From the Sydney Morning Herald which I will not link to since they do not allow comments;
Motherhood has been quite a confronting experience for my feminism so far, and I’m sure it will continue to be. Ever since discovering I was pregnant it’s been a process of adjusting and reconciling my biology with my ideology, particularly when I discovered that my baby, my most-beloved Alfred, would be a boy.
It would be more correct to say to she needs to adjust her ideology. Biology is rather immutable on this subject.
There were dark moments in the middle of the night (when all those dark thoughts come), when I felt sick at the thought of something male growing inside me.
The oppressor is within the walls, the oppressor s within the walls! Seriously, I can sorta understand how she feels. Who amongst us has not had anxious moments when we feared a child we were having might grow up to be a feminist?
In this patriarchal world, this world where even the best men (and women, for that matter) engage in casual and ingrained sexism, how will I raise a son who respects me the way a daughter would? Who sees women as just like him? As just human beings?
Judging by what you have written here you will fuck him up so badly that the rest of us will be lucky if he does not go on a killing spree. He will be taught that everything he does will be the result of privilege. He will never be able to celebrate his accomplishments. He will never know the joy of winning with a clear conscience because he was better than everyone else. Everything will be pale, and without vigor in his life. If he gets too rambunctious or full of animal spirits he will be chastised. If he has normal male impulses, and God forbid acts upon them, then he shall be little short of a rapist no matter how many pleases, thank yous, and mother may I’s are exchanged beforehand.
She wants him to see women as just like him, but they are not. There are fundamental differences which she is saying he will be taught to ignore, so he will be bereft of tools with which he can live a full and successful life. He will be proceeding from false assumptions from the word go. He will have to toss aside all of the programming, and self-loathing his wicked and irrational mother handicaps him with and he will have to rise above it. That is a tall order for a tiny, hairless ape who will be completely unable to take care of itself for many years. This is why motherhood is the most honored of all pursuits, and why people who are as unfit for it as this woman are so universally loathed.
People are constantly telling me “boys are easier” to raise (casual and ingrained sexism, anyone?)
And if they said the opposite it would also be taken as casual and ingrained sexism. Sexism shares the same characteristic as most leftist shibboleths, it makes no claims which are amenable to being disproved because it is content free. Boys are difficult? That is sexism since girls can be just as stubborn and powerful in demanding their way. Girls are more difficult? Sexism since it problematicizes the feminine. Girls and boys are exactly the same to raise? Are you really saying that girls don’t face more obstacles growing up than boys you sexist pig? Climate change is another example of this. It was global warming, but it is simply more convenient for any change to be taken as proof of an assumption than to make predictions which can be disproven. And there was that little thing about there being no statistically significant warming in the satellite records for about 20 years now. All leftist goalposts come with wheels.
Here is where it gets really creepy…
Raising a boy who maintains the status quo sure would be easy, but I refuse to be satisfied with that. I will raise a feminist boy. Just like his father and grandfathers before him, but even better. I will point sexism out to him at every turn, and he will never get away with it without being called out. I will show him that girls are just people like him and that products and art targeted at them are no less valuable or enjoyable. He will be immersed in feminism by a family who models it in their everyday life.
It rubs the lavender scented lotion on its skin else it gets the hose again. The poor child will not even be able to like what it likes. One thing I always tell my daughter is that she is allowed to like whatever she likes no matter what anyone else says. It doesn’t matter if it is cool or in style. She doesn’t have to explain it or make excuses for it. That doesn’t mean we can’t discuss the merits of various things, but at her age it is her job to try on various pursuits and find ones which suit her. I cannot imagine this poor boy being bullied and hectored constantly. You always wonder about those dumbasses who run away to places like North Korea or Cuba thinking things will be better there. I can only imagine their parents are much like this woman. She doesn’t see herself as a fundamentalist, but she has already picked out all of the beliefs this child will be allowed to have.
The only part of this she gets right is when she contradicts herself at the end and tries to sound more reasonable;
And I wouldn’t swap my beautiful son for all the daughters in the world. He is my sun, moon and stars, and he will teach me far more than I will teach him.
There are small, furry rodents who could teach this woman more than she could teach them. At least rodents don’t go around denying their own biology or essential nature. They chew things and they rut. They are kind of like the Lena Dunhams of the animal world, only with better hygiene. This woman is in for a wild ride. If that kid has a pair of stones she is going to come to understand a whole lot of things she never dreamed of before. And her ideology will leave her completely unable to handle it.
We are all for egalitarianism to the largest extent possible. But painting someone’s sex as an original sin to be ashamed of and atoned for is not going to end well.