Shut Up, Sit Down

Over the last couple of days I have been mostly feeling thoroughly disappointed in the F-Word. Generally it’s a blog I enjoy, even if it is not as ‘radical’ as most of the feminist literature I read, because I like being kept up-to-date with what’s going on with feminism in the UK. Of course it’s not perfect, but it tries.

However, Abby O’Reilly’s piece Handbag Babies For The Geriatric was, frankly, disgusting. It is an ageist, anti-choice and anti-woman diatribe which would be more suitable for a column in the Daily Male than in the F-Word. Here’s the first paragraph:

When the late, great Hunter S Thompson said that “reality is more twisted than fiction” he could not have been more accurate. Imagine a world in which dandruff flakes could be used to cultivate a living human embryo before implanting it into the dusty old uterus of a woman approaching her centennial year. Imagine then that this technology was readily available on the NHS, with the streets filled with waning prune-faced pensioners pushing prams filled with babies made of geriatric skin. Sounds like the synopsis of a lurid work of science fiction doesn’t it? Well, sadly it’s not, and such a reality is only 30 years away, according to a recent article championing the “progressiveness” of science in its determination to extend female fertility.

Quote from a dead white man to illustrate one’s point? Check. Alarmist language asking you to “imagine a world…” which is frankly unlikely? Check. Repulsive language used to describe older women (”dusty old uterus”, “geriatric skin”, “waning prune-faced pensioners”)? Check. Not to mention the phrase “Sounds like the synopsis of a lurid work of science fiction doesn’t it?” which manages to not only question the morality of the women in question with the word “lurid” but to also insult the intelligence of the reader - seriously Abby, we knew where you were going with it. The rhetorical question was unnecessary and made me feel like I was watching a bad horror movie trailer.

She then goes into a paragraph about how she feels ‘designer babies’ are wrong. Well I can sort of see her point here, but this paragraph is out of place with the rest of the article. It seems like she is mentioning ‘made-to-order’ babies just so nobody can accuse her of writing an entire article spouting her anti-woman, ageist views. No, she just wrote three-quarters of an article doing so. After this seemingly irrelevant paragraph where she was starting to make at least a little bit of sense, she goes back to the misogyny:

Plus, (not to sugar-coat the truth), there is something morally repugnant about the idea of impregnating a 100-year-old woman, and why is it that science has seen fit to force something on which nature has put a time limit? … A woman of 100 is not infertile because nature has been unkind to her, but because physically she could not nurture a child, nor offer the same sort of support that a younger mother could - her body is doing what it should be by stopping her from getting pregnant.

Well you could also say that an infertile woman of twenty-five is “not infertile because nature has been unkind to her, but because physically she could not nurture a child” so nature has “put a limit” on her. To state that something is “morally repugnant” and should not be allowed is pretty egotistical - who are you to decide how old is too old to have a child? Why is your discomfort with older women conceiving more important than the situation of the woman in question? We don’t accept “I think it’s wrong so nobody should do it!” as an argument when used by the anti-choice crowd, we should not accept it regarding other women’s issues either.

On the subject of the anti-choice crowd, this whole article (again in true Daily Male style) smacks of a poorly written rant by a disgruntled anti-choicer. Just as the anti-choicer pulls up the example of the woman who has an abortion every two months because she can’t be bothered to use condoms as a reason why abortion is immoral (and we all know this is a straw woman who doesn’t really exist except in alarmist arguments from the anti-choice lobby), so Abby O’Reilly pulls up an example of a one hundred year old woman wanting to get pregnant. This woman doesn’t exist any more than the woman who has abortions willy-nilly just for the fun of it.

Ms O’Reilly’s statement that there would be “streets filled with waning prune-faced pensioners pushing prams filled with babies made of geriatric skin” is frankly utter bullshit. I don’t know many one hundred year old women, because sadly there aren’t all that many of them. But I know a few ‘elderly’ women, and I know that were I to ask them if they fancied getting pregnant, they’d laugh in my face and ask me what I’d been smoking. Let’s face it, there isn’t suddenly going to be a surge of old women turning up at the doctors’ surgery demanding impregnation. This trash is just poor journalism, alarmism at its best, and not fit for any feminist website, let alone the F-Word.

Believe it or not, the piece didn’t get the “Right on!” reaction Ms O’Reilly seemed to be expecting; thus far there isn’t a single comment agreeing with her. Every commenter has responded to her ageist language, and a few other than me have called her out on her ridiculous ‘journalism’ and how close she comes to fitting in with the right-wing media. And do you know how she responds? “I apologise if I did cause anyone offence as that was certainly not my intention and I am sorry.” She’s not sorry she made the detestable statements in the first place. She’s not sorry for being ageist or anti-choice. She’s just sorry that her ageism and misogyny offended people. What an empty apology.

I have heard many people say before that the F-Word is a blog for white, middle class, young women. I have heard that it is racist, classist and ageist. I have always argued against such accusations, because it is a blog I like. However, this entry made me think again, and I said so in the comments. Ms O’Reilly tried to make excuses for herself with “for those who have said they are using my post as proof of ageism displayed by The F Word - this post was my opinion and my opinion only.” However, it is impossible for her to not be representing the F-Word because she is writing for them. This was not a personal blog, it was a blog for a well-known feminist web site. There is no such thing as subjectiveness when your words are published by a site like that, because by allowing it to be published they are inherently saying “As a site agree with this behaviour.”

I also find it interesting that none of the other F-Word writers (with the exception of the wonderful Anne Onne) have commented on the piece to call Abby O’Reilly out on her bigotry and prejudice. I am disappointed - in her, in the other writers, and in the editors of the site for letting such an ugly and sickening piece of blatant misogyny be published under the banner of ‘feminism’. I shall be keeping my distance from the F-Word and encouraging others to do the same until both she and the editors take responsibility for what has been done - the exclusion and insulting of older women and the clear hatred of women deciding for themselves what to do with their bodies.

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For those who are interested, I’m not the only one angry about this. Got to Journalesque’s Futile, Frivolous Feminism for Joanne’s take on it.