Women’s Rights
One Final Step Required for Women to Reach a Semblance of Equality
Pregnancy and children guarantee inequality, but men’s obligations should be extended past conception to close the gap some
Women have made tremendous progress in their quest for equality. A couple of hundred years ago, they were almost like chattel, although they were treated slightly better than slaves. The husbands and fathers had 100% control over their bodies and their lives. Even the aristocracy used them in arranged marriages to merge houses together or pull some man out of debt.
Amy Lee in her Medium article, The History Behind how Women are Treated in Present-Day Society, provides an excellent description of women’s struggle to pull themselves out of such a hole. That included everything from jobs to voting to owning property. I won’t say that every aspect of life is equal, but most areas have greatly improved, except for one thing:
Women risk all for sex. Men risk nothing.
It’s all based on anatomy. Men cannot get pregnant. Like a pack of dogs chasing a female, they can leave immediately after the act and not even know if the female conceived. The modern-day woman, however, is stuck with a decision to get an abortion or with raising a child for 18 years. Two hundred years ago, a safe abortion was not even a real option.
Give the man an 18-year obligation, too Abortion, miscarriage or full-term delivery
Impact of a pregnancy
In the best case and most common scenario, the woman is married to a man that will provide support for the child. However, in today’s society many marriages end in divorce. In most cases, the woman earns far less money and may even have to fight to get child support from the husband.
A single mother is in even worse shape and gets no child support whatsoever. She may not even know where the father is.
Finally, the mother will most likely take time off from work to care for the baby. Even if it is a short time, that lost worktime slows her rise in the corporate structure.
Same age, but the number of years on the job differ, thus an excuse for different pay
She may even have to start over at the bottom. Men and women, same age and same job, would not have the same years of work experience. That, by itself, ensures a pay difference.
Children significantly impact every aspect of a woman’s life. They do not affect a man’s life to the same degree — not even close. He may voluntarily shoulder some of the responsibility, but not at the same level as the woman.
Then, if the man does not even know about the child, or chooses to ignore the whole thing, a resulting pregnancy has no impact on him.
Society needs to change
The woman generally puts in the time and work to care for the child, just based on anatomy and the structure of the universe.
Men can’t do all things for the child, but they can work for 18 years to provide financial support. The sex act itself would set up the 18-year obligation and a pregnancy would exercise that option. Of course, if no pregnancy resulted, the responsibility for that one encounter would disappear.
Suppose the woman has a miscarriage or abortion. That impacts the woman. It has nothing to do with the man’s obligation! The obligation, itself, still exists just due to the conception and he can pay it to a children’s charity.
Society could support marriage by removing the obligation if the couple was married at conception and a miscarriage occurred, provided the miscarriage was not due to physical abuse.
How to identify a missing father
Record the DNA profile of every baby immediately upon birth into a national database. There is already a national database with footprints, so this is just an extension that can connect the man to the baby.
Then, if the sperm provider was unknown or missing, there would be no questions. Of course, if the woman is married and the husband is the sperm provider, there are no problems.
If the sperm provider is someone other than the husband, that could cause marriage problems. However, the sperm provider would still be saddled with the obligation. Any obligation for the husband would have to be covered by a whole new set of laws.
Some men will argue that they already shoulder a huge burden with their children, but that is not dictated by anatomy. They are volunteers, but that can easily change.
Final impact
Saddling the man with an obligation equal to his child’s life until it becomes an adult will not equalize things, but it is better than zero.
Women still must overcome attitudes built into society, treatment in the workplace, and generally shouldering the majority of the work raising children.
The proposal here equalizes the length of time that the man and woman have some sort of obligation, even though the burden, itself, can never be truly equal.
It won’t happen soon, maybe decades, but now is a excellent time to start talking about it.
