Subject for Debate: Are Women People? (Jessica Winter, Time)

[swag]

http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/07/subject-for-debate-are-women-people/


All my adult life, I’ve been pretty sure I’m a sentient, even semi-competent human being. I have a job and an apartment; I know how to read and vote; I make regular, mostly autonomous decisions about what to eat for lunch and which cat videos I will watch whilst eating my lunch. But in the past couple of months, certain powerful figures in media and politics have cracked open that certitude.

You see, like most women, I was born with the chromosome abnormality known as “XX,” a deviation of the normative “XY” pattern. Symptoms of XX, which affects slightly more than half of the American population, include breasts, ovaries, a uterus, a menstrual cycle, and the potential to bear and nurse children. Now, many would argue even today that the lack of a Y chromosome should not affect my ability to make informed choices about what health care options and lunchtime cat videos are right for me. But others have posited, with increasing volume and intensity, that XX is a disability, even a roadblock on the evolutionary highway. This debate has reached critical mass, and leaves me uncertain of my legal and moral status. Am I a person? An object? A ward of the state? A “prostitute”? (And if I’m the last of these, where do I drop off my W-2?)

In the hopes of clarifying these and other issues, below I’ve recapped recent instances of powerful men from the fields of law, politics and literature tackling the question that has captured America’s imagination: Are Women People?



Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/07/subject-for-debate-are-women-people/#ixzz1oTz3XPrl

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Save Ann Coulter ,the best of our Species

Honey pie,Mom and my little sister are the most resposible , problem solving people I know.

[saras]

2. Biologically you have it backwards. XX is normative. The Y chromosome is a latecomer.

What's more, the Y chromosome is losing its genes and may eventually disappear entirely, another failed evolutionary experiment.

[ejpoeta]

3. since there are more women than men, I would posit that the xy chromosome

is the abnormality if there is one. there is a reason why some want to control women.... we are the only ones who can bring a life into this world. We have control over that and they can't stand it. And no I am not saying all men... I am saying the ones that want to control us and keep us in the kitchen and taking care of the kids.

[swag]

4. One never asks everyone to understand satire.

[chknltl]

5. The only reason this is in Good Reads Forum...

... is because DU doesn't have a Great Reads Forum! bookmarked and shared.

[bemildred]

6. You are only a person if you have plenty of money, that's the criteria.

Always has been, look around.