Jenny’s Pennies

So it’s Pentecost (a.k.a. Whitsun) weekend, which traditionally is a popular weekend for weddings here in Sweden. I read somewhere today though that nowadays, it’s more popular to tie the knot in August or September (something to do with the weather). What is also increasingly popular is to go abroad and get married. When you come home you send in the paperwork to the authorities, and your marriage is recognized in Sweden. Even if you have married someone who is underage and would not have been able to get legally married here - the authorities will make an exception to the age rule.

But they won’t make an exception to the sex rule. The Swedish gay couple Lars Gårdefeldt (who is a minister in the Church of Sweden, btw) and Lars Arnell got married (yes, married-married, the real deal) in Canada about two years ago. When they came home and sent in the paperwork, they were registered not as married, but in a “registered partnership” which is the name of formalized same sex relationships here.

They appealed the decision, and now, after being turned down in two other instances, the Supreme Administrative Court (Regeringsrätten) has given them leave to appeal. The couple seems hopeful, but Hans Regner, legal expert on the matter, doesn’t think that the court will acknowledge something we don’t have ourselves (i.e. same sex marriage). If the court recognizes their marriage as what it is - a marriage - then it will set a strange precedent: a same sex couple with the resources to travel to a country who allows same sex marriages will also be married in Sweden, but those who can’t or don’t want to get married abroad will have to do with the “registered partnership”. Of course that won’t work. So it would be a huge surprise if the court would do anything else than to turn down the couple’s request to be registered as married.

The gay marriage debate won’t be settled in courts - it is a legislative issue. And with over 70 percent of the population and all but one parliamentary party (a party which in the latest polls came in just above the 4% needed to be in the parliament) in favor of same sex marriage, I don’t know what we’re waiting for.

Media: SvD, DN

French writer, economist and psychoanalyst Corinne Maier, author of Bonjour Laziness, in which she encouraged workers to do as little as possible, has written another provocative book: No Kid: 40 Reasons Not to Have Children. Now it’s here in Swedish and Svenska Dagbladet has picked up the story.

On her list of reasons not to have kids are that they will kill your sex life, force you to eat junk food, and kill the dreams of your youth. From what I’ve heard about Maier’s last book, I think a lot of it is tongue in cheek - she uses humor and irony and exaggerations. Granted, I haven’t read either of the books, but I have skimmed through a bunch of comments and reviews and many of them are appalled that she is taking on the biggest taboo of them all: regretting having children. You see, Maier is a mother herself.

You know, I do think some of us childfree-by-choice people sometimes use an overly insulting rhetoric, but bear in mind that it is a reply to a society in which, especially if we are women, are constantly belittled, pitied, questioned and deprived of our agency, and sometimes even blamed for the demise of civilization. Just look at some of these comments on Svenska Dagbladet’s article on Maier’s book:

Immoral not to have children
To all those who think they have the right to chose not to have children. The classical question “what would happen if everyone did as I do” is pretty sharp. It’s hard for a fully healthy human being to morally defend the decision not to have children just because you can’t be bothered. We human beings exist because we have an ability and an urge to procreate. Those who don’t contribute to that even though you could, leech on us who have children and endured the first 8-10 tough years.

Well, how is this for a moral defense of not having children: every child should be wanted and loved, and forcing people to have them against their will isn’t really a recipe for that. And saying that you had to “endure” the first 8-10 years: that isn’t recruiting me either (and if your kid’s childhood was something you had to “endure”, well, maybe they had to “endure” it as well).

Evil
This woman have been manipulated by the feminists. For these feminist, the woman should become like a man and not have anything to do with children at all. It is the most terrible thing that can happen when the women are becoming more and more like men and won’t take care of the children. It is actually pure evil!!!

Yes, because once the manly man has spread his seed, the sole responsibility for the children lays with the woman. And it’s not like feminists ever have children. And it’s not like it’s the feminists who have been, and still are, working with issues relating to childbearing and parenthood, such as health care, parental leave, better education, daycare and preschools. But thanks for telling me I am actually pure evil. BTW, speaking of evil…

See through the propaganda!
For decades there have been propaganda saying that Europeans shouldn’t have children. The people behind this should be exposed for what they are, treacherous Marxists and cosmopolitans with a Europe-hostile agenda. This propaganda are mostly directed towards white western women who are encouraged to “fulfill themselves” and live some kind of teenage life until well over 40, and when they realize that they want children after all, then it’s too late.

