… or should it be Modesty? Both?
(c) 2018, Davd
Judge Brett Kavanaugh is now one of the United States Supreme Court. That country’s National Public Radio website referred to his presence there as “creating a conservative majority on the nation’s highest court for years to come.” I myself would not be that brave about forecasting the remaining lifespan of nine specific people, all over 40 [over 50?] years old; but plainly, President Trump and his supporters have put a strongly conservative judge on the court that has the final say.
One reason i am glad of that, is that conservative almost certainly means “pro life” (or anti-abortion) and i myself oppose convenience abortion (and more generally, oppose elective abortion.) Kavanaugh should not be expected to disregard precedent, but can be expected to vote to restrict access to abortion rather than liberalize it.
I have published why i am “pro-life”, already; but i consider one reason important enough to repeat: Biologically, abortion is homicide. This can be explicated in four statements so obviously true that they would be accepted “with judicial notice” in most courts of law:
‣ A foetus is alive.
‣ A foetus is animal life rather than plant, fungus, bacteria, ;etc.
‣ Zoologically, a foetus belongs to the human species.
‣ A foetus is genetically and anatomically distinct from its mother.
Ergo, a foetus is a distinct human life. Killing a foetus is homicide.
Legalistically, a legislature (or a monarch, dictator, etc. ad naus.) can “deem” that a foetus is part of its mother’s body. Such a ‘deeming’ makes the law a liar, scientifically and factually. Biologically, abortion is still homicide. Morally, therefore, it is still wrong. I choose morality far ahead of legal fiction. I am glad that the USA, which has much influence on Canada, is likely to make elective abortion less easily available.
Much of Feminism supports convenience abortion. Canada’s Feminist Liberal government angered many morally sensitive people by requiring that to receive summer job funding this year, organizations endorse on the record, the deceitful euphemism “reproductive rights”. It is understandable that Feminists would oppose adding Kavanaugh to the U. S. Supreme Court because he is a threat to “abortion rights”. (It is also semantically fair to refer to “homicidal Feminism”.)
Improving the consistency between law and biological science, biological fact — making the law more moral, more condemning of homicide — is one main reason i am glad Kavanaugh is now an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Notice, please, that my “pro-life” basis for valuing Kavanaugh’s presence on the United States Supreme Court, was not conspicuous in the big media Soap Opera1 about his confirmation. I do not remember reading the word abortion in that Soap Opera2.
The big media Soap Opera has been about women remembering him making sexual advances toward them. Those memories are suspect for reasons of time — 35-36 years have gone by since they supposedly happened — and of selection for consistency with the biases of the people reporting them.3
True, false, or in between, those memories are more appealing media content, especially from the point of view of Feminists and the media, than abortion.
Abortion is a poor public theme for politicking. Sexual harassment is much more politically correct as a topic (though from my moral perspective, it should not be, unless immodesty is included in it.) The Feminist opponents of the Kavanaugh nomination played to their supporter base…
… and that supporter base seemed to accept, in some cases to practice, showing off women’s sexuality. The photos of the women protesting the Kavanaugh appointment include some whose dress shows off enough of their sexuality to constitute harassment of men.4
Women can, and many women do, avoid harassing men with displays of their sexuality: They dress and speak and posture, modestly. I do oppose men harassing women sexually; i also oppose women harassing men sexually; and there are much less blatant ways to harass than “groping” and propositioning. I suggested in a blog in 2016, that these less blatant forms of harassment be taxed as alcohol, tobacco (and very soon, cannabis) are taxed, at rather higher rates than general sales tax.
Taxing immodesty is better than encouraging it. Requiring modesty in schools and workplaces, is a further step that would do much more good than harm — indeed, might do much good and no harm at all5. Disciplining visual sexual harassment might even go so far as to make immodesty a defence to charges of harassment and sexual assault, as self-defence is a defence to charges of assault and murder. It is arrant, privileged nonsense to claim a “right” to show off one’s sexuality and require those who observe the show not to respond. If you don’t want boys and men to respond, don’t show it off.
I do not expect President Trump to make modesty a main theme of his campaigning between now and Voting Day. I would be glad if he did, but I have read several reports that he likes looking at women displaying their sexuality. (On the other hand, his wife has lately been pictured with dress and manner almost as modest as those of Theresa May, Angele Merkel and longer ago, Margaret Thatcher. If President and Mrs. Trump have chosen modesty as a new theme for them to advance — good.)
References:
Blatchford, Christie, 2016. “Some of us escaped the groping back then.” National Post Full Comment, October 14. Her recollections match mine—the sexually aggressive were a small minority of men [and of women].
Loftus, Elizabeth, and Katherine Ketchum, 1996. The Myth of Repressed Memories: False Memories and the Accusations of Sexual Abuse . New York: St. Martin’s Press
Nathanson, Paul, and Katherine K. Young, 2006. Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination against Men. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Vincent, Norah, 2006. Self Made Man: One Woman’s Year Disguised as a Man. New York: Viking Penguin.
Notes: follow in most html displays
1. Soap Opera is called Soap Opera because its type — dominated by overwrought feelings — became common decades ago on daytime television (and before that, midday radio) programs in the USA. At that time in the USA, most married women worked at home, “doing housework”, while their husbands worked away from home (usually 5-50 minutes away) and their children who were old enough to listen to radio or television, were at school. The audience for Soap Opera was almost entirely women. The feelings based stereotypes it featured appealed to more of those women than of men or children, The advertising that paid for it was — products used in doing housework, especially cleaning supplies — plus other products appealing mainly to women.
Advertisers who appealed mainly to men chose evening and weekend “time slots”; those who appealed mainly to children, the time slots between the end of the school day and the dinner hour. The dinner hour itself was often covered by news programs, which might appeal to everyone capable of understanding the news.
2. I watch so little television via either cable or the Internet, that while i can say i never heard the word abortion, that doesn’t constitute much of a witness report about video.
3. Summarizing Loftus et al [e.g. 1996], Nathanson and Young write [2006: 15]: “Memories are weakest when associated with either low levels of arousal (such as boredom or sleepiness) or high levels of arousal (stress or trauma). In short, memory is fragile and disintegrates gradually. It is prone to suggestion, moreover, not autonomous.”
4. One book i reviewed in 2016 recounted a vignette of a decent working class man talking about distraction… and since the author was a Lesbian columnist disguised as a man, it seems very safe to trust her account as honest, and not misogynist at all. Norah Vincent quotes Jim, one of the men with whom she bowled, saying,
He made a dumbfounded expression”. [Vincent, 2006: 35]
5, Reducing distraction would facilitate learning, which is what schools ought to be about. Modesty should also reduce unwanted sexual advances, very possibly to zero. When sports journalist Blatchford wrote “Even men I wrote critically about, and who fought dirty, were never sexually aggressive with me or anyone else that I saw. … when .. story came out I consciously searched m[y memory] … Yet I can’t remember a single man pushing himself onto me, let alone physically grabbing at me, in the course of my work.” … I read that to say that she was modestly dressed and behaved, and the athletes and other men she watched and wrote about, respected that.
