by [some on*] the left a marketing failure. Instead, it was a response to the ideas espoused by some prominent feminists (such as anti-trans thinking, as JennyRose mentioned above), and the specific policies that feminist organizations pushed, which tended to be the ones that were high on the wish list for white middle/upper-class women, while ignoring some others that were more relevant for poor women and women of color. I’m sure there are others here who can speak to this better than me. I still use the label, because I think there’s a lot of good feminism has done and I still think the core of the movement is valuable, but I don’t at all blame people who don’t want to call themselves feminists because all the feminists they knew told trans women to gtfo.
If we want to talk about PR failures, we can talk about how the right-wing media machine has painted feminists as whiny, entitled, man-hating, delusional, and more masculine than is polite. (It doesn’t escape me–and it’s not a coincidence–that many of those characteristics are sexist tropes deployed against all women, not just feminists. Feminism has a bad rap partially because feminists have a legitimate criticism of gender politics in our society. And so it goes.)
*Edited above, as indicated by square brackets.
There have always been some areas of the left which have naturally had very different constitutencies and clashed with feminists. Unions in male dominated industries disagreeing with employment lobbying, or civil liberties campaigners opposing the censorship and law reform attempts are good historic examples.
The most interesting recent example I think is Occupy Wall Street. It started off as an anti-banking protest with mass appeal, and was then destroyed as it was co-opted by feminism / progressives who alienated the public. There’s a lot of resentment in areas of the more traditional left over how that movement was discredited.
PR is what it comes down to, Harlequin. IMHO anyways. Ideas, ideals, beliefs are all just opinions. “Human life has meaning” is a great belief, but it isn’t a cosmic law. And it certainly isn’t a universal belief. I forget who said “Reality is that which doesn’t go away when you stop believing in it.” But it’s an important point.
PR, marketing, education are all key to the whole “marketplace of ideas/great melting pot” thing. A preacher I used to know broke it down like this. You have theologians who decide what beliefs are “right.” They only deal with other theologians usually and don’t actually do any of the Church’s real WORK.
The pastors and preachers explain the theology to people who already PRETTY MUCH are on board with the belief system, they just need a few gaps filled in. This is where a lot of the Church work goes on, obviously.
The missionaries though are the most IMPORTANT workers since they expand the circle of influence. They get their asses kicked constantly for telling people OUTSIDE the Church “Hey, everything you know is wrong, here’s the way it really is.” That’s a great way to be shot in the face, telling a Congo warlord that God doesn’t ACTUALLY want him to kidnap children and use them as soldiers. But if someone doesn’t do that, the belief that children should NOT be soldiers eventually loses in the marketplace of ideas.
I could be wrong, but the Left became wrapped up in theology. Not enough preachers, and hardly any missionaries at all. Meanwhile the Right wing did a great job on missionary work.
So what do you theologians here say? How many people have YOU tried to convert personally? Any feminists tried speaking about it in common language, to sway over a Mansplaining MRA jackass? Or have you focused on theological quibbling about terms in blogs of like minded believers? Just curious.
BTW sorry for the filibuster, I know I USUALLY mock people who are grotesquely verbose, long winded theological blowhards. You all have a free pass to ignore me as a hypocrite.
To make up for it, THIS which would have made the same point faster but I didn’t think of it.
Brian: You seem really willing to discuss problems at a removed, ideologically detached distance. How about, instead of you asking others to justify themselves and whether they are best serving their ideologies (?!?!?!?), you talk about your own experiences with your own ideological struggles? I would love to read that.
yrs–
–Ben
Occupy Wall Street was destroyed by becoming too feminist? In what universe?
—Myca
Ben, such sarcasm. ;) My struggle is scattered out there on the blogosphere under one pen name or another. I also write OTHER places to get people to say what THEY think, so I’m not insulated in a bubble. I hang out in Reddit, 4chan, stormfront, democratic underground, free republic, yahoo answers…. Just look for the person asking “OK, justify that belief to me from THIS perspective.”
As to my ideological struggles…
FWIW, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I would genuinely like to see how you answer your questions yourself.
yrs–
–Ben
This one. The one where there was a movement striking a chord with the public by suggesting the government had let the banks get out of control. The one that got railroaded by sparkly special snowflakes SJWs who did stupid shit like commit to anti-hierarchical decision making and not make demands, and though conciousness raising and progressive stacks were great ideas, and thought talking about poststructualism and feminist caucuses were more important that Glass–Steagall. And got represented on tv by a woman called Ketchup and became a laughing stock.
I gotta agree with Franz on that one. It’s unfair to blame it ALL on selective editing by media owned by billionaires. Though the news cameras worked hard to stay focused on the moonbats, the drum circle and puppet show protestors always pull focus from the ones who should be the missionaries in Moloch’s lands
SJW’s?
