Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding"
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding"
Richmond Rape Case Trial
[Content Note: Descriptions of an attack of sexual violence; rape culture.]
In October 2009, a fifteen-year-old girl in Richmond, California, was gang-raped. It was an especially brutal crime: She was assaulted for more than two hours by as many as 20 young men, each of whom committed multiple sexual assaults, while as many as 15 other young men stood and watched, none of whom made any attempt to help the victim, who was incapacitated from alcohol. The attack happened on school grounds during a high school Homecoming Dance, and as witnesses went back in, they would tell other young men, who went out to watch and/or participate. Another fifteen-year-old girl called police, who found the victim just before midnight, lying under a bench where her rapists had abandoned her, unconscious and in critical condition.
Although not a single one of the men who participated in or witnessed the assault used their cell phones to call 911, many of them used them to take pictures of the crime. And one of them used the victim's cell phone to call her father, "using vulgar language to describe how she had performed well sexually."
The girl who survived this attack is one of the people about whom I have written who stays with me. I think about her a lot, hoping she is getting the support she needs, wishing for her both peace and justice.
An undisclosed number of men whose DNA was recovered as evidence have never been identified. Two of her assailants pleaded guilty and were sentenced, respectively, to 27 and 32 years. Two other men are awaiting trial. And two men are currently on trial.
Yesterday, a witness to the crime took the stand to testify against them.
He was a reluctant witness. The assailants were his acquaintances, and he is afraid of retaliation. He knows how the rape culture works, and he knows that his role is meant to be silent complicity. He "twisted and fidgeted in his chair" as he testified that his pals "were 'laughing and joking' about how they participated in the assault," and bragging about the precise ways in which they assaulted the girl. One of them boasted about peeing on her.
During his testimony, he said: "I was uncomfortable talking about the situation because it made me feel like that type of thing should never happen at any schoolhouse."
Not: Rape should never happen. But: That type of thing shouldn't happen at a school.
The grief and rage I feel about this case will never end.
PRISM
So. Mobile phone spying was only the tip of the iceberg:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.PRISM was launched after deatails of former President George W. Bush's warantless wiretapping program were made public in 2007, and the program supposedly imploded, but naturally with no accountability for a grave breach of public trust and privacy laws, and with a FISA bill passed by Congress granting retroactive immunity to participating telecom companies, thus shutting down any avenue for civil suits. At the time, then-Senator Hillary Clinton, who voted against the bill, outlined the problem with the legislation:
The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley.
Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: "Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple."
[E]ven as we considered this legislation, the administration refused to allow the overwhelming majority of Senators to examine the warrantless wiretapping program. This made it exceedingly difficult for those Senators who are not on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to assess the need for the operational details of the legislation, and whether greater protections are necessary. The same can be said for an assessment of the telecom immunity provisions. On an issue of such tremendous importance to our citizens...all Senators should have been entitled to receive briefings that would have enabled them to make an informed decision about the merits of this legislation. I cannot support this legislation when we know neither the nature of the surveillance activities authorized nor the role played by telecommunications companies granted immunity.Clinton warned that without a full understanding of the program, and without meaningful accountability, there was no guarantee that the same type of surveillance would continue, without oversight or accountability. She argued that "any surveillance program must contain safeguards to protect the rights of Americans against abuse, and to preserve clear lines of oversight and accountability over this administration." That legislation did not ensure this would happen. And it hasn't.
Congress must vigorously check and balance the president even in the face of dangerous enemies and at a time of war. That is what sets us apart. And that is what is vital to ensuring that any tool designed to protect us is used – and used within the law – for that purpose and that purpose alone.
Back to details of the PRISM program:
In four new orders, which remain classified, the court defined massive data sets as "facilities" and agreed to certify periodically that the government had reasonable procedures in place to minimize collection of "U.S. persons" data without a warrant.Oh. Sure. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to see here. Move along.
...An internal presentation of 41 briefing slides on PRISM, dated April 2013 and intended for senior analysts in the NSA's Signals Intelligence Directorate, described the new tool as the most prolific contributor to the President's Daily Brief, which cited PRISM data in 1,477 items last year. According to the slides and other supporting materials obtained by The Post, "NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM" as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports.
