Making Children Of Women

posted at 9:33 am on September 23, 2009 by Laura Curtis
[ Feminist Nonsense ]   

We’ve come to this weird place in our history where women become babies instead of have them.  It’s all about choices – but not about consequences.  Rights, but not responsibilities.  When a woman becomes pregnant, she can choose to kill the baby (or if you’re squeamish, terminate the pregnancy.)  Repeatedly, in one case. Or she can choose to claim a goodly percentage of the man’s income for the next 18 years.  Women have reproductive choices, men have obligations.

But she isn’t just free to have a baby or not have one.  She can effectively become one.  By choosing to drink excessively, she reverts back into a state of vulnerability where responsible people must care for her as they would a child.  Once a woman has achieved this euphoric, unaccountable, childish condition, she’s powerfully protected by powerlessness. She can shed her inhibitions and indulge in any sexual fantasy she chooses without consequences.  She can proclaim her powerlessness later and cry “Rape! Victim! Not responsible for my actions!” and victimize the faux-assailants who thought they lucked into one of those Penthouse letters. “I never thought this would happen to me, but…[insert sexual fantasy].”  Now queue the Sam Kinison scream outro -  “And then I was arrested for rape and won’t get out for another 16 years.”

Is it compassionate to protect these women after they’ve falsely accused someone? I suggest it’s more compassionate to make her take her lumps as publicly as the men have.  That’s treating her like an adult, not a hothouse flower.  Emily Bazelon says of the Hofstra fake-rape accuser “She’s only 18,“  and offers a shred of compassion by failing to name her.  Eighteen is old enough to sign a contract, vote, join the military, marry, and go to prison, not juvie, if one commits a crime.  Had she stuck to her charges and one of her “assailants” been 17, he would have been charged as an adult.

If a young woman is less lucky, in her drunken-victim condition she may encounter someone who will deliberately harm and possibly kill her.  Here is a victim who was ‘guilty’ – ‘of being 24′.  Now her family and friends are left to defend her with this weak tea: “the world has got to know that 24-year-olds drink. Sometimes a lot.  But no one deserves to be murdered.” Well, that’s true, no one deserves to be murdered.  It’s a awful story and I’m saddened by it.  But will declaring that the world has got to know that drunk people don’t deserve to be murdered do anything to keep them safe?  It’s an invitation.  If I were a criminal, I’d be looking for you, drunk co-ed.

We need to stop infantilizing these women.  We need to stop pretending there’s no connection between their behavior and any crimes committed against them, or by them.  “It’s not your fault!” we reassure.  And to some extent we’re telling the truth because fault does belong to the criminal when a crime has been committed.  But it’s not the whole truth, and it endorses circumstances where women will be victimized.  It doesn’t “empower” anyone to declare our right to be publicly intoxicated to the point of helpless dependence.  No one deserves to be murdered or raped.  But that fact does not overcome the reality that people are murdered and raped every day, and that criminals normally choose victims who are easy marks.  It is unkind to tell that to a crime victim after the fact.  But it is cruel not to teach it to young women before the fact.

How about this declaration? Young women have got to know that when you get fall down drunk, you may make stupid choices for which you should still be held responsible, just as a drunk driver would rightly be held responsible for events occurring after he chose to get drunk and do stupid, dangerous things.

You want freedom, choice, and rights?  Then earn them by taking responsibility for yourselves.

Crossposted.

UPDATED:  Some interesting links on false accusations and lying in divorce court here.

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