Great news, everybody! Feminists are going on a “sex strike”! That’s right, it’s #Lysistrata2018 and it’s absolutely glorious. Jennifer Wright, political editor-at-large for Harper’s Bazaar, tweeted out the idea on Monday and it’s gaining traction among feminists who don’t understand logic (but I repeat myself).
We're very likely to lose Roe Vs. Wade. Some men may think that doesn't concern them. Make it.
If you're single and dating, add a 👩⚖️ emoji to your dating profiles to show people you won't date/sleep with anyone who doesn't support a woman's right to choose.#Lysistrata2018
— Jennifer Wright (@JenAshleyWright) July 2, 2018
“We’re very likely to lose Roe Vs. Wade,” Wright tweeted, following the announcement of Justice Kennedy’s retirement. “Some men may think that doesn’t concern them. Make it.” That’s right, feminists are protesting a potential abortion ban by — you gotta love ‘em — suggesting women stop doing the thing that could cause them to feel they need an abortion in the first place. Hold the phone, I think feminists just banned abortion!
Sadly, it’s not that simple. Wright suggests women add a female judge emoji to their “dating profiles” to “show people you won’t date/sleep with anyone who doesn’t support a woman’s right to choose.” She then coins the hashtag #Lysistrata2018.
Lysistrata, for those who don’t know, is a comedy by Aristophanes in which women withhold sex from their men in an attempt to end the Peloponnesian War. Wright’s hashtag — and her entire premise — on the other hand, doesn’t actually do anything.
Wright and her supporters — if I’m following the logic correctly, which is to say, not at all — aren’t withholding sex, per se. They’re only signaling their unwillingness to sleep with or date (which, to modern feminists, is pretty much the same thing) anyone who wouldn’t okay an abortion if he accidentally got her pregnant.
It’s possible that Wright thinks that she and all pro-choice women are so mind-blowingly desirable that anyone who sees their “dating profile” is going to suddenly rethink his moral and political stance for a chance to get her into bed. (How’s that going for ya, Jennifer?) But I think what Wright is really saying is that she believes that all women are pro-choice. Otherwise, why target only men?
Wright thinks that if every woman who believed in abortion rights withheld sex from men who were pro-life then there wouldn’t be any women left to sleep with. That’s why she’s using the Lysistrata hashtag. She — like a true modern feminist — thinks she’s sparking a movement in which women use sex as a weapon to convince men to adopt a viewpoint they don’t actually hold in order to get laid. (Because all men want is sex, but gender’s just a social construct, and men and women are exactly the same, but men only care about sex, because they’re men, and men are yucky and gross, but they’re the same as women, who are wonderful and smell like roses, yay feminism.)
But wait! What’s that? Hey feminists, do you hear that sound? It’s the sound of all of us pro-life women out here knocking on your bubble! Knock knock! Guess what? Not all women are pro-choice. (Or, in the time-honored toddler-inspired Twitter version of this: Not all women are pro-choice. Not all women are pro-choice. Not all women are pro-choice. Not all women are pro-choice.)
In fact, a Pew Research Center survey from last year found that just about half (41%) of American women believe abortion should be illegal. Not only that, the same study found that the percentage of pro-choice men was right around the same as the percentage of pro-choice women (55 percent of men felt abortion should be legal). So the idea that men that are the ones threatening poor unsuspecting women with abortion bans is just plain false. (Is Wright calling for pro-choice men to enact a similar sex strike against women who don’t support abortion? She doesn’t seem to be.)
In case any #Lysistrata2018 advocates are reading this, the reason lots of women are pro-life is because it can be your body, your choice when it comes to whom you sleep with, but it’s not your body or your choice when it comes to the life of an unborn human being. And the many, many women in this country who oppose abortion do so because they believe that the unborn baby (the embryo, the fetus, the clump of cells, call it what you will) is a life worth protecting — especially because it can’t protect itself.
So be my guest. Add that lady judge emoji to your dating profile (add a unicorn emoji, for all I care!) but please don’t paint an inaccurate picture of women in America. That’s the patriarchy’s job. I mean, isn’t it?
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