Packs a punch! I couldn't make the convention this year so this post covering your keynote is the next best thing. Thanks so much for sharing it here, sister!
Thank you so much for writing this, Mary Lou, this is one of the most important issues of our time. And wow, reading it all of these issues put together is so powerful and also strengthening for the opposition against these technologies, for those of us who are committed to reclaiming sovereign, instinctual birth and mothering and womanhood. It feels like everything is happening behind the scenes and there's not much we can do to change the trajectory. Things really do seem to be going along divergent paths - the technology as lifeway and religion, and then those of us who are repelled by the thought of altering our intelligent and divine biology in such ways. I always go between eternal optimism and then realism/pessimism when I hear about the kinds of things elite men (and others) are plotting...
I view your premise as 100% accurate, but 99% complete. For example, I am Jewish, because my mother was, and Jewish tradition, as she practiced it, observed matrilineal descent. Although I came of age in a state in which law proclaimed a husband the literal “head and master” of the marriage, my mother was the de facto authority of our household, despite my father’s ineffectual posturing to the contrary. But that’s a less-than-one-percent quibble. My larger concern is that, while everything you wrote about men is true, it is not true of all men. We are not of one mind. Which is to say, we do not all subvert and oppress women. If you don’t leave at least some of us room to exceed your expectations, we will live down to them, because, yeah, men. And that is the rest of the one percent that bothers me. All considered, I finished your essay knowing far more than when I started. I’ll likely read it several times, and learn yet more, but it has already refined my thinking for the better. I’ve shared it with the two women who call me Dad (awkward phrasing, that, but given the context, I dare not refer to them as my daughters), and I’m sure we three will discuss it at length. So, well done, you!
Absolutely brilliant. I oppose these technologies that rob us of empowered motherhood. Empowered people empower others and you are one of those people. The next seven generations will thank you.
You make so many excellent points. Where to start? Just nodding the whole way through this.
I despise surrogacy of any kind. If it wasn’t meant to be, leave it.
Harsh but true.
The photos of celebs using others to birth ‘for them’ acquiring kids like accessories is frankly sickening. Ditto the trend for two guys, usually with one trying to have ‘milk’ come in to ‘feed’ a baby (or a fetish?). Like you I have strong feelings about all of this stuff. It’s gone too far.
Babies are not commodities and women are not warehouses. Is nothing sacred?
The birthing stuff too. How I hated being told to get stay on my back, feet in stirrups resisting my primal urge to squat or get on all fours because ‘baby doesn’t like that’. Wtaf! That birth traumatised me.
But we - women - need to say more, do more.
We have so much power and need to take back ownership of it.
Interesting Articles ! Have illustrated SF and had numerous illustrations Published since 1975 , but of the 100’s & 100’s of published articles and stories _ really only a few touch or are concerned with these Topics … Lots to think about ~
Packs a punch! I couldn't make the convention this year so this post covering your keynote is the next best thing. Thanks so much for sharing it here, sister!
Thank you so much for writing this, Mary Lou, this is one of the most important issues of our time. And wow, reading it all of these issues put together is so powerful and also strengthening for the opposition against these technologies, for those of us who are committed to reclaiming sovereign, instinctual birth and mothering and womanhood. It feels like everything is happening behind the scenes and there's not much we can do to change the trajectory. Things really do seem to be going along divergent paths - the technology as lifeway and religion, and then those of us who are repelled by the thought of altering our intelligent and divine biology in such ways. I always go between eternal optimism and then realism/pessimism when I hear about the kinds of things elite men (and others) are plotting...
I view your premise as 100% accurate, but 99% complete. For example, I am Jewish, because my mother was, and Jewish tradition, as she practiced it, observed matrilineal descent. Although I came of age in a state in which law proclaimed a husband the literal “head and master” of the marriage, my mother was the de facto authority of our household, despite my father’s ineffectual posturing to the contrary. But that’s a less-than-one-percent quibble. My larger concern is that, while everything you wrote about men is true, it is not true of all men. We are not of one mind. Which is to say, we do not all subvert and oppress women. If you don’t leave at least some of us room to exceed your expectations, we will live down to them, because, yeah, men. And that is the rest of the one percent that bothers me. All considered, I finished your essay knowing far more than when I started. I’ll likely read it several times, and learn yet more, but it has already refined my thinking for the better. I’ve shared it with the two women who call me Dad (awkward phrasing, that, but given the context, I dare not refer to them as my daughters), and I’m sure we three will discuss it at length. So, well done, you!
Absolutely brilliant. I oppose these technologies that rob us of empowered motherhood. Empowered people empower others and you are one of those people. The next seven generations will thank you.
Passionate and well researched.
You make so many excellent points. Where to start? Just nodding the whole way through this.
I despise surrogacy of any kind. If it wasn’t meant to be, leave it.
Harsh but true.
The photos of celebs using others to birth ‘for them’ acquiring kids like accessories is frankly sickening. Ditto the trend for two guys, usually with one trying to have ‘milk’ come in to ‘feed’ a baby (or a fetish?). Like you I have strong feelings about all of this stuff. It’s gone too far.
Babies are not commodities and women are not warehouses. Is nothing sacred?
The birthing stuff too. How I hated being told to get stay on my back, feet in stirrups resisting my primal urge to squat or get on all fours because ‘baby doesn’t like that’. Wtaf! That birth traumatised me.
But we - women - need to say more, do more.
We have so much power and need to take back ownership of it.
Thanks for this. More of us need to become aware of these realities. They are truly dystopic and awful.
Interesting Articles ! Have illustrated SF and had numerous illustrations Published since 1975 , but of the 100’s & 100’s of published articles and stories _ really only a few touch or are concerned with these Topics … Lots to think about ~
Yours and best, Val Lakey Lindahn
Wow. Thank you.