That is a remarkable figure in an agency that measures annual intake in the trillions of communications. It is all the more striking because the NSA, whose lawful mission is foreign intelligence, is reaching deep inside the machinery of American companies that host hundreds of millions of American-held accounts on American soil.
...The Obama administration points to ongoing safeguards in the form of "extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about U.S. persons."
And it is true that the PRISM program is not a dragnet, exactly. From inside a company's data stream the NSA is capable of pulling out anything it likes, but under current rules the agency does not try to collect it all.
Analysts who use the system from a Web portal at Fort Meade, Md., key in "selectors," or search terms, that are designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target's "foreignness." That is not a very stringent test. Training materials obtained by The Post instruct new analysts to make quarterly reports of any accidental collection of U.S. content, but add that "it's nothing to worry about."
The companies who are reportedly part of the PRISM program are denying their involvement, issuing carefully worded statements that say they participate with the government in accordance with the law. What we know for sure is that the details of this totally-not-a-dragnet surveillance program were not disclosed to US citizens, and that there has not been meaningful oversight or accountability to ensure that data collection does not infringe on the privacy of law-abiding US citizens. But that's "nothing to worry about." Naturally.
Instead, we are getting the usual rigmarole about how what we should REALLY be worried about is the dire threat to national security that exposure of the PRISM program constitutes.
In a statement issue late Thursday, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said "information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats. The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans."The same goddamn refrain that has been used by the Bush administration and the Obama administration to justify every overreach of executive power and unconstitutional intelligence-gathering—not to mention torture, extraordinary rendition, and indefinite detainment—for the last 13 years.
During the same vote for the 2008 FISA legislation, another Senator, in defense of his (curious) yea vote, said:
Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.If only President Barack Obama felt as passionately about presidential overreach as Senator Barack Obama did.
...Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance – making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Ms_Elise: "If you could go back and relive one day of your life (but not change it), what would it be?"
FYI
[Previous FYI: Rick Astley; Eddie Murphy; The Eurythmics; Eddie Rabbit; Sinéad O'Connor; Was (Not Was); Bon Jovi; Kenny Rogers; Bobby McFerrin; Starship; Dead or Alive; Right Said Fred; Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians; Salt n Pepa; Nelson; The Cure; The Soup Dragons; Europe/BushCo; Elton John; Eddie Money; Human League; Glenn Frey; Van Halen; Alanis Morissette; Depeche Mode; The Beatles; The Proclaimers; Bruce Springsteen; Meat Loaf; Cyndi Lauper; Cole Porter; Tina Turner; The Jets. Hint: They're better if you click 'em!]
Tweet of the Day
Fortunately I’ve been communicating exclusively via Twitter and angry glares since 2007, so the NSA’s got nuthin’ on me.
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) June 6, 2013
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Religious supremacy.]
"They don't believe anything. I can't imagine an atheist accompanying a notification team as they go into some family's home to let them have the worst news of their life and this guy says, 'You know, that's it—your son's just worms, I mean, worm food.'"—Texas Representative Mike Conaway (R-Idiculous), during a House Armed Services Committee debate over an amendment to the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act proposed by New Jersey Democratic Representative Rob Andrews "that would allow humanists or members of ethical culture groups to join the chaplain corps. Andrews' idea was to help members of the military who don't believe in god, but want someone to talk to about problems without having to seek a medical professional."
Conaway isn't the only Republican on the committee who is Deeply Concerned about letting atheists into foxholes. His colleague from Louisiana, Representative John Fleming, added: "This I think would make a mockery of the chaplaincy. The last thing in the world we would want to see was a young soldier who may be dying and they're at a field hospital and the chaplain is standing over that person saying to them, 'If you die here, there is no hope for you in the future.'"
Ha ha that is definitely a perfect representation of atheists and atheism. These guys are wasted on the House Armed Services Committee. They should be on the House Total Fucking Genius Committee.
Child in the Box
As part of my occasional series on the Finnish hellscape, here's a cool story about Finnish babies sleeping in cardboard boxes.
[There's also a video version (it starts playing automatically) of the story. It doesn't contain as much information, but it does have a baby playing with a book.]
