daisy

Throughout human history, more women have died giving birth than male soldiers have died in war. As a result, in many places, women had shorter life expectancies than men…

Every woman who dies in childbirth dies as a result of sex with a man. Vaginal intercourse with a man was—and in many places still is—one of the riskiest activities in which any woman could engage. Though the pleasure in the act may have at least occasionally been equal, the risk never was. Women had no more right to refuse their husbands than a low-ranking soldier had to disobey an order from an officer. Tennyson’s famous line applies as much to marital sex for women as it did for British soldiers in Crimea: “yours not to reason why, yours but to do and die.”

Throughout Western culture, when women died in childbirth they died not only as a direct consequence of sex with men, they died giving life to children who would carry their husbands’ name. While even in more violent eras, relatively few husbands would be called upon to lay down their lives for their wives, every pregnant woman knew she stood a fair chance of dying so that her husband’s family’s name could go on. If we look at all of recorded human history and ask “Who died more often for whom?” the evidence is that women made the ultimate sacrifice more frequently…

Maternal mortality rates have plummeted in recent centuries, though they remain stubbornly high in many parts of the world. And despite the epidemic of gun violence in this country, very few men today are called upon to put their bodies between a bullet and the women they love…  

It’s time to let go of the myth that men have traditionally endured more physical danger and suffering than women. In Euripedes’ Medea, the title character remarks that she “would rather stand three times with a shield in battle than give birth once.” For all women, that’s a historically honest and accurate risk assessment.

We may not have a Tomb of the Unknown Mother at Arlington, but the suffering of women’s bodies has been at least as important in guaranteeing our collective survival as men. In any discussion of sacrificial heroism, that truth deserves remembering.

—http://www.rolereboot.org/culture-and-politics/details/2012-07-why-men-should-be-willing-to-die-for-women

the sad part is, this was prompted and found out because he's a trans surgeon. he conducts phalloplasties on trans identified females. and they were cutting these women open and realised they essentially had no clue how to conduct these surgeries without mass amounts of long term pain and complications (not that this can ever be fixed). the clitoral nerve tissue he removed and looked at was from LIVING women who got it removed for 'affirming surgery', so i don't know how long term testosterone would affect the results, but it's close enough.

If you can’t afford kids that’s a horrid consequence of poverty. It’s not hating poor people to say, correctly, that poverty robs people of the ability to have kids that will likely be okay. That’s part of the entire machine.

If you are in poverty, you cannot have kids without it derailing your entire life, and they will live most likely in conditions that I cannot imagine willingly bringing a child into. Poverty gives you fewer options. That’s reality. You need to work with your real life options. Not just have children and hope they spontaneously thrive in spite of circumstance.

Quit romanticizing poverty. Do not tell people, especially women, that it is a good idea to have kids in poverty.

I cannot believe people who experienced poverty are being called conservative. The entire conservative goal is to force people into poverty and for you to have kids in poverty. Those kids will, whether you like it or not, work shitty jobs, join the military, or be forced to forego education and get married.

Telling people, women, to not have kids in poverty is telling them the reality. They will probably be forced out of school, have to live with a man and rely on him, will not see their kids much because they’re working so much, and their kids will do poorly. Higher rates of suicide, disability, crime, death. It is absolutely insane to tell women that it’s an acceptable option to do that to themselves or to their kids.

But people always want us who grew up in poverty to say that it was hard but we’re happy to be alive. We’re better for it. We’re harder workers, more grateful, closer to our families. Sounds like conservative rhetoric to me. The morally superior, hardworking poor. That poverty can be character building. It doesn’t build character. It destroys it.

The reality is a lot of broken families. Traumatized children. Traumatized parents who watch their kids suffer. They were told they would somehow avoid statistics. Their kids would be fine. Somehow they were expected to not be affected by their environment. They were expected and validated in wanting kids enough to have them regardless of whether they’d be cared for.

I don’t care if you know someone who grew up poor and is happy. A lot of people seem to not take the suffering of the poor seriously. If we’re all happy and well-adjusted, what’s the problem with poverty then? Why are we complaining?

Nobody here is criticizing poor people or saying it’s our moral character that’s faulty. Poverty is not someone’s fault. But it is reality. It is reality that if I chose to have a kid now, I have to take responsibility when they grow up to do meth and pick fights with park benches.

