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In a long, circuitous, and characteristically haughty column for the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto makes the interesting claim that Rick Santorum is “ahead of his time” in warning that feminism and contraception are destroying the traditional family, and thus America itself.
I do not have the time or patience to unpack Taranto’s rant—full of psychobabble, pseudo-social-science, and sheer venom—in detail, and only mention it because he makes one assertion, in the context of an extended ad hominem attack on Paul Krugman and Jonathan Alter, which is so mind-bogglingly patriarchal that it represents something of a gold standard of the entire genre:
[W]hile feminism and the sexual revolution have been great for high-status men like Krugman and Alter (full disclosure: and this columnist), and for those women who place a high value on professional careers, things have not worked out so well for those who are less privileged.
That is a truth so undeniable that it can even slip past the editorial filters at the New York Times. Over the weekend the paper published a news story with the shocking statistic that “more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.” The article cites “the pill” as one of “the forces rearranging the family.” When Rick Santorum makes the same common-sense observation, the cultural left (which includes some on the center-right, as we noted Thursday) falsely denounces him as a religious nut looking to snatch your prophylactics.
So “the pill” is responsible for an explosion of out-of-wedlock pregnancies—that’s the “undeniable truth” that is supposed to make “the cultural left” cringe in shame!
To reach this conclusion, you pretty much have to assume that contraception has somehow robbed women of the power to coerce men into marriage by denying them sex—you know, the “milk” that makes them want to “buy the cow.” That women might be interested in the horrific idea of sex-without-consequences doesn’t enter into the equation—after all, that’s treating women as just like men, as equals. No, women need the leverage of not being able to control when they might become pregnant in order secure the protection of men.
So the only “freedom” that really matters is the freedom from responsibility that contraception provides men—and perhaps also those “privileged” women who unaccountably place a “high value on professional careers,” at the expense of their poor sisters whose protection from men has been sacrificed. Actually, given his smug satisfaction over the alleged unhappiness of feminists, Taranto doesn’t even seem willing to grant that any women might benefit from freedom or equality.
Low-income women are beset by a host of problems in our society—some of them arguably caused or exacerbated by the economic and social policies favored by James Taranto and his friends, including, as a matter of fact, inadequate access to reproductive services. As anyone with genuine “common sense” knows, access to contraception is not one of those problems, and nor is “feminism.”
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jheartney on February 22, 2012 4:35 PM:
Trying to follow Taranto's logic here. Because women now have choices on the timing of their fertility, some of them have decided to exercise those choices by having children without securing a husband first? Huh? If parenthood within a marriage is so overwhelmingly better than without, wouldn't having the ability to choose the time of fertility reduce unwed pregnancies? IOW, because women now have an option, they are less likely to pick the "bad" option.
Taranto can't seem to comprehend the fact that the incentives work the opposite way from what he imagines, and that if unwed pregnancy is on the rise, it's in spite of rather than because of contraception.
Hedda Peraz on February 22, 2012 4:38 PM:
Oh, goodie! Another man addressing the subject of female sexuality, women's rights, and our desire to control our own bodies.
Because, as the Weaker Sex, we are subject to fainting spells at the very thought of intellectual endeavor.
So, since I am incapable of original thought, in response to Mr. Taranto I will just have to quote Dick Cheney.
"Fuck you, Jim!"
gummitch on February 22, 2012 4:55 PM:
That statement would also require us to assume that "the pill" doesn't work, at least for poor women. It seems more logical that all those pregnancies outside of marriage would be alleviated by easy access to "the pill."
beyond left on February 22, 2012 4:57 PM:
Hedda Peraz I believe the quote to P Leahy was "go F*ck yourself." Let's not misquote the dark lord.
Matt on February 22, 2012 5:00 PM:
Reading the WSJ is a contraceptive; its the anti-viagra.
Didn't Krugman already prove that the rise in out-of-wedlock births is to lack of economic opporunity and not a decline in "values"?
Ten Bears on February 22, 2012 5:03 PM:
Seems like there's a flaw in that reasoning: if they're on the pill, (generally) they're not having out of wedlock births.
More stupid is as stupid does.
SadOldVet on February 22, 2012 5:06 PM:
Mussolini said that Facism should rightly be called Corporatism as it is the merger of the state and corporate power.
Perhaps, the Tarantula is saying that we would have more of the right kinds of freedoms under Santorum desired Theocratic Corporatism.
grape_crush on February 22, 2012 5:16 PM:
I do not have the time or patience to unpack Taranto’s rant.