Since 1938, the Finnish government has given expectant mothers a box of essentials for their young ones. Better yet, the box doubles as a crib.
Here's what's in this year's box:
* Mattress, mattress cover, undersheet, duvet cover, blanket, sleeping bag/quiltHere's what some Mark guy had to say:
* Box (doubles as a crib)
* Snowsuit, hat, insulated mittens and booties
* Light hooded suit and knitted overalls
* Socks and mittens, knitted hat and balaclava
* Bodysuits, romper suits and leggings in unisex colours and patterns
* Hooded bath towel, nail scissors, hairbrush, toothbrush, bath thermometer, nappy cream, wash cloth
* Cloth nappy set and muslin squares
* Picture book and teething toy
* Bra pads, condoms
"We now live in Helsinki and have just had our second child, Annika. She did get a free box from the Finnish state. This felt to me like evidence that someone cared, someone wanted our baby to have a good start in life. And now when I visit friends with young children it's nice to see we share some common things. It strengthens that feeling that we are all in this together."This seems like the sort of thing other countries should be doing (although CONDOMS FOR BABIES?!?), but wev. Finland was able to pull together the program when it was dirt poor, and managed to continue the program during the wartime. Of course, with austerity sweeping the land (including Finland), I doubt we'll see other nations pick up on the program anytime soon. It's a shame, because THOUSANDS OF BABIES IN MATCHING MARIMEKKO ONESIES*!
---
*Onesies not necessarily provided by Marimekko.
Rodham!
So, this dude is making a movie about former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Rodham. Personally, I think it should be a musical called Rodham! featuring lots of jazzhands and the Rainbow Pantsuits Dancers, but that is why the Weinsteins don't give me silly money to make movies.
Anyway!
Rodham is an "indie drama [which] portrays Rodham as a young lawyer on the committee involved in President Richard Nixon's impeachment, and her juggling a diverging career path with her unresolved feelings for future president Bill Clinton." Sounds perfect.
Carey Mulligan, whom you may know from An Education or Never Let Me Go or The Great Gatsby or some other film I haven't seen, is rumored to be leading the competition to be cast as a young Hillary Rodham.
What say you? Good (potential) casting? Yay? Nay? Who would you cast in my version of Rodham! which would definitely be the movie you wanted to see, if you wanted to see any movie about Hillary Rodham Clinton at all?
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelly. Begging politely for snuggles, playtime, a treat, whatever I've got. (Spoiler Alert: All of the above.)
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In The News
[Content note: Racism, terrorism, misogyny]
Thursday News:
Records show that the IRS targeted Jesse Tyler Ferguson's marriage equality organization Tie the Knot.
Meanwhile: The IRS approved tax-exempt status for twice as many conservative groups as liberal groups.
A bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks nationwide was approved by the House Judiciary Subcommittee yesterday. Whut? The fuck.
Scientists have discovered pockets of water that have remained in isolation for 2.6 billion years. Wow!
A new poll reveales more than half of Americans support allowing same-sex couples to marry. Yay!
No more skidmarks: Wet wipes, now available for men!
A federal appeals judge in Texas says minorities are more apt than other groups to commit crime. She sounds nice.
The two men identified by the New York Post as "bag men" in the Boston Marathon Bombing have filed a defamation lawsuit against the tabloid.
Here are some neat maps for all you amateur linguists out there.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo introduced the long-awaited Women's Equality Act which is designed to strengthen women's rights in New York in several key areas.
Childfree 101: Cultural Reproductive Coercion
[Content Note: Emotional auditing; reproductive coercion; racism.]
Reproductive coercion is an abusive dynamic in intimate relationships in which one partner "pressures the other, through verbal threats, physical aggression, or birth-control sabotage, to become pregnant." The instinct behind reproductive coercion is not primarily (or at all) a desire to create a baby, but to create a dependency in their partners. A woman (and it is overwhelmingly women who are victimized by reproductive coercion) is easier to control, if her independence and ability to make choices that exclusively prioritize her own needs are compromised in some way.
Even for women who enthusiastically choose to parent, the dramatic change in decision-making from "what will be best for me?" to "what will be best for my child/us?" can be challenging. Many mothers struggle to navigate finding a balance that prioritizes the needs of her child(ren) without abandoning her own needs and losing herself.
