Sunday, July 29, 2007

How do you spend your money?

I am absolutely disgusted with this article from the Economist

If women decide to spend their 20s clubbing rather than child-rearing, and their cash on handbags rather than nappies, that's up to them.
The author's attitude is appalling. Not only does he (assuming gender) demonstrate a profound disrespect for women through his clubbing and handbag remark, but he also reduces women to baby making machines.

There are a number of issues to be tackled here. Firstly women have the right to spend their money on whatever the hell they want and should not be reprimanded by some patriarchal notion or by paternalistic second rate hacks. How magnanimous the author is with "that's up to them". Yes how we spend our money is up to us and no permission is required. Who the hell do you think you are to label women as either "baby maker" or "superficial and selfish" and then presume to permit us to choose how we spend it?

Secondly how dare he assume that women have the sole responsibility for spending their money on childrearing. Is childrearing not supposed to be a partnership? It seems to me that this is the kind of attitude that wants the little women barefoot and uneducated in the kitchen. I am not amused.

As a women in her twenties, I reject utterly his puerile statements. I, like the majority of women I know, spend my hard earned cash on further education and my career. I live in developing countries from from my family to do so. I do not intend to make babies just because I can. Apart from the other issues, it is irresponsible to bring a child into the world without proper consideration. Just because something is possible, it does not mean that one should engage in it - armour-piercing bullets for instance.

Let's all write letters to the editor and express outrage at the attitudes towards women. I've already composed mine.

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4 comments:

Rachel said...

Well said. Very well said. By the way - did you see the bottom of the article, the part that started "societies which make breeding and working compatible..."

I really dislike the idea that I will one day "breed", like an animal...

Mór Rígan said...

Thanks for your kind words xxx r and thanks for stopping by!

I agree that the author's terminology is offensive. We are not cattle. The whole article reduces women to babymaking machines - "breeding" the next generation.

I also dislike his phrase about retirees - "out to pasture". These are people who have worked their whole lives and deserve some time off.

It's time he realised it's not acceptable.

Anonymous said...

Pinko alert: I think the whole point of the Economist article is that we (women) need to make more cannon fodder for the military industrial complex. God forbid there shouldn't be enough people to sustain the overblown capitalist culture we've got. My God! There might not be enough people to buy stuff! Or enough young people to send into a foreign country to die for greed. This is what happens when you look at people as resources, rather than as thinking, feeling individuals. The status quo becomes more important than the people who make it up.

Lee Kottner
www.leekottner.com

Mór Rígan said...

I agree Lee and thanks for stopping by. Remember some wingnut blamed the feminists that Dubya hadn't enough soldiers to win his war. If only those *insert feminist cliché here* hadn't had those abortions, they'd be plenty of cannon fodder.

Well I'm not having kids for anyone's agenda. I think we might suffer from fewer wars without the men and women who die as cannon fodder. People are not disposable. In fact, how about a match between the leaders of the opposing countries. I imagine there would not be quite so much warmongering when the leader's head is on the block.