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Oh, So Now Media Men Want to Talk About 'Roe'
If there was ever a moment to center women’s voices, it was in the coverage of the destruction of abortion rights in this country.
But never let it be said that men missed an opportunity to shout over us. To center their own voices. To show off their savvy and political smarts and deep, vital knowledge of how things would poll. To quote one another as they dispassionately discussed the ramifications of allowing the government to force us to bear children.
From the moment Politico published Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion striking down Roe v. Wade and allowing states to ban abortion without exception, America’s Media Men began talking and they haven’t stopped all week.
They’ve said that maybe this is good news, actually!
But never let it be said that men missed an opportunity to shout over us. To center their own voices. To show off their savvy and political smarts and deep, vital knowledge of how things would poll. To quote one another as they dispassionately discussed the ramifications of allowing the government to force us to bear children.
From the moment Politico published Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion striking down Roe v. Wade and allowing states to ban abortion without exception, America’s Media Men began talking and they haven’t stopped all week.
They’ve said that maybe this is good news, actually!
snip...........
Male lawmakers already treat women, cis and trans, as an exotic constituency they know not of, whose bodies should be subject to regulation like dangerous animals or narcotic drugs. They routinely opine that our internal organs can voluntarily prevent pregnancy. They talk about “legitimate” sex crimes and fantasize about the kinds of sexual assault they think should justify a rape exemption in abortion law.
They can’t even name the body parts they’re trying to pass laws to control, and when called on their ignorance they hide behind religious reasoning that has no place in matters of state.
Even when they’re attempting to convince us how much they care for us, they do so by objectifying us as sainted mothers, objects onto which they can project their fantasies of childbearing unimpeded by the infrastructure needed to nurture those children.
They turn us into lists of circumstances under which they find our lives worthy of consideration and ignore anything that doesn’t fit their narrative.
We are hypotheticals to be discussed secondarily to things like reverence to the Constitution or the comfort of the Supreme Court.
We are scary stories, to be used as cautionary tales for polling purposes, as motivations for this or that constituency and bulwarks of support for a party.
We are anything and everything but people who need the freedom to decide if, when, and how we will get medical care.
It may be beyond the realm of the possible for Republican politicians, enamored as they are equally of stupidity and fascism, to consider that, but our brothers in the press might want to consider taking a step back and letting their female colleagues speak for ourselves.
Instead of approvingly retweeting every savvier-than-thou take on what this means for the holiness of the mostly male Supreme Court or the mostly male U.S. Senate or the entirely male U.S. presidency, media bros should be amplifying the voices of the people whose lives are under attack today.
That the corporate press considers their views less legitimate, less urgent, less fundamental to the future of this country, is a large part of how we wound up here in the first place and we’re not going to get out of this without listening to them.
They can’t even name the body parts they’re trying to pass laws to control, and when called on their ignorance they hide behind religious reasoning that has no place in matters of state.
Even when they’re attempting to convince us how much they care for us, they do so by objectifying us as sainted mothers, objects onto which they can project their fantasies of childbearing unimpeded by the infrastructure needed to nurture those children.
They turn us into lists of circumstances under which they find our lives worthy of consideration and ignore anything that doesn’t fit their narrative.
We are hypotheticals to be discussed secondarily to things like reverence to the Constitution or the comfort of the Supreme Court.
We are scary stories, to be used as cautionary tales for polling purposes, as motivations for this or that constituency and bulwarks of support for a party.
We are anything and everything but people who need the freedom to decide if, when, and how we will get medical care.
It may be beyond the realm of the possible for Republican politicians, enamored as they are equally of stupidity and fascism, to consider that, but our brothers in the press might want to consider taking a step back and letting their female colleagues speak for ourselves.
Instead of approvingly retweeting every savvier-than-thou take on what this means for the holiness of the mostly male Supreme Court or the mostly male U.S. Senate or the entirely male U.S. presidency, media bros should be amplifying the voices of the people whose lives are under attack today.
That the corporate press considers their views less legitimate, less urgent, less fundamental to the future of this country, is a large part of how we wound up here in the first place and we’re not going to get out of this without listening to them.
[link:https://www.damemagazine.com/2022/05/10/oh-so-now-media-men-want-to-talk-about-roe/|
13 replies
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That is all.