For women who do not enthusiastically choose to parent, who have a child in an environment in which self-subjugation is the intended result, with little or no support for maintenance of self, it can be debilitating. Which is the whole point.
Like other forms of abuse and iterations of hostility to consent, reproductive coercion does not happen in a void. It happens in a culture which supports institutional reproductive coercion, a culture in which every person with a uterus is expected and urged and cajoled into reproducing, and in which there are strong disincentives against telling stories of being happily childfree.
This is cultural reproductive coercion.
I have previously mentioned that I have known since I was very young that I did not want to be a mother. And yet my entire life, my statement of intent to be childfree has been met with resistance. I have heard, for at least 30 years, often most assertively from people who purport to love me, that I don't know my own mind. As a child who said she didn't want children, I was considered an amusement—a precocious little women's libber whose pronouncements about her childfree future were cute. As a teenager who said she didn't want children, I was considered rebellious—a defiant reactionary who wasn't stating a fact of examined self, but rejecting bourgeoisie institutions like family in a fit of angst. As a young woman who said she didn't want children, I was simply told I was wrong, in all the ways that young women are: "You'll change your mind."
And when I didn't change my mind, I was needled with coercion masked as compliments. But you would make such a great mother! But you're so great with kids! But you have so much to offer a child! Sure. Everything but the will to parent hir.
And when I still didn't change my mind, I was subjected to all manner of shaming narratives trying to convince me there is something wrong with me if I choose not to parent. I am a traitor to my womanhood. I am an incomplete woman. I am a selfish woman. I am a frivolous woman. I am barely a woman at all, if I refuse to use my fertile, cis, female, male-partnered body for what I am told is its natural (and only) purpose. I am a traitor to my race—a white woman partnered with a white man refusing to have white babies when the white birth rate is dropping in the US. I am a traitor to my country—an educated middle-class woman refusing to make a contribution to the future of the great society which has provided her with so much. The ultimate taker among makers.
And when I still didn't change my mind, I was implored to consider my lonely death following a slow decline bereft of children to care for me. (As if all children care for their elderly parents and such is their obligation.) I was urged to imagine my terrible, empty, lonely life if Iain dies before me. (As if his death would not be precisely the same heart-shattering misery if we had children.) I was asked to consider that I may one day regret not having had children. (As if it would be better to have children just in case, despite the possibility I might regret having them, once they were here.)
And when I still didn't change my mind, I started finding my family was not enough of a family to be included in events marked for "families," which is understood to mean "parents and children." I was presumed to dislike children. I was presumed to disdain parents. It was whispered, even among my own family members, that my first marriage probably dissolved because I refused to "give him children." It was whispered that Iain would eventually leave me for the same reason. Whispered loud enough for me to hear.
And when I still didn't change my mind, I was told that I would once my biological clock started ticking—an admonishment delivered with such certainty that I began to fear and mistrust my own body, expecting it to betray me someday, for my biology to overwhelm my will with an undeniable urge to be a mother.
That has not happened.
I am now 39 years old. I am still childfree. The frequency of questions about when I will have babies has dropped precipitously. I have spent a lifetime fielding confident predictions I would change my mind about being childfree, and now I am reaching an age where those who were so certain are coming to the realization, at long last, that I really don't want children and I'm really not going to have them.
So now I am no longer a Woman Who Will Definitely Have Kids Someday, and instead I am a Woman Without Kids.
One might imagine that becoming a Woman Without Kids would put an end to the coercion. But it has not.
Now it is recommended to me that I can adopt. Now it is explained to me that it's "not too late." They're doing amazing things in fertility science these days, you know. Now I am told I don't even have to have kids to be a mother, because if I care about any living thing, it's because I secretly want and need to be a mother.
And at the very end of it all, in the long shadow of mountainous evidence that I knew my mind all along and that I will remain childfree, with little room left to try to cajole, shame, or coerce me into parenting, I am told what a pity it is I never had children. Because pity is the only way left to convey that my choice is wrong.
This is such a fun story!
[Content Note: Misogyny; hostility to agency; rape culture. NB: Not only women are in need of access to a full spectrum of reproductive services, nor are only women victimized by sexual violence in the US military.]
