New at Reason

David Weigel | August 15, 2006

Cathy Young asks if a modern woman needs the National Organization for Women like a fish needs a bicycle.

Comments

|8.15.06 @ 2:03AM|#

Just another ageing organization that has strayed from its founding mission while most of its original goals have largely been met. See also: NATO, MADD.

|8.15.06 @ 5:33AM|#

I've been wondering and am happy NOW have been brought up:

If the right to choose is a right based on "Their body their choice", can we gain support for drug legalization based on the same principle? How would they respond to that?

Ron Hardin|8.15.06 @ 8:11AM|#

NOW is dedicated to the proposition that women first and foremost are human beings, who... must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential.

That deep down we are all as neuter as pine boards doesn't seem to be true, though.

Wm. Kerrigan :

We are men and women. It almost always matters which we
are. Men and women are aggressive. Their regard for each
other is clouded by grudges, suspicions, fears, needs, desires,
and nacrissistic postures. There's no scrubbing them out. The
best you can hope for is domestication, as in football, rock,
humor, happy marriage, and a good prose style. Jokes trade on
offensiveness; PC is not a funny dialect. The unconscious is
a joker, a sexist and aggressive creature. Our sexuality has
always been scandalous. _Raritan_ XI:3 p.103

What holds the interests of women differs considerably from what holds the interests of men.

|8.15.06 @ 8:57AM|#

The women's "movement" has been behind the curve for thirty years. Just like the labor movement, they have run out of pertinent issues. And truly relevant topics such as birth control and abortion are not the sole province of women. They are human concerns and need to be addressed by all of us.

|8.15.06 @ 10:58AM|#

Lamar,

The "F" stands for "Freeper."

|8.15.06 @ 1:32PM|#

I admired NOW when it was about providing women choices. And today, I believe women have them. But NOW today is all about making sure women don't have to choose -- it's about promising young women that they "can have it all" without self-managing the consequences of their chosen paths.

One of NOW's more odious campaigns these days, at least to my way of thinking, is mommy comp: the gub'mint and/or private employers should pay mommies to stay home and do the most important job in the world™, because mommies have figured out that, DUH, wiping up strained bananas, watching Blues Clues, and changing sh*tty diapers for no pay sucks! And surprise surprise, employers don't want to pay you full salary and benefits for a half or a third of the work, seeing's how your employer had nothing to do with your private decision to increase your family size.

Nobody can have it all. You choose, and then you suck up the consequences of that choice. Providing choice is great. Expecting others to subsidize those choices stinks.

|8.15.06 @ 3:19PM|#

zero,

As a stay-at-home father, I can assure you that time spent with a child (well, MINE anyway) doesn't suck. In fact, it's pretty darn cool.

As you point out, the pay isn't great (nor should it be), but my wife gives me an allowance, and that counts for something.

|8.15.06 @ 3:28PM|#

This darned country started into the shitcan when we started letting women vote and drive cars. Cripes, letting 'em smoke was bad enough. :P

|8.15.06 @ 5:25PM|#

I always thought if I were to start a mens' rights organization, I'd call it the Fish Bikers. If nothing else, the t-shirts would be really cool...

|8.16.06 @ 7:01AM|#

Obligatory T-shirt link: http://catandgirl.com/store/fish.php