Feminist Rant
Recently, I've heard some feminists advocating a utopian future without men. I suppose in this ideal world, there would exist a method of fertilization that would have to occur without men as well, as I suspect the maternal extinct of women would still compel them to birth children, offspring would be necessary for the continuation of the species/society, etc. Although no one specified exactly how this procedure would be created, I have some idea from present scientific/social conditions...
While I was flying on an airplane this previous summer, I observed an advertisement in a flight magazine that truly alarmed me. This particular ad was directed towards working women. (I will explain the ad after I have provided a context for it.) As you may or may not be aware, the recent establishment of women in the workplace and the depiction of women as successful, independent beings has invoked an unprecedented ambitiousness in many young females. They wish no longer to be constrained to the home setting and the "dull, oppressive" duties it involves. Rather, they would prefer to fulfill their adventurous dreams as working women.
This has caused an interesting social and medical change. Specifically, women are now giving birth to children later in life. Many women wish to achieve their career goals, but simultaneously yearn for the time-honored traditions of marriage and giving birth to children. However, it is difficult to raise a child and work towards a difficult goal at the same time, so they sacrifice the child for the present time. They reason that they will have time later in life, after they have finished graduate school, after they have attained their dream job, etc.
However, this causes a predicament. The ideal age for women to give birth to children is 25. After 25, there is a decline so that with increasing age, the chance for a birth defect is greater. At some age (around 35-40, I believe) there is a sharp rise, statistically, of birth defects. This is because the female body releases very few promising eggs at this time, or there are complications when the egg is released. After the age of 40, women are advised by their doctors not to consider giving birth to children, as this not only causes possible problems for the child but also the mother.
Now we return to the advertisement I saw in the magazine. This magazine declared, "Are you a working woman who has always dreamed about having a child but never had time? Is it past your prime to bear children? Then consider our new, safe method!" They propose to inject women with healthy eggs that are fertilized by their signficiant other's sperm. Now, what is so interesting about this? The healthy eggs are advertised to be from "young, attractive, intelligent, athletic, artistic, talented, beautiful" women. Imagine that! You're too defective to have children now, but why not use some other, more healthy woman's eggs to do the job? On top of that, your child could be born practically perfect with whatever you desire. It sounds like a computer simulation game come true. Or GATTACA.
Why is this particular advertisement so remarkable? Our society is slowly being introduced to a change that carries signficant ethical consequences. We are evolving into the Brave New World where it is unnecessary to leave chance to nature.
The interesting point is that this change is being sold to the "working woman" first. If it were instead being sold to the "poor woman who was born infertile and wishes direly to have children," the pathos element, I admit, may win me over. However, it is instead a lot more popular among the "rich, successful women who surrendered their right to have healthy children for their careers...and now they can use their wealth to buy perfect children."
I'll try to bring this cumbersome subject back to the start now...
I imagine that if I were one of these women who was going to attempt to have a very appealing, perfect baby, I would rather not leave chance up to my husband, either. I mean, maybe he put on a little weight later in life or he started balding, and why would I want such circumstances for my precious baby? Why not just choose a "perfect" sperm to match my "perfect" egg?
So I imagine myself walking down to the artificial fertilization center, and am given the list of properties I would want for my child. Do I want her/him to be talented? Beautiful? Athletic? Intelligent? Maybe a baby with blue eyes would do fine, regardless of my own physical aspects.
This is disgusting to me. A baby is formed from an intimate connection between two humans beings. The future baby is formed from, in purely scientific circumstances, an egg and a sperm. Why do humans need to get involved when that's all a baby is; a sperm and an egg merged? Right? It's so cold, so practical to stand before a list of properties, selecting those special characteristics for your baby. Whether it be sperm or egg, male or female, it doesn't matter. You've turned a baby into a list of properties.
So in the future utopia without males, I can walk down to the sperm bank and choose my list of characteristics. I see the list of characteristics for a particular man...and that is all he has become. He is a list of properties and no more. I don't sit across from him physically, hear his voice, see his face, touch his hand. He is only a collaboration of different words that describe him. The same would operate similarly to obtain another woman's "perfect" egg, I suppose.