Poverty doesn’t build character. We are not a bunch of strong, good folk. There is no benefit to it. It results in suffering, low quality of life, and hopelessness among children. Do not defend poor people’s character by denying how much we suffer. No one here said poor people shouldn’t be allowed to have kids. They should. That’s why poverty is inhumane. Because it keeps you in a situation where it’s not ethical to have kids. Yes, solve poverty. But the best way for people to get out is to not have kids.

If you’re in poverty, do not listen to people telling you to just have kids anyway. Put your own mask on first. People who have had kids in poverty often do so as a result of coercion, religious pressure, and other reasons anyway, and it’s a common tactic to trap women so they cannot leave. Because it cuts your financial prospects at the knees.

If you know one person who managed to go to school, raise a happy family, and do all this stuff: good for them. Do not “not all poor people” us. Outliers don’t matter. The majority of children raised in poverty have shitty lives I would not ever bring a child into. Me loving them doesn’t change that. The myth that a woman’s love and effort and some inherent super mom powers should overcome poverty and the reality of how hard and degrading it is, is part of why people go through with it. We’re told we SHOULD be perfect and be able to be good moms no matter what.

Do women a favor by being honest. You’re human. You will do a shitty job parenting if you’re in a shitty situation. Statistics apply to you. Consequences will work the same for you. You do not have magical powers of somehow succeeding against all odds. Do not decide to have kids based on wishful thinking and overly optimistic naïveté. Admit poverty is what it is and needs to be fixed. Do not try to fight poverty by just trying to live as if it were already solved. Do not listen to people telling you it “shouldn’t stop you.” It usually should. Protect your liberty and mobility at all costs. Choose freedom over parenthood and hope you can have free children.

I’m aware it’s usually men’s fault women are in this position anyway. Because men do not understand the reality of children. Poor women are not out here telling people to have kids in poverty. My own mom told me she regretted having kids and her honesty saved me from daydreaming about having kids. Kids are not an ethical option for me right now. They may never be. Devastating. It’s the reality of poverty. My life growing up was bad enough I genuinely believe I should not have been born. If we’re not allowed to admit that poverty is that terrible, why support abortion? If kids are all happy to be alive and families should be started no matter what, isn’t abortion unnecessary? Why are people mad about seeing people openly admit their parents should have aborted them or not started a pregnancy? So if we’re birthed when we shouldn’t have been, we’re all supposed to lie and say that actually, we’re glad we had a chance to be born and we’re glad our parents didn’t abort us? That’s a pretty conservative thing to say.

We’re going to hate on victims of poverty stricken childhoods and say they’re just hating on their “poor, hardworking, good parents who deserved a child no matter what”? We’re not allowed to speak up about our lives? Why does it matter if kids are poor then? Does poverty not have an effect on peoples families and child rearing?

Children should not be born into poverty. Full stop. It’s awful. It’s terrible. Refusing to admit it’s that bad is just denying the extent of the suffering people in poverty go through. Do not tell people it’s hard but not hard enough they shouldn’t have kids. It IS hard enough they shouldn’t have kids.

She contacted my other friends who were feeling awkward and unsure of what to do and told them the party was still on, to meet at my house for photos before the dance.

They all showed up, and I went to the dance, and we all screamed and cried, and I took my first step to healing.

I haven't spoken to that girl in five years. Nothing happened. I moved away. She fell in love. We grew apart and into our own lives.

It's strikes me how beautiful the ephermeral nature of teenage friendships can be.

We may not need each other now, but there was a time when I needed her more than anyone. And sometimes she needed me.

And the universe put us together just then. Just when it was most important. Not a year too late or too soon. The same town, the same school, the same classroom where we could meet. Right when it mattered.

We come and go from people's lives every day, and along the way we may get a chance to love someone fully, just for a little while.

Men have no. Business. In. The. Psychiatric. Therapy. Of. Girls. And. Women.

i'm not going to sit here and police other women for calling men ugly because i don't think it's fair to hold women to this ridiculously high moral standard where we always have to be kind and patient and do everything with the goal of educating. i don't think everything women do has to be feminist praxis, and sometimes giving someone a taste of their own medicine is valid. women are tired.