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[lady_morgaine]

A few weeks ago, I saw the film "Knocked Up" and thought it particularly hilarious. When I told a new friend the other day that I enjoyed it, she seemed shocked, even though she hadn't seen it. "I heard it made a lot of feminists mad," she said

Comments

[urthstripe321]

Um, also, Paul Rudd is awesome.

[lady_morgaine]

It is, perhaps, unjust, but - being pregnant myself now - I'm beginning to think that that's just the way pregnancy works. It simply does affect the woman much more profoundly - physically, emotionally, mentally - than it does the man. And the consequences are much more severe for her too - women do, in fact, face discrimination - overt or subtle - in the real world for choosing to have children. Plus, we also still live in a world where women are expected to bear the brunt of child-rearing and child-raising. The life-altering implications for a woman are so much more consequential that I think it's only fair for a man to step back.

I don't think the injustice lies in the fact that women have more power in a situation like this; the injustice lies in how women choose to wield that power over men. And the nice thing about this film is that the woman didn't choose the road of radical individualism, of writing him off and saying, "You're a slob so I'm not even going to give you a chance." She didn't use her power in that way cut

[word_herder]

Diehard feminists from the 60s and 70s need to realize that feminism has transcended this notion of control of one's body. The majority of American women today, according to the surprisingly scientific polls on the game show The Power of Ten don't regard themselves as feminists. I think feminism today is more about self-reliance and empowerment than the one-track issue of abortion.

And really? The whole "my body, my choice" argument has a fatal flaw that the hardcore feminists have never really addressed adequately. If you have a choice to get an abortion, you almost certainly also had a choice to have sex in the first place.

[lady_morgaine]

I would agree. What bothered me about the critiques I read was that they simply REFUSED to accept that the choices the character in the film made were actually choices. Abortion is referred to in the film as "taking care of it," but it's clear from the moment she's found out that she's pregnant that she doesn't want an abortion. "But," the feminists say, "it's never made clear why." Well, why does it need to be made clear? Again, if she had had an abortion, would anyone ask, "Well, it's not made clear why she didn't keep it?" It was her choice. I thought the whole idea of being pro-choice was to respect that!

But they make it sound like everything she did in the film was a "must": "Just because you got knocked up by some slob doesn't mean you MUST stayed tethered to him for the rest of your life." The film didn't imply that it was a "must." The film quite clearly indicated that it was her choice - her choice to keep it, her choice to tell him, her choice to attempt a relationship with him. But, these feminists say, these

[lastremnant]

Interesting entry. :) Haven't seen the film. Slightly off topic, I am often befuddled by just the modern definition of feminism. It often has very little to do with "feminine" or "women" at all, but just about power situations in our culture. Even college courses that I have witnessed in women's studies programs (at least at my college) tended to be structured around a "power culture" mentality without really delving into what makes women women. What is specific to women and makes them beautifully unique, special, and equal to men in their femininity without masculinating (is that a word?) women

[lady_morgaine]

The tension within feminism is that, on the one hand, it's about POWER - a very patriarchal word if ever there was one. On the other hand, though, it's about uniqueness - celebrating what is special about women. The "power" side wants to level the playing field, make women "the same" as men. The "uniqueness" side wants to assert that women are fundamentally different than men. The two sides engage in a constant dialectic - women want to have power in the sense of wanting to have a say in society, but they also want to expand the idea of power to include "feminine" ways of being powerful. Unfortunately, because that expansion of what it means to have power hasn't freed itself from its masculine tethers (i.e., power in society is still about who makes the most money, who "produces" the most, who "controls" other people), so many feminists become trapped in the power struggle side and find themselves being encouraged, for instance, not to have children because it will lessen their power, or to take a contraceptive that will rid them

[emptyvase]

hey i am about to add you as a friend; my apologies for not asking

if you would prefer i did not i shall unadd you !!!!!!!