Follow Up: What I'm Reading

Stephanie writes:

Hey, Casey, Robin, and friends!

Thanks so much for your questions and comments! Sorry for the delay! And thanks so much for the book suggestions! I am trying to track down copies of all three at my library.

What I mean is that because men do not have reproductive rights (ie. they are not at liberty to walk away from pregnancies they do not want via abortion or adoption like women and they not entitled to pregnancies they *do* want if their female counterparts want to go through with an abortion). Feminist often toss it up to the fact that men and women are not equally situated biologically to value women's reproductive rights above men's and I think that's ironic to say the least and in a progressive modern society we ought to move beyond biological claims as a basis for human rights. I do NOT believe in compulsory pregnancy, but I do think there's something to the notion that men should *not* be forced into fatherhood in the same way that women should not be forced into motherhood. I am just looking at one branch on the tree of men's rights activism in America. But it's true that the family law system undermines fatherhood consistently. It should be the default set up when two people divorce that the mother and father get 50/50 child custody, but it's not. In 9 out of 10 cases women are awarded primary custody. And it's true that they are usually the primary caretakers in the family, but my feeling is that we need to stop overvaluing motherhood and undervaluing fatherhood if we want men to feel more invested in parenthood -- the crux of gender inequality in America, "on a cellular level" (to steal from a New Yorker article I just read by Ariel Levy) is the division of labor in the family. Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand so I think its in our interest to give men more custody and reproductive rights or at least reframe the conversation so that their place in it is more central.

Anyways, thanks for your thoughts on all of this and your suggestions!