It's been an energetic couple of weeks for us advocates for women's rights. To mention only the biggest deal, Forbes published one of the stupidest articles in the history of the World Wide Web about the perils of marrying a woman with a job and an education, and one of the lamer replies. Gag. Other people have addressed the substance better than I can, especially since I make my blog entries at night, usually while cooking dinner or giving Aaron a bath. However, the article did make me think about why I value my career, and, tangentially, why I can never be a conservative.
There was a short post at First Things today which specifically inspired this rant. Joseph Bottom complains that abortion politics prevents him from ever being a Democrat. He has a problem with the fact that abortion has become so important to the D's, such that the party has lost most religious people in this country. Now, I'm rather odd because I support the right to abortion and I'm religious, and I think there's a relationship between the two.
First of all, believing in abortion rights is a good proxy for believing in women's rights and autonomy. I need to specify what I mean here: I believe that each woman has a right to obtaining however much she wants of the goodies of this life as she is capable of and desires to obtain. By "goodies," I mean specifically education and property, because they are tangible and measurable. Happiness is nice, but until there's a blood test for it, it can't be measured to my satisfaction. Home ownership, accumulated wealth, number of iPods, and graduation rates, however, can be verified. So, to the extent that a policy gets more stuff into the hands of more women, I approve of it.
I can't go on without mentioning health, by which I mean optimally nourished and exercised and able to obtain treatment for any illnesses that the person might suffer. No policy that makes women sicker is going to get my approval.
So, I approve of policies that get more women more stuff, and maintain our health. Conservatives don't.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
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