Jessica Valenti

The article I am analyzing today is Jessica Valenti's February 17, 2015, attempt in theguardian.com.

Valenti writes, “There is nothing selfish about wanting to live – it's the most simple, instinctive, human desire there is. Still, most of us – men and women – feel we would lay down our lives for our children; there's an instinct in that, too.”

Valenti is wrong about that. Women won't lay down their lives for their children. (See my entry “America's Feminies”.)

Feminism is the sophistication of deception and Valenti literally has a Master's degree in it. Look it up. In addition to heavy reliance on feminist tricks that I describe in the Guidelines page, Valenti does a lot of dissembling, temporizing, building straw man arguments, contriving melancholy and melodrama, intentionally misunderstanding, sweeping over-generalizations, and uses junior-high-school-girl style sophistry.

Valenti writes, “But there is something about the spectacle of anti-abortion advocates celebrating women who die trying to save their unborn babies that feels a bit too gleeful – they're shockingly unabashed in their pushing the idea that the lives of adult women aren't nearly as important as their ability to bring children into the world.”

Can she name any “shockingly unabashed” pro-life advocates “pushing the idea that the lives of adult women aren't nearly as important as their ability to bring children into the world”?

Men perform heroic acts every day, but it is astonishing when a woman risks her life for the love of her child. It is rare and thus newsworthy when it happens.

Valenti writes, “I am horrified by the zeal with which their stories are repeated to score political points after their deaths or their deaths glamorized in the media as the ultimate parental sacrifice.”

Zeal? (See my entry “Kill the Babies No Apologies”.)

Here is some typical Valenti doggerel:

“I am scared for women who have been taught to believe that the most important, beautiful thing they can do is perish. There are already so many ways in which women jump through hoops in order not to exist: we silence ourselves, making sure we're quiet and unobtrusive; some of us starve ourselves, getting smaller and smaller as to not take up too much space. And this noble disappearing act has become so commonplace that the mere act of being alive – making our voices heard, taking up space, choosing to live – is seen as a disruption of natural order.”

Of course, the opposite is true. American women can communicate as much as they please. Women have never been more overweight and are free to take up the full space of their girth.

And, I wonder if she thought anything of it when she wrote, “choosing to live”. Feminist women have denied the unborn the choice to live and be heard by the tens of millions. A tragic irony.