No one does, as it would have to be a sentence-by-sentence fisking. There's so much wrong with that post, it's almost funny.
Trying to follow Taranto's logic here.
Don't bother. Taranto's fixing his assertions around his argument that the social ills he sees today are the result of women being treated better than farm animals.
Josef K on February 22, 2012 5:39 PM:
Exactly how is this idiot allowed near a keyboard?
Russell Sadler on February 22, 2012 5:52 PM:
Taranto has been in over his head for sometime. He is a light-weight trying to be a heavy-weight like David Brooks, who himself is a light-weight. The only thing that gives Brooks any heft at all is the fact is column is published in the NYT.
This business of men trying to tell women what to think and why to think it really has to stop. It's embarrassing the rest of us.
Better conservative columnists, please.
MNRD on February 22, 2012 6:05 PM:
Believe it or not, this is probably Taranto's "logic":
A)Lower-income women have sexual activity outside of marriage that they would not have had if not for the cultural influence of the pill;
B)If those women decide not to actually use the pill while they engage in that sexual activity, then the pill is to blame for the fact that those women got pregnant, because those women would not have engaged in the sexual activity that got them pregnant if not for the cultural influence of the pill!!!
Mimikatz on February 22, 2012 6:10 PM:
What the article actually said was that women's ability to control their own reproduction opened many more educational and professional opportunities, and they became less dependent economically on men, so felt less need to marry, especially to "settle" to have someone to take care of them economically and otherwise. The removal of the stigma against unwed motherhood meant they could keep a child and not have to marry the guy if they didn't really want to. The article said that a high percentage of marriages pre-pill were occasioned by pregnancy, IIRC about a third. Now women do 't have to marry just because they get pregnant. It is not about what Taranto says. Women seem to have discovered at they can get along ok without marriage, and since most marriages in their class fail, why bother. At least that is what a few women were quoted as saying. Many seem to have been the product themselves of unhappy homes with long periods of single parenthood.
g on February 22, 2012 6:54 PM:
How right you are, MNRD.
I mean, it wasn't until the pill was legalized that human beings have thought to have sex with one another. Look at history!
JR on February 22, 2012 11:23 PM:
I refuse to take any of these anti-contraception bozos with an ounce of seriousness, at least until they stop putting the burden on women and state that the most sure-fire form of contraception is a guy who keeps his zipper zipped - being free, it costs even less than a Bayer aspirin!
As a 53-year-old woman, I'm sick and tired of men being kept out of the equation. That said, I'm serene compared to my 77-year-old mother, who's too enraged to even discuss the matter.
Rugosa on February 23, 2012 8:51 AM:
The subtext to all these feminism-is-bad-for-women articles, whether by men or women, is that social values and practices are changing, and these writers are uncomfortable with the changes. Women have more choices, and are no longer under men's control. This is bad for men who want to be in control, and for women who are afraid of taking responsibility for themselves.
Shelly on February 23, 2012 10:12 AM:
...the reassuring statistic that “more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.” The article cites “the pill” as one of “the forces allowing women under 30 to redifine the family.”
There. Fixed it.
Spiny Norman on February 23, 2012 10:57 AM:
James Taranto resembles nothing so much as he resembles Santorum, Not Rick Santorum. The other kind of Santorum -- the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the product of anal sex.
Sgt. Gym Bunny on February 23, 2012 11:16 AM:
Yeah, I'm still wondering when male culpability is going to enter this discussion, too. While the conservative ilk is content with much shunning of the women for changing social mores, they haven't said much about how men benefit and contribute to a so-called decline in family-values.
Not that my personal experience is indicative of any widespread trends or anything, but I don't think I have ever had intimate relations with a guy who 1) expected me to get pregnant and/or 2) expected me to marry him (before or after we did the hokey pokey). And were I to have gotten pregnant, I seriously doubt any of them would have done the Tom-Cruise-sopha act... Why? Because those men (just like us lefty women professionals), have their own professional careers and other-chicks-to-do bucket lists that would be equally inconvenienced by unplanned, single parenthood.
And have any of these yo-yo's bothered to consider that birth control didn't spontaneously come about until the 1960s? Seriously, do they really think that mankind over the millenia just didn't enjoy doing the hanky panky enough to think of ways to avoid being burdened with children afterwords? I'd venture a guess that sex in the year 12 B.C. was as fun and enjoyable then as it is in the year 2012 A.D.