no uterus no opinion
[there was quite a long thread leading up to this, but I think this is the part I want to preserve.]
So, the answer to the question "why do I get cranky when people say no uterus no opinion" is "because everyone has standing on human rights issues and I resent being told this shouldn't apply to me because of my biology." (Yes, I recognize that this sort of thing happens more often to women. It's wrong then, too.)
I also get a sense that you want me to take it less literally and instead interpret it as if they'd said "cis men in general should make more room in this conversation for other voices." For the sake of peace and good outcomes, I can and shall endeavor to do so. But for the record, as with 45, if taking you at your word leads to misunderstandings, you're the one who's communicating poorly, not me.
But there's another question here, namely: "why, having been told that your opinion is not welcome to varying degrees by various people, would you still continue to share it?" Answers include:
So, the answer to the question "why do I get cranky when people say no uterus no opinion" is "because everyone has standing on human rights issues and I resent being told this shouldn't apply to me because of my biology." (Yes, I recognize that this sort of thing happens more often to women. It's wrong then, too.)
I also get a sense that you want me to take it less literally and instead interpret it as if they'd said "cis men in general should make more room in this conversation for other voices." For the sake of peace and good outcomes, I can and shall endeavor to do so. But for the record, as with 45, if taking you at your word leads to misunderstandings, you're the one who's communicating poorly, not me.
But there's another question here, namely: "why, having been told that your opinion is not welcome to varying degrees by various people, would you still continue to share it?" Answers include:
- It's been brought to my attention that I don't do that much broadcasting of my actual-actual opinion because I assume it's understood based on the label "pro-life" (an assumption not backed up by experience, especially in a climate where there's so little assumption of good faith), and that perhaps I should reconsider. What I do currently is mostly calling out specific arguments I think are fallacious or harmful or, especially, mischaracterize other points of view, as part of my general passion for accurate communication and honest debate - for my part at least, I'd rather we disagree based on genuine understanding of each other's positions and appreciation of the philosophical perspectives involved than "agree" with a version of someone's position in our heads that doesn't match their reality. There's a lot of rhetoric going around that boils down to "surely no one could *actually* come to a different conclusion on this than I have; you must secretly agree with me but be too cowardly to admit it because it's inconvenient for you." And that really bothers me - politicians are often dishonest and poor representatives, but in most cases in my experience, people *really do* believe the things they say they believe, for the reasons they say they do. And I want to try to get that across.
- Regardless of how conversations start, I've found that it's nearly impossible to get people to stick to the topic at hand (the merits of a specific argument, meme, article, or rhetorical device) and instead every conversation containing the word abortion veers as if pulled by magnets towards The Abortion Debate, Right Here Right Now. (So far in this thread we've mostly avoided that, so, yay!) With that context in mind - the stakes of *talking* about abortion are also higher for people with uteruses. (If I implied earlier that there is no *quantitative* difference in risk/proximity to the discussion, that was not my intent - I meant only that such differences should not be used to shut anyone out.)
There was a bit going around a while back about how, while it's fair to be disappointed when your favorite celeb declines to identify as a feminist, assuming that women must by default and vilifying them when they don't, while we assume that male celebrities aren't feminists by default and celebrate if they are, is yet another sexist double standard. Whether we like it or not, that dynamic is also in place here - if I come out against abortion, some people will agree, some will object, some will roll their eyes and move on. But if someone who can get pregnant says they're against abortion, they're at risk of really getting hammered; people interpret it as a betrayal, and also it threatens some people's worldview (though obviously not all) to see a pro-lifer they didn't expect, challenging the framing of the debate as strictly cis men against abortion and cis women for it. And under such circumstances, people have been known to lash out.
There's a parallel here to conversations about race. In that area, the current lefty consensus seems to be that while we should respect and elevate the voices of PoC and take our cues from them, white people also have a role to play: "We know that it takes discussion to change people's minds, but some of us are exhausted from living this shit, so y'all who are less involved need to step up and talk about it." You and I are having this conversation *because we can afford it*. We can work through the, I don't even know, 20-odd paragraphs of talking past each other and trying to explain ourselves above that are necessary to get to the point we're at now of hearing each other more clearly.