Rights

Male and Female round 1.

I sit at work and I listen to the radio. Night after night the same song comes on detailing a man's frustration and anger towards his girlfriend who has left him. There are many such songs like it in many forms of music. This is nothing new.

I'm sitting at home, flipping through the various channels when I come across the video to the above mentioned song. Interestingly, given the premise of the song, the video is about a woman who believes her boyfriend left her a note saying he is leaving. She goes on a violent rampage destroying everything in the apartment only to find out at the end that she was mistaken and that he had left to simply get coffee. She shrugs innocently.

It struck me watching this video how much violence towards men by women is presented as being okay within our culture. I was reminded of a Kelly Clarkson (the girl from American Idol) video in which she breaks into her ex's apartment and destroys everything in sight. Once she is finished her act of violence she leaves the apartment seconds before the ex shows up, all the while Kelly is walking down the street wearing a satisfied smile.

I am quite confident that if a video was presented that depicted that level of violence being portrayed by a man towards a woman many feminist and women's rights groups would be up in arms over the fact that the musical acts in question were promoting an attitude of violence towards women. They would probably be right. Violence against women is shameful and wrong. It should not be tolerated whether it is perpetrated by a man or a woman. Therefore violence against men is equally wrong, be it perpetrated by a man or a woman and as such these same groups should be equally up in arms concerning a culture of violence. For that is what is at the heart of the matter. It's not necessarily men vs. women but the simple fact that human beings are violent and cruel towards one another.

Of course the topper is the Dixie Chicks song about 'Earl'. Many of the women I know (who are into country music) love this song. It is about a woman who gets married to some low-life who beats her. She picks up the phone one day after having taken enough and calls her lifelong friend who comes to her friends aid. They kill Earl and bury his remains out in the bush and then go on with their lives operating a diner. At the end the killing is celebrated with the reanimated corpse coming back and dancing a little two-step for his killers. Talk about promotion of violence. This video depicts pre-meditated murder (1st degree murder) and then the subsequent covering up of the crime with no remorse. I understand that they are prefacing this horrible act with the notion of domestic abuse but if the wife has the ability to call a friend from out of state and have her come and stay perhaps she could have called the police and got out.

Of course no one says a word. Again if this was reversed and a male act portrayed the same incident in reverse women's rights groups would be up in arms demanding that the song, video and album all be banned. Nope. Nothing. Women committing violence against men so it is apparently okay. This is of course ludicrous as the notion of violence is in and of itself wrong regardless of the gender of either the perpetrator or victim.


Male and Female round 2.
I was thinking a while ago while watching some tv show (can't remember which one) about the rights of men as it concerns abortion. As of right now we have none. It is argued (and I am not going to debate the issue here) that a woman's body is her own and therefore she has the right to terminate a pregnancy if she so wishes. Fine, but what about the man involved. I am assuming that the woman in question did not pay thousands of dollars to be artificially insiminated just to turn around and abort the pregnancy. A man and a woman get together and the woman ends up pregnant (we'll say it was an honest mistake). If she wants the baby as well as the man there is the chance for happily-ever-after. If she wants the baby and he does not he is on the tab for child support payments for 18 years. If she doesn't want the baby and he does she aborts it and he is left hurt and violated.

Why is it that men have no rights in this issue? It seems to me to highly unfair especially the instances of (perhaps rare) pregnancy by entrapment. Instances where a woman lies to a man about using birth control or going so far as to damage a profolactic in order to get pregnant. So the options for a man are as follows:

1. get a girl pregnant and hopefully they both want it
2. get a girl pregnant and pay for the next 18 years because you don't want it
3. get a girl pregnant and be victimized emotionally when the woman decides she doesn't want it

So unless both parties want the child the man has little options. So what I propose is a male abortion. In Canada abortions are legal well into the 3rd trimester so I propose that once a man is notified that he has gotten a woman pregnant he has 90 days (this can be tinkered with a bit) to go to court and absolve himself of any rights, obligations, etc. towards the pregnancy in question and any subsequent child that might be born. In essence he is aborting the pregnancy.

Of course its not an easy decision but I think 90 days provides sufficient time to come to terms with the issue and work things out or not with the woman involved. Therefore the woman in question would have sufficient time to decide then (if the man in question decided to abort the pregnancy) whether or not she wished to continue the pregnancy knowing that she would be alone (other than family or friends support) in the venture. This to mean seems fair. If no woman should be forced to carry on with a pregnancy that she doesn't want then why should a man. They both knew the potential consequences of their having sex so one should not be treated differently than the other.