So the manosphere blogger who calls himself The Red Pill Theorist has managed to work himself into a tizzy over a Wall Street Journal piece by a woman who — gasp! — froze some of her eggs in her 30s in order to give her more time in which to find the right guy with whom to have kids.
In her op-ed, titled “Why I Froze My Eggs (And You Should, Too),” Sarah Elizabeth Richards wrote:
Between the ages of 36 and 38, I spent nearly $50,000 to freeze 70 eggs in the hope that they would help me have a family in my mid-40s, when my natural fertility is gone. For this baby insurance, I obliterated my savings and used up the money my parents had set aside for a wedding. It was the best investment I ever made.
Egg freezing stopped the sadness that I was feeling at losing my chance to have the child I had dreamed about my entire life. It soothed my pangs of regret for frittering away my 20s with a man I didn’t want to have children with, and for wasting more years in my 30s with a man who wasn’t sure he even wanted children. It took away the punishing pressure to seek a new mate and helped me find love again at age 42.
I have a lot of reactions to this op-ed, ranging from “damn that’s a lot of money” to “that’s kind of a sad way to look at your past relationships” to “congratulations to you, I guess, but I don’t think this is really a solution to the work-life dilemma faced by most working would-be-moms.” (See here and here for discussions of this latter issue that are a lot more informed than my gut reaction.)
The Red Pill Theorist had, well, a different reaction, worrying that egg freezing could become a “grrlpower-enabling” technology, much like the birth control pill before it, and predicting that evil Democrats will soon demand that it be covered by Medicaid.
His real worry? That egg freezing will allow women to have sex with a variety of men into their 30s and even — gasp! — their 40s without “settling down” with the hardworking betas who’ve been waiting patiently on the sidelines for a chance to score a little nookie with the ladies before these ladies get completely old and ugly.
If women begin freezing their eggs en-masse at thirty, and embark upon fifteen more years of debauchery, watch out. The current trend of beta misery, female misery, and alpha ecstasy is only going to get worse. Now 30-35 year olds with a lick of sense leap off the carousel with all the alacrity they can muster. But what if they don’t have to? They’ve got frozen eggs, and early-thirties women can be decent looking. There’s going to be a massive increase in the supply of female sexuality in the dating market. We all saw how well that worked out for women in the sixties.
The Red Pill Theorist imagines that somehow these gals will manage to stick those poor, pitiful, endlessly used and abused beta schlubs with the bill:
In the future, there won’t just be divorce-rape. There will be pre-divorce rape. Crafty college gals will extract financial resources from their beta boyfriends to freeze their eggs, and then unhaapyness will set in, and the beta will be stuck with the bill.
His grand conclusion:
Egg freezing is one more brick in the wall of total sexual marketplace deregulation. Bit by bit, the chains that once encircled the hypergamic beast are falling away. There’s never been a better time for men with options, never been a worse time for men without them. … It’s the next sexual revolution, except this time, women 30-40 will get to have some ill-advised fun.
Imagine that. Women in their 30s and 40s. Having fun. The horror!
As far as ProTrolling is concerned – dude, we don’t care what you want, and neither does the government for the most part.
The patriarchy is inherently oppressive. There is no such thing as a kind, gentle patriarchy. It’s a protection racket that doesn’t even keep women protected. As Cloudiah said, go away.
You sound like a sockpuppet because that bullshit about a “kinder, gentler patriarchy” run by women is just that – bullshit. Patriarchy isn’t kind or gentle and it most certainly isn’t run by women, even ones who’ve totally internalised its misogyny. Plus prattling about Dworkin is a standard troll thing, and pretending to be religious is nothing new among the sockpuppets either.
I really want to see an Oglaf of this scene. Though it’s not so different from some already done … 😀
*puts out clove, cracks
knucklesback*Abortion is immoral except when the woman’s life is in danger? (Woman and other’s with uterī, but I’ll get back to that)
Immoral because the fetus has a soul and is thus a person with the same rights as her, right? Abortion is murder, to you, I assume, yes?
So then, it follows, that killing a fetus (baby, in your view) is acceptable to save an adult’s life. But only if the pregnancy will definitely kill her? Probably kill her? She’s suicidal? Let’s start with just the issue of where the line on her physical death is.
Then, riddle me this — what if she can’t afford another kid? Already has kids who will suffer, perhaps starve, if she has another? Is abortion (murdering a baby by your logic) acceptable if it saves, or improved, the lives of multiple, already born, children?
What if she’d have to drop out of school and thus severely harm her own life? Or even ruin it?
What about when the fetus isn’t viable? Probably isn’t viable? Might be viable but will suffer horribly? Probably viable but will suffer? Probably viable but she can’t cope with the birth defects? Does it matter if that means she’ll kill herself? Thus ending the pregnancy would save her life in a literal sense? How about if she financially can’t cope and both she and the fetus (baby to you) would suffer?
How about if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest and she can’t emotionally deal with that? Does she have to be actively suicidal?
You can’t morally claim that it’s sometimes okay to kill one person to save another, which is exactly what the “pro-life unless it’ll endanger the mother” argument is. It isn’t morally consistant. And any, any attempt to define what “endanger the mother” means inherently means some standard medical wording knows the risks better than her and her doctors.
—–
FYI, there are trans* men and non-binary people who can get pregnant. If it wouldn’t have confused you I’d have used uterus-haver and ze instead of mother and she.
That comment is a great example of why the MRM will never achieve mainstream acceptability. Surely even the dimmest bulb should understand that a. sex work is an industry driven by demand rather than supply and b. if you’re looking for a deep emotional connection and genuine affection you’re probably not going to get those things from someone who you’re paying to provide a service.