Out of Franz’s list of OWS mis-steps, only the last seems to involve feminism. It seems like an odd thing to blame all those not feminist related things on feminism.
I understand the “OWS became too anarchic” complaint. It’s a dumb complaint, because the people who started it were anarchists, and the anarchic consensus decision making was not a later feature – it was just a feature … but I do understand the complaint.
But that’s not what I asked about.
I asked how you could make the credible claim that OWS was destroyed by being too feminist, and you responded with a laundry list of stuff that had nothing to do with feminism.
The one issue you cite that can be connected is holding an OWS feminist caucus. And yeah, they did that. And no, you offer no citations that it had anything at all to do with the eventual fall of OWS.
As for the rest of it, saying they’re too feminist because they embraced anti-hierarchical decision making is like saying that they’re too Christian because they embraced nonviolence and caring for the poor. It’s not unconnected, but neither is it anywhere near the same thing.
—Myca
No. What’s dumb is insisting OWS, which kicked off as a protest for increased government regulation of the banks – you know, the complete fucking opposite of an anarchist position – was started by anarchists.
No you didn’t. You made a flip snarky one line comment which offered nothing but incredulity and refused to engage with me on any level.
The OWS movement supporters were the prime feminist demographic IDed in the survey above. Young, very liberally educated, white, middle class; only disallusioned with their vanishing prospects.
All the mis-steps came from this academic campus progressivism. conciousness raising – invented by 2nd wave feminism. Progressive stacks, basically white men get to speak last, is the latest SJW organising technique. Academic poststructualism, again key feminist technique, not much good for raising popular awareness or critiquing banking practices. All these are deeply feminist tools.
Richard,
I think SJW = “social justice warrior(s),” which bizarrely has become a term of derision in some anti-feminist circles.
Richard, I had to google “sjw” myself, URBAN DICTIONARY had a definition so harsh that it’s all hot and stingy. Also funny enough I wish I had written it.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=SJW
Lee1 & Brian: Thanks. I was not where I had the time to look it up when I asked my question, but it must say something about how old I am that my immediate thought—which I knew could not be right—was that SJW stood for single Jewish woman, the way it did in the Village Voice personal ads of old. (The same acronyms might still be in use; I have no idea.)
Franz: You wrote, “All these are deeply feminist tools.” I am still mulling over the substance of the discussion in this thread, but tools are not ideological. They may be used in ideological ways; but they themselves are not ideological. Marxism, to take one example that I can think of, has been using a form of consciousness raising since before second wave feminism came along.
Richard, that’s an interesting point, communication and community building tools are ideologically neutral. Although I can think of a few that might change the community along the way. It would be a good topic for someone to write, listing the standard ones for discussion of any that might wind up enlightening or brainwashing participants. The Oneida Community tradition of mutual criticism for instance can be used to tear down personal boundaries for good or ill.
Amp or any mods here have time to delve into sociology of community building? I’m curious what the group comes up with.
In response to this:
RonF wrote:
Which I assume, Ron, means that you do not understand “social, political and economic equality of the sexes” to include the right of access to abortion on demand, which it is my understanding that you oppose. I am not trying here to play “gotcha,” or to start a debate about abortion per se, but rather to point out just how difficult definitions can be when you’re talking about issues like these.
Is it possible to be a feminist and oppose the right of access to abortion on demand? My own answer to that question would be no, not because I think everyone should agree with me that abortion is not murder, or because I think that people who oppose abortion on demand cannot also believe, for example, in equal pay for equal work, but because I don’t see how a person who can get pregnant and give birth can have full equality with those of us who can’t if they do not have the same level of bodily autonomy as we do.
Actually, I think it kind of depends on what you mean by “abortion on demand.” (Going back to your point about the slipperiness of definitions.) If someone were opposed to abortion after the point of viability except in cases of medical necessity, I don’t think that alone would make them not a feminist.
Hypothetically, I can even see stretching the definition of feminist to include someone who is opposed to abortion but doesn’t believe in full bodily autonomy for men either. If the person who supports mandatory pregnancy and birth also supports mandatory blood and organ donation, that position wouldn’t be explicitly anti-feminist because it wouldn’t include a sex-based double standard. The concept of body autonomy is a pretty major tenet of feminism, but it’s not necessarily an inherent part of a belief in equality between sexes.
….aaaaaand we are back to theological debates on angels dancing on pins. Or “Is God so powerful he can create a hair so thin even He cannot split it.”
