American Taliban.
Yes it definitely shouldn’t be controversial to say that half of humanity = mere objects to be exchanged and used by the other half.
American Taliban.
Yes it definitely shouldn’t be controversial to say that half of humanity = mere objects to be exchanged and used by the other half.
Comments
26 responses to “Guard the opening”
I knew a guy who said he would lock his daughters in their room as soon as they reached puberty; if they asked for birth control, he would refuse. I told him, be prepared for pregnant daughters. Fortunately, he only had sons.
Iknklast, unfortunately he is raising more misogynists.
So true, Eava. There is nothing good that can come out of attitudes like that…other than he is the one who caused me to rethink whether or not religion is a force for good.
That’s certainly one way to interpret the tweet (or whatever they’re called now on X). I think one could reasonably adopt a different perspective, though, that it represents not control but a healthy protective impulse born of familial love. That is, it would be little different from the impulse to make sure that your aging mother makes it safely to her hip replacement surgery by driving her to the hospital yourself and staying with her until it’s time for the operation, not being satisfied with just calling up a ride via Uber and wishing her well. Yes, the phrase “husband’s roof” does carry echoes of sexist property rights, but it’s also just, ya know, more elegant than alternative constructions.
(My account has been suspended for years now, so I can’t see any of the tweet’s replies, so he may clarify his view as pure sexism.)
Nullius, that is most definitely not a healthy protective impulse: it’s obsessive, controlling, possessive and deeply creepy.
Really? I’d think that not accompanying one’s mother to major surgery would be the callous, unloving, creepy thing.
I dispute that one can reasonably adopt the perspective that it represents not control but a healthy protective impulse born of familial love. If it were the latter it would be worded accordingly, as in, “My daughters are and will always be welcome under my roof, as will their children.” Simple, clear, loving, and without the authoritarian note. The way he put it he sounds like the warden of a very harsh prison.
Hm, it could certainly be worded that way, but then it wouldn’t convey the parental obligation of protection. Let’s see if I can rewrite it more palatably:
“I will be a shield for my daughter, and I will happily suffer any injury in her place as long as I draw breath or until she finds someone to relieve me of my duty.”
Now, one might argue that this is paternalistic, but it’s really not. It’s paternal.
Well sure, and it’s also completely different from what the guy actually said.
And since we’re being pedantic, I’ll just add that things can’t be worded “palatably.” Acceptably, tolerably, pleasantly, decently, yes, but palatably, no.
Pedant fight! :) Cambridge disagrees: palatably.
While the wording is different, I think it’s a plausible translation of intent, given the way that a whole bunch of people understand “under my roof” in a parental context, especially men, and the way that many conservatives view a father’s responsibilities in a quasi-martial way.
That I think this a reasonable interpretation doesn’t mean I think yours unreasonable, by the way. I can one hundred percent see that reading as valid and supported.
Cambridge is WRONG. Palatable=tastes ok. I’ll have none of this sloppy soppy weak-minded “Popularity trumps meaning” nonsense.
As for the substantive issue, I think “and nowhere else in between” is unmistakably coercive and bullying. But the whole thing is, really, because of the “my daughters will” part. He’s saying his daughters don’t get any choice in how they live their lives. He won’t let them go to university far from home (and perhaps he won’t let them go at all), and he won’t let them live independently ever. He’s treating them like packages he’s sending from the local UPS store to another UPS store.
And they WILL marry, and they will marry men.
That tweet is about coercive control and nothing else. Sure, the misogynist who thinks that maintaining his daughters ‘purity’ before marriage (at which point they become the husbands problem) may view that as protection. but that’s the kind of protection you provide for a car, or maybe a horse. Not an independent, functioning human with their own desires.
“or maybe a horse” would be a good title for a book on coercive control.
Ophelia: Ha! What about the OED? Looks like it’s attested for several hundred years now.
And I do understand your reading. The use of definite forms of simple future indicates an inevitability. “Under my roof” can be understood as “under my authority and dominion”, with a similar meaning for “under their husbands’ roofs”. That there will be “nowhere else between” suggests that the daughters will have no moment of autonomous existence, and there are no other possibilities for them. They will be his property to dispose with at his whim until those property rights are duly transferred to men of whom he, not they, approves. They are not persons; they are breeding stock.
I get it. You’re probably right, too.
All I’m saying is that this isn’t the only common mindset in which one could write or utter those words, because they’re laden with metaphors whose meaning is subjective.
@ OB #13
That’s what rankles me. He thinks he owns them. They have no choice or agency. They can’t choose their own lives, they can’t choose their own careers, they can’t choose their own partners (NOT “approved by daddy”). The father’s original statement is not “paternal.” It’s proprietary and misogynist. It can’t be whitewashed into something loving and caring: this same father would never write anything remotely similar about a son. Only men have agency, power, or control. Females are property to be owned by men. Only one thing about the female has value to a male: she is but a receptacle for male penises. Her fuckability is the only thing that matters. Fathers own daughters to prevent anyone from fucking them, until they are transferred to a new owner, who then possesses all the fucking rights. Men own women’s bodies. I don’t think there’s any other reasonable way to interpret the twit. Only when read through men-colored glasses can that twit seem okay. Women read the menace in it. It’s bone-chilling in its hatred, not loving or benevolent.
Nullius, I have to agree with Ophelia. I don’t see any way that can be read as protective or paternal, but not authoritative. It’s creepy. It’s scary. It’s downright medieval, especially the part about the daughter staying under his roof until she marries a man WITH HIS APPROVAL. I come from a very paternal family, but all the daughters got to live away from home, hold jobs, go to college (if desired; I was the only one who desired), and my father, patriarchal as he could be, would find that tweet creepy and inappropriate. Paternal is one thing; authoritarian is another.
When his daughters get married, won’t they then own half of the roof they live under?
They might as well be goldfish. They will live in my bowl until some other guy I approve of wants them in his bowl.
@ Catwhisperer #20
Depends on the law of each state. In the 8 community property states, there is a presumption of equal ownership of property acquired during the marriage. But it would have to be acquired during the marriage. Property owned before marriage is the separate property of that spouse.
Really, Nullius? Did you honestly believe that I was referring to your example of an act familial love rather than your ‘reasonable’ alternative interpretation of the guy’s tweet? I’m sure you’ll tell me that I wasn’t clear enough in my response to you, that I should have been specific about which part of your comment I was disagreeing with, but I think it was pretty obvious what I meant.
I can’t read this as being anything other than a stifling level of control for the daughters. Pantile is saying that his daughters won’t get to leave his house except to be handed over to the control of another man (and that man must be one who is deemed acceptable to the father).
This isn’t paternal loving protectiveness so much as concern about doing an appropriate property transfer. I absolutely understand the idea of a parent wanting to protect a helpless and vulnerable child (and yes, there are more hazards for the females). But I have always believed that loving parenting is about working with a child to help them to become a strong, self-reliant, independent agent (yes, even girl-children). This guy seems to think that his job is to keep “his” daughters virgins until he can hand them over to their new “owner”. (I’m trying to imagine the hellish experience of being his daughter, and I don’t think it would be much better to be his son.)
AoS @ 23 – I took that obvious misreading to be a snide joke of some sort, but for what purpose I have no idea. I’m baffled by the whole back and forth.
Nullius @ 17 – Sorry, I forgot to reply to you.
Laden with metaphors? How? The only thing I can see that’s close to a metaphor is the word “roof” as a synecdoche for house or at home. Not much of a metaphor and not particularly ambiguous. His meaning seems unpleasantly clear to me.