Why Feminists Should Vote for Prop. 8

would make a terrible politician. I have my opinions, but I hate holding hands politically with folks whom I find abhorrent in their argumentation. Heaven help me if I had to "pal around with" bigots (as Sarah Palin would say). I prefer to cut my own path...and be lonely in the process if necessary. Indeed, my approach makes me few friends...I have to fight back the opposition while fending off folks who are trying to "help" me.

So some may wonder why I talk so much about this topic. One reason, of course, is because it's more than a little controversial. And I would be lying if I said I didn't dig that. I like getting into hot water; it keeps me clean, as one wise philosopher once noted. The other reason is pragmatic. I would write as vociferously about the Iraq war, but there are plenty of others who do that and far more eloquently. I would write about global warming, but other than cutting back on my gas guzzling, write a few letters, and appear in a few rallies, there's not much that I can contribute that can't be done better by someone else. Plus I am not a scientist so will probably not be able to form the kind of opinion I need to feel passionately about it. I fear that if I were to start reading up on it, I would not be able to tell up from down. But I digress...

Feminism has been the ideology d'jour to promote the rights of homosexual couples. It is understandable that they would. After all, it was Adrienne Rich, the famed literary critic a la feminism (that's a shout out to Ashley Sanders...hi Ash!) who argued that women by their very natures lesbians and had only been coerced or had sold themselves for the economic securities of heterosexuality. Elaine Showalter, while more moderate in her remarks, has argued that women should stop both protesting and imitating, as both demonstrate their dependence on men. Touche, Sister Showalter ONe might look to others such as Nancy Chowderow or Nancy Jones for more solid feminist analysis.

I recognize that in citing feminists in opposition to homosexual marriage, I am severely bucking academic orthodoxy. But last I checked, academics liked doing that, so they should be willing to indulge me a little as I do the same.

But must I accept their conclusions if I accept their reasoning? If I accept that women have been oppressed, must we conclude that they should just stay to themselves? As the prominent feminist historian, Joan Scott noted, such a practice would equate ghettoization of the worst order. Typically we speak of ghettoization in literature...now they're speaking of lives!

Furthermore, legitimzing lesbian unions seems to be the ultimate DELEGITMIZATION of women's contribution to our society. By legitimizing them, we are suggesting that woman ultimately have nothing to offer a child that a man can't offer. No singularity. No special perks. They would become simply homo sapiens in skirts. Men would begin having easier access to adoptive services on the basis of financial well-being (all other things being equal of course). And worse, they're concluding that anything a female mother can do, a man can do just as well. Before women know it, they've been cut out of the pie in their efforts to protest against men.

Legitimizing homosexual unions is concluding that one's female identity is nothing more than a genetic quirk that has nothing to do with parenting. Femininity is a construct...something that man can give and man can take away. Look at a bit of Foucault's work History of Sexuality --such tenets are accepted within the academy and out on the street. One's gender is fluid and can be played with at will. Within religious circles, they're not doing much better on this question...all they've got is "God made me this way"...and even then, that gender is only life-long, not to have much relevance in the life hereafter.

But, Russ, what a caricature you draw! Not really. If men can come to dominate the power structures, then homosexual men would do the same. The best way to preserve women's claim to power in the parenting structure is to support Prop. 8 if only for adoption purposes. As Showalter noted, stop trying to imitate men and start exercising your own power by keeping the men from taking away the parental rights that are properly yours.


But don't listen to me...I'm just a man. You know how important your role as a woman is to society. Fight for it. Drink it up. Live it.