I wasn’t able to find the exact quote that I wanted, which dealt with the fact that for much of the 20th-Century women had no legal right to deny their husband’s sexual advances, no right to contraception, and no right to abortion. The combination of these factors could result in terrible situations when, for example, a woman had been advised by her doctor that she would not survive another childbirth. In such a case, a husband would be committing an act of murder by having sexual relations with his wife, and she would have no legal recourse to prevent her own death. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell argued strenuously against maintaining a society so lop-sided against the interests, health, and safety of women. Here are some other quotes from Russell that touch on the same points.
“Marriage is for woman the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.”- Bertrand Russell (1929), Marriage and Morals.
“At present, wives, just as much as prostitutes, live by the sale of their sexual charms; and even in temporary free relations the man is usually expected to bear all the joint expenses. The result is that there is a sordid entanglement of money with sex, and that women’s motives not infrequently have a mercenary element. Sex, even when blessed by the Church, ought not to be a profession. It is right that a woman should be paid for housekeeping or cooking or the care of children, but not merely for having sexual relations with a man.” – Bertrand Russell (1936), On Sexual Ethics.
“Supposing that in this world that we live in today an inexperienced girl is married to a syphilitic man; in that case the Catholic Church says, “This is an indissoluble sacrament. You must endure celibacy or stay together. And if you stay together, you must not use birth control to prevent the birth of syphilitic children.” Nobody whose natural sympathies have not been warped by dogma, or whose moral nature was not absolutely dead to all sense of suffering, could maintain that it is right and proper that that state of things should continue.”- Bertrand Russell (1957), Why I am Not a Christian.
One way of looking at this is that a woman cannot be fully in control of her own body and her own reproductive choices unless she is financially independent. And if a woman is sexually active, she cannot be fully in control of her own body and reproductive choices unless she has the legal right to say ‘no’ even to her husband, and the right and access to methods of contraception. And, since contraception sometimes fails, she cannot have the full control of her body and reproductive choices unless she also has the right to an abortion.
The latter half of the 20th-Century saw our society gradually acknowledge these facts and codify them into law. And we made great progress. But, going back to the first point, without true financial independence, there will always been some transactional or mercenary element in many women’s sexual decisions. Many women must consider the financial consequences of saying ‘no’ to men who provide for them. And how many women are truly financially independent?
In light of these considerations, let look at something James Taranto wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal:
[Sociologist Amy] Schalet’s most interesting assertion is that “the American boys I interviewed seemed more nervous about the consequences of sex than American girls.” It’s not clear if she interviewed girls as well as boys, but she offers this further point of comparison: “The 2002 National Survey of Family Growth found that more than one-third of teenage boys, but only one-quarter of teenage girls, cited wanting to avoid pregnancy or disease as the main reason they had not yet had sex.”
Given that nature imposes the physical burden of pregnancy on the female of the species, that sounds counterintuitive. And it’s possible that some of the boys in the survey, mindful of what Schalet quotes another sociologist as calling “the stigma of virginity,” are rationalizing away their lack of success with girls by chalking it up to prudence.
At the same time, there is good reason for males (men as well as boys) to be more fearful of sex than females. Contemporary reproductive technology and law place all the burden for unwanted pregnancy on them. Between the pill and abortion, women have complete control over the reproductive process. They can avoid or end any unwanted pregnancy, and the man involved has no say in the matter.
There are some obviously stupid things here. How many men and women have experienced a broken condom or discovered that the pill did not work? Unless a contraceptive method is foolproof, there is no way that a woman can avoid “any unwanted pregnancy.” In any case, it’s just false that getting abortion will prevent an unwanted pregnancy. It’s hard to make a stupider comment than that. Then there are the countless cases of rape that occur in our society, where the woman had zero control of the reproductive process. But even without considering all these facts, many women discover in their daily lives that it is necessary to submit to sexual relations that they might otherwise avoid. I wrote about one obvious case just last week.
Esmeralda Murillo, a 21-year-old mother of two, lost her welfare check, landed in a shelter and then returned to a boyfriend whose violent temper had driven her away. “You don’t know who to turn to,” she said.
Here’s a woman who quite sensibly left her abusive boyfriend in an effort to protect herself and her two children. She lost her welfare check and then faced the decision of staying in a shelter or returning to her abusive boyfriend. We can be fairly certain that one of the conditions of her return is that she submit to occasional sexual relations (let’s not even focus on submitting to beatings).
In what sense is Esmeralda Murillo in complete control of her sex life and reproductive decisions? Who has more to fear from sex: Ms. Murillo or her boyfriend?
When progressives fight for women to get equal pay for equal work, for a higher minimum wage, for affordable college loans, for access to contraception, for abortion rights, and for a federal role in protecting women against violence, we are fighting for people like Ms. Murillo. We’re fighting for all women who aren’t financially independent and who might be locked in loveless, mercenary, transactional, and perhaps dangerous relationships.
It’s obvious that James Taranto doesn’t understand any of this.