Are you comfortable in that tin-foil hat?
I have known for years that I don’t want any children, I can’t tell you when it first dawned on me, but I was definitely a young teenager (maybe even younger). But thanks for letting me know that it was some sneaky Marxists and cosmopolitans out to destroy civilization who brainwashed me in to it. So, did they place subliminal messages in the horse magazines I read or in the Pippi Longstocking TV-series?

Seriously though, by choosing not to have children, I am not stripping you of your choice (conscious or unconscious) to have them. Your life is in no way affected by my choice in this matter. And unlike others, I am not constantly trying to talk, scare or shame people over to my side.

Yes, I can identify with this. I do judge people based on what they read (or not read). I have been out of the dating game for quite a while now, but hypothetically, if I were to look for a partner, literary tastes are up there on the list on what I think is important when it comes to deciding who to spend time with. It’s a compatibility thing - if the only book in your bookcase is the Bible, or worse, there are no books in your bookcase, only porcelain figurines and family pictures, I’ll know that no, we won’t have much in common. Other people couldn’t care less about what and if their partner reads, but find it very important that they share their sports passion, or love for the outdoors, or deep religiousness or whatever. We all have our ideas on what is important in a partner, and unless it’s truly ridiculous stuff (like wearing the wrong shoes), I don’t think we should pass too much judgment on that. For me, if and what you read do tell me a lot about you as a person, and if you hail Ayn Rand and Per Ahlmark (Swedes will get that one) as purveyors of Truly Awesome Ideas, I know that any discussion with you over the morning paper will not result in my thoughts being challenged and my arguments sharpened, but just a lot of headache from banging my head in the table. Equally, if you read tons of self-help books and stuff like “The Secret“, I’ll nod and back away slowly. That goes for new age-y books as well, with titles like (I made these up) “Healing through dolphins” and “What color is your soul?”. Thanks, but no thanks.

It doesn’t mean I judge your value as a person based on your reading choices, but it does clue me in on whether or not we’ll get along. Call me snobbish and elitist, but that’s the way it is.

(I promise, the headline will make sense if you read on!)
Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet publishes a tired old same-sex-marriage-will-destroy-society tirade in their debate section today. It’s written by Anders Svensson, who says he’s a lawyer and law teacher at Stockholm University. I pity his students (and hope they take him on tomorrow):

Imagine a country were the legislators re-interpret human rights according to a value-neutral ideology, where dissidents are violated and where media censors unfit opinions. The military dictatorship of Burma or North Korea? No, it’s the country of Sweden.

Dear Anders Svensson: If you write a long opinions piece about a contentious issue and then get it published in a really large newspaper, where debate ensues and people are allowed to have different opinions and counterarguments are raised and you get support from some and critique from some, and all this happens without the police knocking on your door or you losing your job or getting imprisoned or tortured or threatened - that’s usually a sign that you’re not living in a military dictatorship.

His main argument against same sex marriage is not “won’t somebody please think of the children!” or “horses and box turtles and forty wives oh my!” but this:

It is not hard to see how a gender neutral marriage law would be yet another weapon of censorship against traditional values.

Oh really? What would be censored? How would this censoring work? Would legions of newlywed same sex couples invade newsrooms, lecture halls and kitchen tables everywhere to make sure everyone follows the “homosexual agenda”? Svensson, of course, doesn’t tell. But he sure is censored and oppressed, the poor little sod, sitting there at Stockholm University and getting his writing published in a large private newspaper. Yes, you can really feel the Swedish military dictatorship at work here.

But if the GLBT folks are so powerful that they can impose a brutal military regime à la North Korea on us unsuspecting Swedish citizens (they’ve done a great job of masquerading it as a pretty decent democracy, I can tell you), you would wonder why they haven’t managed to get that gender neutral marriage law passed in the parliament yet. Maybe they forgot to squeeze it in between brunch and facials.

A good society must rest on stable ground of values which are reflected in legislation. What does this ground of values look like? Well, it can’t lack values. In Sweden, we have abolished this ground of values and are traveling down a road of lack of norms. How can the legislature accept this?

If people aren’t allowed to think and speak freely, a democratically stable ground of values are missing. We don’t need any more laws which despite good intentions create a fearful society where conversations die out. I want to warn the Swedish parliament of taking further steps down this road of silence and censorship. The parliament should say no thanks to this sophisticated form of euthanasia for marriage.

