Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum

Say what you will of Andrea Dworkin, but she was spot on in Right-Wing Women that a world in which women's lives were valued only insofar as they engaged in childbearing would be a very scary place for women.

In such a world, women without children would be deemed "not worth much." Their lives pointless.

Why do I bring up this book from 1983?

When in Rome, I suppose.

Over at his blog, conservative Christian Rod Dreher cruelly shares his opinion on the worth of women's lives.  I find a small satisfaction, I suppose, when non/anti-feminists just sort of come right out and say these things.  While some conservative writers keep their repugnant thoughts just below the surface, there's nothing like a "telling it like it is" dude to keep feminists like me from getting too complacent in our victories.

Writing of Gloria Steinem's dedication of her recent book to the doctor who performed her abortion many decades ago, Dreher writes:

"To be 81 years old, to publish a memoir, and to dedicate it to the doctor who killed your unborn child in your womb — what a sad waste of life. Two lives. That dedication is an epitaph and an indictment."

Wow.

NEWFLASH: The Handmaid's Tale was a dystopian novel. Dystopian.

But seriously, if someone of Steinem's accomplishments has wasted her life (and Dreher gets to be the judge of this, because.... umm?) then there is absolutely no hope for the rest of us. Although, over at his blog, there really seems to be no woman, trans person, or "SJW" who is too large or small for Dreher to mock or judge (just like Jesus would do, I'm sure).

What gets me is not Dreher's mean, judgmental tendencies - those, after all, are so expected from a conservative Christian as to be unremarkable. It's the attitude that because a feminist woman's morals differ from his own, she either completely lack morals altogether or, alternately, cannot possibly have lived a useful, meaningful life.

I stand opposite Dreher on many issues, but I would never assume that I have authority to dismiss his entire life's work (or his life, for that matter). Indeed, as some feminist theologians have theorized that male-centric religions such as Christianity mimic and misappropriate a birthing process that men are fundamentally envious of, so too does this your life was pointless since you didn't live by my Christian morals mentality mimic and misappropriate abortion, of sorts.

With one fell swoop, a man deigns to erase a woman's life as "wasted." As though he has that power.  Such is the entitlement that Christianity imbues in some men.

To end, Dreher himself has been promoting his own "teachings" about conservative Christians voluntarily isolating themselves from a SJW-laden, secular society that they can no longer live in since the laws don't replicate/enforce their values upon everyone else. I guess the kindest thought I can share on that front at the moment is good riddance, don't let the door hit ya, etc.