Politico has just a terrific story about the return of the "war on women." Ha ha the return?! I didn't realize it had gone away! Probably because it hadn't!
Not every Republican learned Todd Akin's lesson from 2012 – and Democrats noticed.It goes on like that for two more pages.
This week alone: Sen. Saxby Chambliss blamed sexual assaults in the military on hormones, conservative pundit Erick Erickson credited biology for male dominance in society and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said working moms are making kids fail in school.
Democrats and liberal groups are seizing on these comments to reignite their 2012 strategy — rally the base to raise big money and put Republicans back on defense with women voters ahead of the mid-term elections.
"Women voters are paying attention — this week was a big reminder that the GOP assault on women's rights continues," said Jess McIntosh of EMILY'S List.
The group, which helps pro-choice women get elected to office, is planning to use Chambliss' remark in an email blast and social media campaign called "Great Moments In GOP Women's Outreach."
Inside the Senate, Democrats are beginning meetings to strategize their messaging on the issue, according to a Senate Democratic aide.
"This is not an issue for Harry Reid or Chuck Schumer to jump into. This is an issue for Patty Murray and Claire McCaskill and the women senators to jump into," the aide said. "We will take advantage of it, but this is the mold of the Planned Parenthood fight and the Blunt amendment fight. The female senators will take the lead. Part of the advantage of having a large number of women in your caucus is having people who are effective messengers on issues like this."
Republicans pushed back at the moves, accusing Democrats of politicizing issues like military sexual assault that should be bipartisan.
At the National Republican Senatorial Committee, GOP operatives sought to squash the controversy, trying to head off a rehash of lessons learned from the last election cycle, after which Republicans promised to be more sensitive when talking about women's issues.
"As a woman, the politicization of sexual assault or rape is offensive in and of itself. This is an important conversation to be had in congressional committees – it shouldn't be used as a page in Democrat politicos' playbooks looking to exploit this tragedy for political gain," said Brook Hougesen, NRSC spokeswoman.
"If Democrats want to debate the 'war on women', look no further than the agenda set by Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer," Hougesen said, turning the issue to the economy. "Women have had a difficult time finding work, and juggling multiple jobs and their personal lives with Democrats controlling the economy and the government for the last five years."
The Republicans are totes misogynist, gender essentialist, consent-hostile dipshits! The Democrats are totes gonna point that out! But they're definitely gonna let the female Senators do it, because feminism is woman's work! I mean, the best reason to even HAVE female members of your Congressional caucus is so they can do feminism when it's politically expedient! And the Republicans are SO MAD about all this haymaking! OMG IT IS SO TOTALLY OFFENSIVE TO POLITICIZE ISSUES THAT DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECT WOMEN! I mean, have you even LOOKED at the Democrats' agenda and how it disproportionately affects women in some way?!
Everyone is SO MAD about how everyone else treats women! That's for sure!
It's pretty cool how none of them actually seem to give the tiniest, infinitesimal speck of shit about women, though.
That institutional indifference while pretending to care SO MUCH about women, but really just treating us like a political football, is the real "war on women." And it never returns, because it never goes away.
The NSA Is Probably Spying on You
That is, if you live in the US and have a cellphone which you have the terrible sense to actually use. (HA HA I LIVE ON MY CELLPHONE WHOOOPS!) Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans:
Today, the Guardian newspaper confirmed what EFF (and many others) have long claimed: the NSA is conducting widespread, untargeted, domestic surveillance on millions of Americans. This revelation should end, once and for all, the government's long-discredited secrecy claims about its dragnet domestic surveillance programs. It should spur Congress and the American people to make the President finally tell the truth about the government's spying on innocent Americans.This should be no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention. The Bush administration enlisted telecoms to spy on USians, and the Obama administration happily kept up the practice, after then-candidate Obama supported (and voted for) legislation giving telecommunication giants "retroactive immunity" from civil lawsuits.
In a report by Glenn Greenwald, the paper published an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (or FISC) that directs Verizon to provide "on an ongoing daily basis" all call records for any call "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls" and any call made "between the United States and abroad."