The MRM: demanding that all women be all things to
all menMRAs all the time. For free.I wish I had a link to the Japanese documentary that I saw where the main complaint of many of the workers was that customers did expect them to provide affection and emotional support on an ongoing basis. The main interview subject was all, dude, that is not what you pay me for, go make some friends.
My one and only goal is to increase the protection of life to whatever extent is feasible in current society. An abortion on a woman whose health is in danger is not great, but it is likely the lesser of two evils. the gray area is difficult I admit and I am developing my position on that. But go ahead and ally with the radical pro-life movement in your attempt to marginalize us moderates. My treatise will also reveal how international corporations have taken over both the mainstream pro-choice and pro-life movements in order to cripple the political system and distract everyone from important truths.
Cassandra and Aliyah, obviously not all women agree with you about the patriarchy being a cage. Lots of women feel that they are better off under a patriarchy than under any new system which might take control. I must defend their freedom to feel that way.
The documentary was about prostitutes specifically. Apparently guys turning up and expecting the workers to be super interested in their lives, remember all their issues with their bosses and conflict with their family or coworkers, and genuinely care about these things was common.
If women want to live in a cage they can go make one for themselves, like the people in Quiverfull do. That doesn’t mean that they, or you, are allowed to shove the rest of us in the same cage.
I agree with all of you here about prostitution though. It’s definitely no place to get affection. I’m not sure if prostitution should be legal or not, but something is deeply wrong with it.
Free choice seems to be the important concept here. Women & men who want to structure their lives as a benevolent patriarchy are already free to do so. You don’t get to impose that on people who don’t want it.
Asshat.
It’s not a matter of opinion. It’s an oppressive system. And no amount of “gentleness” can change that. Sorry.
Any system that treats women as unequal human beings is unjust.
@David Futrelle
The only issue I might have with women freezing their eggs like this, is that based on what I know, it would probably be more and more dangerous for someone to get pregnant the older they get. Might pregnancy carry a higher risk, passed the normal child bearing age? I’m not a physician, and I haven’t done a lot of research on this, so I’m not sure. You can tell me if I’m wrong about this.
Still what Red Pill Theorist has written is so ridiculous its laughable. No harm is going to come to society from women having children later in life, and obviously off course there are a lot of women who never slept around anyway with all the “alpha males” they can find. If he can’t get a girl, it probably has something to do with himself. I find it both disturbing and rather amusing in a way that anyone can think like this.
Also off-topic BUT I JUST FOUND TWO FUCKING SPIDERS IN A BOWL OF CEREAL I WAS ABOUT TO EAT
I hate everything.
Um, no. My position that abortion is between the pregnant person and zir doctor(s) has nothing to do with “attempt[ing] to marginalize us moderates” though “attempt[ing not] to marginalize
us moderatespeople who need, want or have had abortions” is certainly a factor.Ick! Did you just pour it out? If so I’d check the cupboard to see if the rest of the cereal is infested too.
Look on the bright side – at least you saw them rather than realizing they were there after experiencing an unexpected crunchy feeling?
“My goal is to set up a kinder, gentler patriarchy, governed primarily by traditionalist women.”
Wow. What a bunch of bullshit. Either you’re pretending not to know what “patriarchy” means, or you’re so dim, you think the regular posters here would want a “traditionalist” telling them how to run their lives.
” An abortion on a woman whose health is in danger is not great, but it is likely the lesser of two evils.”
Good grief, what are you on about? Clarify. You’re obviously not a doctor.
Oh, and this dreck:
” Lots of women feel that they are better off under a patriarchy than under any new system which might take control. I must defend their freedom to feel that way.”
Can you give some citation please. You want one entire demo to control another. What kind of human being are you exactly?
There’s some sort of odd link between zealotry and an unwarranted sense of persecution. Why else would people like patriarchy loving dude assume that people are out to get him and people like him after some of us have already stated that we just don’t really care what his opinions are? Indifference and persecution are not the same thing.
*flips off Aaliyah*
With the hand not full of granola.
I was pulling my hand from the bag when I saw that. So seconding that ewwwww.
CriticalDragon1177 — I’m neither a doctor nor do I play one on TV, but that’s an individual risk, and pregnancy always carries risks. So yeah, we’re back to “problems for the uterus-haver and zir doctor(s)”
Aaliyah, I was once munching on some granola for a little while and suddenly realized it was filled with ants.
I … am glad you saw the spiders before eating them.
“But go ahead and ally with the radical pro-life movement in your attempt to marginalize us moderates.”
Damn, you don’t even know the meaning of the world moderate. You’re not a moderate.
“But go ahead and ally with the radical pro-life movement in your attempt to marginalize us moderates.”
What the fuck are you on about? The logical end of saying you’re anti choice is clear – it’s in the hospitals where women are allowed to die even when the fetus is being miscarried. Going all mealy-mouthed and saying “Oh but there’s this and that exception” isn’t good enough. Your base point is that you don’t think I, as a woman, get to make the choice about whether I go through pregnancy, childbirth and am stuck with a minimum of twenty years’ responsibility for raising a child. Where are the anti-choicers supporting women? Where are the anti-choicers calling for better-paid jobs and hours for single parents? Where are they calling for cheaper childcare and better educational opportunities? I know they’re not doing it here and they fuckingwell aren’t doing it in the US – they’re more interested in calling single mothers sluts and parasites and trying to make damn sure they fall into a poverty trap they can’t escape.
That’s patriarchy, btw. So kindly shave yourself with a blunt razor and go sit on a cactus, because for all your self-delusion you’re siding with a system that at base hates women.
Yeah, I just poured it out and boom, two huge house spiders. I’m still jittery.
It was one box of cereal among many other old open boxes of cereal. Why they weren’t closed in the first place I have no idea. Anyway, we threw out every single box except for a recently-bought one that was closed.