Posted under: Gender, happy endings, women's history
(Via The Daily Beast.) “I want my daughter to live in a world where everyone’s decisions are respected.” Good on you, Sean James and Al Joyner.
It’s like I always say to my women’s history students: be straight, or be gay, or celibate. Have children, don’t have children. Have them when you’re 22, or 35, or 47. Get married, or don’t marry. Work for money, or volunteer your labor. It doesn’t matter–someone, somewhere will always find a way to criticize you because most of you are women who will make your own decisions, and it’s the sex of the decider, not the decision itself, that’s the heart of the problem. All you can do is cover your ears and sing “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!” at the top of your lungs and drown out the voices of the critics. But, there’s no one or three or seven perfect sets of choices one can make to avoid criticism.
Depend upon it: you’ll piss someone off whatever you do, and ze’ll feel perfectly entitled to let you know about it mostly, if not simply, because you’re a woman.
*of course, this isn’t a real mansplanation. Mansplanations are delivered in a patronizing tone to women, who may in fact know more about the subject in question than the mansplainer, and who for the most part never asked for a mansplanation. Above all, mansplaining is a privilege reserved for men, and abused by some of them, because of the automatic deference and respect men–whatever their actual area of expertise–are afforded, and women–even in their own fields of expertise–are denied.
ej on 04 Feb 2010 at 12:31 pm #
As much as I appreciate the message here, I can’t help but be frustrated by the fact that the messengers are all men. I realize exactly why that is-the assumption that men won’t listen to women, and the sad fact that most of the people making the decisions about women’s reproductive rights are men these days.
I think I’m going to go put my hands over my ears and scream!
Historiann on 04 Feb 2010 at 12:54 pm #
I think it’s good to see men standing up for women’s rights. And I like the connection this ad makes between fathers, daughters, and families (whereas the ad this one is responding to is all about mothers and sons.)
It’s a bonus that it’s two top athletes. (Hey, its for Superbowl Sunday!)
Emma on 04 Feb 2010 at 1:37 pm #
It’s a good ad. Trusting women. Good tag.
Comrade PhysioProf on 04 Feb 2010 at 4:47 pm #
Why is there no explicit mention of what they are talking about: the right of a woman to control her own body by having a safe, legal abortion if she wants one? It seems to me that by avoiding mention of this, the moral high ground is ceded to woman-hating anti-choicers. It implies that abortion is somehow unspeakable and morally laden, rather than an extremely common medical procedure that is–in the overwhelmingly vast majority of cases–no more of a moral issue than the removal of a mole by a dermatologist.
LadyProf on 04 Feb 2010 at 11:27 pm #
The “sex of the decider” is exactly why fundies went so bonkers about the pill. Oral contraceptives are what they’ll go after next, whether they succeed in eliminating legal abortion or not. They’re starting to lay the foundation by saying the pill is an abortifacient
LadyProf on 04 Feb 2010 at 11:28 pm #
Ah, looks like my link died. HTML futility.
Deborah Judge on 05 Feb 2010 at 5:47 am #
I have a serious question about mansplainers…what do you do when you’re being interviewed by one? On one of my on-campus interviews the search committee chair was one of the worst mansplainers I had ever seen and kept trying to explain my field to me even though he (clearly) knew nothing about it. I went back and forth between trying to interject my own explanations to show my competence and politely nodding to show my collegiality, and neither strategy really worked. The best thing I found to do was give a few examples of why he might be right and a few examples that complicated the picture. In any case I didn’t get the job. If you have any wisdom on what to do in this situation, it might be a useful topic for your series on advice for women in academia.
perpetua on 05 Feb 2010 at 6:21 am #
I also think it’s a good ad. I understand the frustration that the ad is full of men talking about women’s rights and experiences, but I think the context makes it ok – the context being a direct response to a an ad airing over the superbowl, the ultimate male activity which men generally think is about men and for men. It’s responding to an ad which has as it’s only importance that it features a famous male athlete. If CBS ever allowed such an ad to air during the superbowl, it would make a strong counterpoint. I wouldn’t want this to be Planned Parenthood’s main ad campaign, but I respect it as part of a larger campaign, the Blog for Choice “Trust Women” campaign. I’m also not troubled by the lack of direct mention of abortion, because while I feel very strongly that abortion is crucial aspect of women’s health, the “Truth Women” campaign is, in my estimation, about more than abortion rights access. It’s about the larger culture meaning of why we deny women access to abortion (ie because we don’t trust their decisions) and why women’s health care generally is in shambles (because we don’t trust women’s decisions). I think the Trust Women campaign is great, precisely because it’s all-encompassing.
Helen Huntingdon on 08 Feb 2010 at 9:16 am #
It doesn’t matter–someone, somewhere will always find a way to criticize you because most of you are women who will make your own decisions, and it’s the sex of the decider, not the decision itself, that’s the heart of the problem.
My life got sooooo much easier once I realized this. It didn’t change how I make decisions, but it did make it easier to tune out the noise.