If this is the type of feminism that is being advocated, it is not feminism for sexual equality, but for the subjugation and objectification of men (and to some extent, women). The reduction is repulsive.
While I was flying on an airplane this previous summer, I observed an advertisement in a flight magazine that truly alarmed me. This particular ad was directed towards working women. (I will explain the ad after I have provided a context for it.) As you may or may not be aware, the recent establishment of women in the workplace and the depiction of women as successful, independent beings has invoked an unprecedented ambitiousness in many young females. They wish no longer to be constrained to the home setting and the "dull, oppressive" duties it involves. Rather, they would prefer to fulfill their adventurous dreams as working women.
This has caused an interesting social and medical change. Specifically, women are now giving birth to children later in life. Many women wish to achieve their career goals, but simultaneously yearn for the time-honored traditions of marriage and giving birth to children. However, it is difficult to raise a child and work towards a difficult goal at the same time, so they sacrifice the child for the present time. They reason that they will have time later in life, after they have finished graduate school, after they have attained their dream job, etc.
However, this causes a predicament. The ideal age for women to give birth to children is 25. After 25, there is a decline so that with increasing age, the chance for a birth defect is greater. At some age (around 35-40, I believe) there is a sharp rise, statistically, of birth defects. This is because the female body releases very few promising eggs at this time, or there are complications when the egg is released. After the age of 40, women are advised by their doctors not to consider giving birth to children, as this not only causes possible problems for the child but also the mother.
Now we return to the advertisement I saw in the magazine. This magazine declared, "Are you a working woman who has always dreamed about having a child but never had time? Is it past your prime to bear children? Then consider our new, safe method!" They propose to inject women with healthy eggs that are fertilized by their signficiant other's sperm. Now, what is so interesting about this? The healthy eggs are advertised to be from "young, attractive, intelligent, athletic, artistic, talented, beautiful" women. Imagine that! You're too defective to have children now, but why not use some other, more healthy woman's eggs to do the job? On top of that, your child could be born practically perfect with whatever you desire. It sounds like a computer simulation game come true. Or GATTACA.
Why is this particular advertisement so remarkable? Our society is slowly being introduced to a change that carries signficant ethical consequences. We are evolving into the Brave New World where it is unnecessary to leave chance to nature.
The interesting point is that this change is being sold to the "working woman" first. If it were instead being sold to the "poor woman who was born infertile and wishes direly to have children," the pathos element, I admit, may win me over. However, it is instead a lot more popular among the "rich, successful women who surrendered their right to have healthy children for their careers...and now they can use their wealth to buy perfect children."
I'll try to bring this cumbersome subject back to the start now...
I imagine that if I were one of these women who was going to attempt to have a very appealing, perfect baby, I would rather not leave chance up to my husband, either. I mean, maybe he put on a little weight later in life or he started balding, and why would I want such circumstances for my precious baby? Why not just choose a "perfect" sperm to match my "perfect" egg?
So I imagine myself walking down to the artificial fertilization center, and am given the list of properties I would want for my child. Do I want her/him to be talented? Beautiful? Athletic? Intelligent? Maybe a baby with blue eyes would do fine, regardless of my own physical aspects.
This is disgusting to me. A baby is formed from an intimate connection between two humans beings. The future baby is formed from, in purely scientific circumstances, an egg and a sperm. Why do humans need to get involved when that's all a baby is; a sperm and an egg merged? Right? It's so cold, so practical to stand before a list of properties, selecting those special characteristics for your baby. Whether it be sperm or egg, male or female, it doesn't matter. You've turned a baby into a list of properties.
So in the future utopia without males, I can walk down to the sperm bank and choose my list of characteristics. I see the list of characteristics for a particular man...and that is all he has become. He is a list of properties and no more. I don't sit across from him physically, hear his voice, see his face, touch his hand. He is only a collaboration of different words that describe him. The same would operate similarly to obtain another woman's "perfect" egg, I suppose.
If this is the type of feminism that is being advocated, it is not feminism for sexual equality, but for the subjugation and objectification of men (and to some extent, women). The reduction is repulsive.