Well, no, Brian. Labels and the boundaries they represent have meaning for people on both sides of whatever line we are talking about. It matters whether someone with Ron’s politics concerning abortion can also call himself a feminist because, if he can, then it calls the whole question of how the right to abortion and the fight for that right fits into feminism in the first place. If someone with Ron’s politics in that regard can call himself a feminist no differently than someone who is pro choice, then it legitimately raises the question of whether the fight for reproductive rights is even a feminist fight. And please note that I am not saying that someone who opposes abortion personally cannot be a feminist. My original question was about someone who would make law and/or public policy based in that belief. Sorry if I wasn’t entirely clear about that.
Exactly! Labels and definitions are how people organize their beliefs, how they make sense of the world. What we actually mean by the term “feminist” matters.
I have always been politically liberal & an advocate for equality {focusing mainly on women’s & LGBTQ rights}, yet I was wary of using the “f” word. I’m 35, and have no excuse as to why I was like this for so long besides a basic fundamental misunderstanding of what I thought I knew feminism to be {basically what TERFS are}. “I can’t be a feminist…I’m feminine” was an actual belief I held. I’m embarrassed that as a grown woman, it took a song by Beyonce for me to challenge my views. After being moved by the feminist message in “***Flawless”, I did what I should have done all along, and looked into it. When I discovered what feminism truly meant, it was like a flame was ignited inside me. I’ve embraced that I am a feminist and am attempting to make up for lost time {and educate anyone I can}. The only downside to my feminist enlightening has been discovering the “manosphere” *shudder*.
Anyways, I guess what I’m trying to say is, there are a lot of “me’s” out there. I would say most of the “women against feminism” are of this mindset, as are most men in general. We have support. I’d go as far to say an overwhelming majority of people are feminists…even if they don’t it.
Richard, this will get me a lot of flames here from people who don’t bother to actually read what I write. That’s why I’m just blogging elsewhere from today on. But there is a reason that by and large authoritarians and fascists win when they are in political struggles against moderates and progressives.
Get three moderates or progressives together and one will decide the other two aren’t ‘t doing it right and start a “new” political group. Get three fascists/authoritarians together and once they decide the pecking order, they get in line. MAYBE two of them beat up the third one first but even the fascist they beat up WILL STILL BELIEVE AND GET IN LINE.
You ever notice that the Stalinists didn’t spend a lot of time splitting hairs? Mao’s Red Guard didn’t bog down into nuances and specific policies. There were no “moderate Nazis.”
Now I’m not saying the Death Eaters are right, or that Grindlewald should have won. But a little unity of purpose is not a bad thing. We KNOW the definition of Feminism, of Justice , Freedom, Equality… so either you’re ON the bus or you are OFF the bus. But I’m a missionary not a theologian.
Monty Python said it AMAZINGLY well, but Emo Phillips deserves the career boost.
Yes, but why should that be a model we emulate?
You say “by and large authoritarians and fascists win.” But the three groups you named are either gone today, or a shadow of what they once were.
Sorry to see you go, if you’re going. But disagreeing with you isn’t the same as flaming you.
But there is a reason that by and large authoritarians and fascists win when they are in political struggles against moderates and progressives.
They don’t.
Mao’s Red Guard didn’t bog down into nuances and specific policies.
They did.
There were no “moderate Nazis.”
There were.
I actually agree with the point you’re trying to make, in a very broad sense, in that there is a time to bicker about labels and a time to join together and fight, and that the American left these days has a really hard time letting go of the label bickering phase.
(I lay the blame for this at least equally on the inner-left flank which seems to be obsessed with nit-picking and attacking anyone who can be written off as a “hippy,” rather than identity-politics warriors who usually {not without reason} get the blame for it. But either way.)
But, man, you picked some bad examples.
yrs–
–Ben
edit: the real thing is that this is true of every political movement. It has more internal strife than it should. It needs less theorists and more doers. This is all very true. But it’s just as true of right-wing movements as left-wing.
Brian,
I am rushing off, but I will say this: Like Ben, I agree with your point, very broadly speaking. There is a time and a place. You’ll notice as well—and I think here you did not read me as carefully as you might have–that, as I clarified in my second post, I was talking specifically about whether someone who would make abortion illegal could call her or himself a feminist. In other words, the disagreement that would take place, in my scenario, between and among the three progressives you imagine would not be a purely theoretical one. Rather, it would have have serious implications in terms of strategy, tactics, and practice.
I think it’s hilarious when Ampersand mansplains to a woman what she should think about feminism.
Do it again, Ampersand, it’s funny!
Richard:
That’s correct. I don’t think it includes that. I support the concept that all Americans should have access to all their Constitutionally-guaranteed rights. I believe that abortion involves depriving someone unable to give informed consent of an essential right – kind of like how rape laws (are supposed to) protect drunks and minors. I concede that the law does not agree with me that such is the case – but then “Are you a feminist?” is not a question of law.