In plain language: the order gave the NSA a record of every Verizon customer's call history -- every call made, the location of the phone, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other "identifying information" for the phone and call -- from April 25, 2013 (the date the order was issued) to July 19, 2013. The order does not require content or the name of any subscriber and is issued under 50 USC sec.1861, also known as section 215 of the Patriot Act.
There is no indication that this order to Verizon was unique or novel. It is very likely that business records orders like this exist for every major American telecommunication company, meaning that, if you make calls in the United States, the NSA has those records. And this has been going on for at least 7 years, and probably longer.
But at each step of the way, the government has tried to hide the truth from the American public: in Hepting, behind telecom immunity; in Jewel, behind the state secrets privilege; in the FOIA case, by claiming the information is classified at the top secret level. In May 2011, Senator Ron Wyden, one of the few courageous voices fighting against the government's domestic surveillance program, said this in a debate about reauthorizing Section 215:Welcome to America 2.0.
I want to deliver a warning this afternoon: when the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry.Today is that day. The American people have confirmed how the government has secretly interpreted Section 215. And we're angry. It's time to stop hiding behind legal privileges and to come clean about Section 215 and FISA. It's time to start the national dialogue about our rights in the digital age. And it's time to end the NSA's unconstitutional domestic surveillance program.
More here.
UPDATE: In other news, the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project has found that a majority of Americans (56%) now own a smartphone.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I CAN'T WAIT! (But I'm gonna have to. Time-space continuum, etc.)
P.S. Walt is terrible.
People Are Different; They Make Different Choices
[Content Note: Emotional auditing; hostility to choice.]
This is part three in a day-long series: Part One is "Pro-Choice: Choosing Not to Parent" and Part Two is "The Happiness Police."
A final observation on the subject of making choices that are different from the majority and different from the overwhelming expectation, specifically the choice to not parent: The judgment and policing that goes on around this choice (and others like it) is deeply hostile to the very basic idea of individuality.
Every person has a set of privileges and marginalizations, which may remain static (ex: white privilege) or change (ex: disability with which one was not born), many of which are relevant in making the decision about whether to parent. Physical health, mental health, finances, employment stability, relationships with extended family, the existence of and desire for romantic/sexual partnership(s), legal considerations governing parenting and adoption, access to healthcare, job flexibility, the interest in having kids at all—this is not a comprehensive list of considerations that influence the choice whether to parent.
(Which is to say nothing of the privilege that even having a choice is.)
We are urged not to examine these considerations—"If everyone waited for the perfect set of circumstances, no one would ever have a kid!" is a common refrain. But there is a lot of space between a "perfect" set of circumstances and an ideal one, or even a manageable one.
(But ooh watch those considerations become ALL OF THE IMPORTANT once a kid is already here. "Why did you have a kid if you couldn't afford parenting? would pass on a genetic condition? had to risk tenure? weren't sure your marriage would work? blah blah shaming blah!")
And the exhortation to ignore what are, for many of us, crucial considerations is not merely a denial of privilege, but also a denial of the way that privilege—and the lack thereof—operates in every individual life.
It's just the same old bootstraps bullshit, swaddled in a fuzzy yellow blanket. Bjornstraps!
Because, although we talk a lot about how many of us can't live the way conservative fantasists tell us is the One Right Way, the fact is that a lot of us don't want to live that way, even if we could.
The intersection of opportunity and desire is the same, no matter who's telling you what way you should live.
And so is the attendant refusal to acknowledge that, even among people with the same privileges and access, there will still be a diversity of choices, because people are different.
That's such a self-evident observation, so simple, so easy, so much the stuff of a Sesame Street segment, that hardly anyone would bother to try to refute it, and yet treating people as though we are all the same is what underwrites every kind of garbage policing from "calories-in, calories-out!" rhetoric to "anyone can achieve anything in America!" codswallop to "everyone should be a parent!" admonishments.
That sort of hostility for individual circumstances, for individual competencies, for individual preferences, for individual choice, is dehumanizing. Central to every person's humanity is their individual agency, a self that is unique.
This stuff is more than annoying. It's harmful. It's resistant to the most basic kindness that is recognizing I am different from you, and you are different from me, and that is okay.
