The other day, as I was stuck in traffic trying to get onto the 400, my mind was wandering. This incidentally occasionally gets me beeped by other drivers because I have tuned out too far, but in this case I was aware of the road but my mind was also busy thinking other things.
Probably as a result of some road side sign or something said during a lecture I was thinking about abortion and adoption. Cheery and light topics for a Wednesday night, I know. On some television program that I had watched there was an agency that sought to get extra fetuses from fertility procedures adopted and implanted into mothers. It was definitely on a fictional program which took a flippant view of such a thing (Pushing Daisies maybe?). From whence it came wandering into my brain is beyond me but wander in it did. I have no idea if such an agency actually exists or not, probably not.
I found the whole idea ridiculous. This led to the opinion that I don’t think that fetuses are alive. I have heard this argument made time and time again in the pro-choice vs pro-life arguments but I’d never actually thought about it in those terms. I don’t believe there are many circumstances under which I, personally, would get an abortion personally but I am strongly pro-choice. Not necessarily because of the nature of a fetus as a child or a bundle of cells but because I don’t believe that you could possibly force someone to carry a child to term if they didn’t want to. There is something creepy and totalitarian about taking that decision away from someone.
In a similar vein, I think that in some ways our culture has started to devalue motherhood. Within my peer group anyways, a woman who chooses to stay at home is viewed as less intelligent and less motivated and a whole bunch of other negative superlatives than a career focused woman. I think that being a mother might as well be considered a job. It takes more work than a lot of other jobs out there.
Back when I was an International Development Studies major, we did a section on what was called the ‘informal sector’ of the economy. When the worth of a project in an area was calculated, the question was, how do you factor in people who do not work for profit? If a woman raises her own children, grows vegetables, and cooks, how much money is she putting back into the economy? If she didn’t do that amount of work then how much money would the state have to expend in day care, food importing and restaurants to pick up the slack?
Modern women are expected to go out and get jobs and then try and balance family with that job. Women who choose to do only one aren’t viewed in a positive light. As I said, Pro-Choice, and that extends to pretty much all things, it’s the fundamental building block of feminism, women should have all the same choices as men.
Now in this case, I’m glossing a little bit over the fact that men are faced with the same sort of societal constraints in this regard, “house husband” is a said as a joke when it should be recognized as a valid choice. Men are expected to fall into macho stereotypes and behave a certain way.
I shall now step down off my soap box and let you get on with your lives. Hopefully this wasn’t too much of a tirade. But as I said somewhere, I started the blog for purposes of self-indulgence.