But your statement itself highlights another issue of definitions and limits. My understanding of the use of the word “access” means that there are no legal barriers to conduct a legally-permitted activity. But it seems that it is the desire of the left to include in the word “access” the concept that it is the responsibility of the State to use taxpayers’ money to remove all economic barriers to an individual’s exercise of a legally-permitted activity.
Then there are those who are satisfied that the State can restrict abortion after 24 weeks gestation, while others oppose such a limit. There are those who think that if a parent can restrict their child from being provided with an asprin without their consent up to a certain age, they should be able to restrict their child from being provided an abortion. Others disagree. We also have the debate over what nature of medical qualifications or physical and legal access to higher-level medical care a prospective abortion provider must have in order to legally provide abortions. “Access” means different things to a lot of different people, so asking “Should women have access to abortion on demand?” can mean many things, making it difficult to draw solid conclusions from a set of simple “yes” or “no” answers to the question.
I think that no one should lose access to the exercise of their rights absent issues such as felony convictions, mental disease, etc. By accepting what I see as commonly understood in feminist circles as “access”, that would mean that if I cannot afford to buy a printing press or a shotgun, the taxpayers would be obligated to buy one for me. I don’t particularly see why what the Supreme Court holds is a right to an abortion should be legally privileged with regards to access over those rights that are explicitly called out in the Constitution. I certainly don’t think that people should be provided with taxpayer-funded guns and printing presses – neither should they be provided with taxpayer-funded abortions. But if the latter IS held to be policy, then the former should be as well.
Is it your impression that it’s the desire of “the left” (since that phrase is vague to the point of meaninglessness, I’ll interpret it as the slightly less vague “most self-identified mainstream or progressive democrats”) to “use taxpayers’ money to remove all economic barriers” to women’s access to safe abortion? Because I really don’t think that’s true. Certainly many/most of us would like to see barriers to abortion removed or lessened, but not necessarily at taxpayer expense. By far the barriers I see criticized most often aren’t lack of government subsidies, but things like admitting privilege requirements that serve no real medical purpose but dramatically limit access to abortion clinics in some areas; fetal age restrictions that have no scientific basis; waiting period requirements that also have no legitimate medical or scientific basis; etc.
Absolutely. The biggest barriers *use* taxpayer money. All those laws created to specifically affect abortion clinics
isare paid for with tax dollars. I’m pretty sure the vast majority of pro-choice people aren’t so much interested in spending tax money on abortion as they are on *stopping* spending tax money to restrict abortion. Laws requiring doctors to give their patients medically incorrect information are also pretty abhorrent.Personally, as someone who favors honesty, I would really love to see anti-abortion politicians stop lying about the goals of such laws. The doublespeak about protecting women’s health is pretty tiresome.
The only place where I would favor spending taxpayer money on abortions is in situations where taxpayer money is already covering a person’s medical care. (Spending *more* taxpayer money on prenatal care, labor and delivery, (and potentially adoption or foster care if they can’t/don’t want to raise the child) for someone who doesn’t want to be pregnant in the first place seems both wasteful and cruel.)
Okay, that’s reasonable enough. But how far does that constitutionally granted right go when it affects another person’s rights? Based on your comments about access, it sounds like you’re not, generally speaking, in favor of requiring other people to provide something, even if it’s a right. I would assume (please correct me if I’m wrong) that you’re making the distinction between the government buying you a gun and a printing press and a woman providing nine months of the use of her body because you consider her to be a parent from the moment of conception, so the loss of body autonomy is part of her parental responsibilities.
But the thing that seems weird to me, even from a parental responsibility angle, is that pregnancy is the only situation in which anybody favors parents being legally obligated to give up control over their body. (Just carrying the pregnancy is the obvious example, but when women are getting arrested for assault or neglect for using drugs and having miscarriages—with no evidence that the one caused the other— or being required by court order to have c-sections, that loss of control can extend well beyond just being pregnant.)
If you don’t mind indulging me in a thought experiment, let’s say someone needs a kidney, and their father is the only good match. Should he be legally required to provide them one? If not, why not, and how is that different from requiring someone to continue a pregnancy? Does your answer change if the person needing the kidney is a minor child that the parent is still responsible for taking care of?
The reason I ask is that usually the conservative position is that having a right to something just means the government isn’t allowed to stop you from accessing it. Whether you have the actual, practical ability to access it, or whether private citizens can deny you access to it in situations they control (e.g., the right to bear arms doesn’t mean I have to let you bring a gun to my house), isn’t considered relevant. But the right to life, from an anti-abortion point of view, ends up being a positive right, since it requires specific action on the pregnant woman’s part (not just “not have an abortion” but everything that being pregnant entails). And I can’t think of any other situation where that applies.