“… highest population density” (p57, Climate Wars, Harald Welzer) should read “… highest frequency of men fucking women”. “a dramatic rise in population figures” (p63, ditto) should read “a dramatic rise in men fucking women”. I see this again and again and again … This stork/cabbage patch theory of the origin of life. It’s like …
Category: reproductive rights
Nov 20 2022
A great idea from Jodi Taylor
“Helen and I watched a short film about childbirth and it was so gruesome we had to turn it off. She had a stiff drink, I had a cup of tea, and we swore we’d never have sex again.” Jodi Taylor, The Long and Short of It (p181) But yes! That should be mandatory viewing—and …
Aug 12 2018
Gwynne Dyer (along with half the species) misses an obvious point
I highly recommend Gwynne Dyer’s Climate Wars, but I must say he misses an obvious point, especially evident when he says “There are almost seven billion of us, and it is almost impossible to imagine a way that we can stop the growth before there are eight and a half billion” (p.268) — because it’s …
Dec 04 2017
Imagine that …
…all males had to have their DNA on file with the government. …all newborns had to have their paternity established by law. …all males discovered to be fathers had their wages garnished at the source to support the mother of the child for six years (assuming she would be the one to be with the …
Feb 22 2017
Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, Sheri Tepper
Although I read this fantastic novel years ago, I was recently reminded of it by Judith A. Little’s Feminist Philosophy and Science Fiction: utopias and dystopias. At the end of the novel, five options for human reproduction are presented: Only partners for life will be able to reproduce, and only once every decade. Parthenogenesis, with …
Nov 04 2016
Sterilization: The Personal and the Political
Ever since I’ve been old enough to ask myself ‘Do I want children?’, my answer has been ‘No’ – a rather emphatic ‘No!’ I consider parenting to be a career, and a very demanding one at that: twenty-four hours a day for at least fourteen years, you are responsible for the physical, emotional, and intellectual …
Aug 05 2015
Permitting Abortion and Prohibiting Prenatal Harm
I think abortion should be allowed. And I think prenatal harm (especially that caused by ingesting various legal and illegal substances while pregnant) should not be allowed. Some accuse me of hypocrisy or, more accurately, maintaining a contradictory position: either women have the right to control what happens to their bodies or they don’t. No …
Oct 24 2013
The Pill for Men
‘Outrageous!’ That was the word used way back in ’85 in response to the expectation that men take a contraceptive that had a side-effect of reduced sex drive. Hello. Let me tell you about the contraceptive pill for women. Side-effects include headaches, nausea, weight gain, mood changes, yeast infections, loss of vision, high blood pressure, …
Jul 14 2013
Making Kids with AIDS
[I wrote this piece a while ago, but have since then, seen the same sort of denial of male agency. Apparently kids are found in pumpkin patches. Yeah. Or the stork brings them. What are you, six?] [Quite apart from the point about AIDS.] What has been glaringly absent in news stories about children with …
Jun 30 2013
This is your brain. This is your brain on oxytocin: Mom.
I think many women realize that their children make them vulnerable; their love for them holds them hostage. So many things they would do (leave?)—but for the children. I wonder how many realize that their imprisonment is physiological. And, in most cases, as voluntary as that first hit of heroin, cocaine, whatever. ‘But I love …
- 1
- 2
fiction