As often with these kinds of articles, there’s no substance. No explanations, no examples, no logical arguments, not any arguments at all about why a “good society” can’t coexist with same sex marriage, why same sex marriage hinders people from thinking and speaking freely, which values will be destroyed and how and why conversations will be silenced. No explanation on how man-woman marriages will be “euthanized” if man-man or woman-woman marriages are allowed. No line of reasoning to follow. Just fluff and a lot of words.

Also, note this lovely allegory, used to rail against anti-discrimination laws and policies. As a metaphor for gay people, he uses a weed.

A dandelion isn’t discriminated against because it can’t call itself a tulip.

So, uppity gay-dandelion-weeds should be satisfied with the civil unions they have today (which people like Anders Svensson raised all kind of hell against when they were introduced in the 90s because they would destroy society, but which they now present as a great “separate but equal”-solution) and not destroy the lovely garden of heterosexual tulip-marriages. Dandelions can also silence conversations and turn countries into North Korea. Or something.

Tor of Antigayretorik takes on the train-wreck article here, tireless and to the point as always.

Intimate partner violence and violence against women is an area where crimes are underreported. Shame, guilt and societal responses (shaming, trivializing, blaming) makes it hard for women to speak out about being abused by their partners.

Research from year 2000 found that about 2000 women each year in Sweden are subjected to violence by their partners during pregnancy and the first year thereafter. This is of course 2000 too many. Many antenatal clinics have therefore made the habit of routinely asking pregnant women if they have been abused by their partner, even when there are no indications of abuse. But is routine screening really a good way to address the problem?

Hanne Kjöller, editorial writer for Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s largest newspaper, thinks that routine screening isn’t a good idea. For once, I am agreeing with her.

Three researchers have written a letter to the editor in Läkartidningen, newspaper for the Medical Association of Sweden, regarding the screening for partner violence. They are critical of the process and calls for an ethical analysis of the practice, which takes into account both positive and negative aspects, for women who are subjected to violence as well as for those who aren’t.

Studies have shown that many women find it uncomfortable to be asked about partner violence. I understand them. I was asked the question, seemingly out of the blue, during a visit to get my prescription for the pill refilled, and my reaction was like “what? no!”. The doctor simply looked at me, ticked the box in her questionnaire and got to the next question. I often wondered what her reaction would have been if I had answered yes (I have never been a victim of intimate partner violence, but let’s say that I was). Should she have taken time out of her busy schedule to have that long and hard conversation? Simply ticked “yes” in her questionnaire and moved on? Handed me some brochures and the phone number of a women’s shelter and thought that was it?

That’s my second objection to this routine screening thing. What should be the ob/gyn’s response? If the woman answers yes and explains that the father of her child is abusing her, what should the ob/gyn do? It places them in a very difficult situation. As expressed by a midwife in a survey on the subject by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen): “It takes too long time to ask. You need time to listen to their response. You find those who have already gotten out of the relationship. It’s hard to catch those who are in it right now”. If the woman answers yes and then comes to the next visit with her partner with her, what does the doctor do? Legally they are obliged to report the abuse to the police, but it may put the abused woman in a much more dangerous situation. Without clear policies on how to handle “yes”-answers, it is quite contra productive to have ob/gyns and midwives ask the question.

The article in Läkartidningen also raises the issue that routine screenings for partner violence can make women skip their appointments at the antenatal clinic. There is a risk that women who are subjected to violence will face even more violence if their partner finds out that they have told someone about it, or that they have even been asked.

Obviously the ob/gyns and midwives try to ask the question on a visit when the partner is not present (in Sweden it is increasingly normal for the father to be present during the antenatal clinic visits). In the article, a midwife explains her strategy for keeping the partner away for one or more visits (apparently if a woman answers “no” to the question the first time, she is to be asked again), like saying that “he is not needed”. That just seems really dishonest to me.

And after hearing a radio program yesterday about the heteronormativity within our health care system, I can’t imagine what the response would be if a woman confessed to having been abused by her same sex partner.

As Hanne Kjöller points out, you’re always in a subordinate position when you seek health care and therefore it is the moral obligation of your caregiver to explain to you why they are doing or asking one thing or another and what relevance it has. If the reason for routine screenings of pregnant women regarding partner violence is to get statistics (which aren’t very reliable - reliability would increase somewhat if the woman was given a totally anonymous questionnaire), then I think that is a quite cynical way to treat these women - ask them about something so personal and then really offer nothing in return (e.g. counseling and legal advice). If the reason is to truly help women to get out of abusive relationships, then the state should instead put money into shelters, counseling, legal advice, education and so on, instead of, as it is today, rely on volunteers, charities and idealistic forces to provide those services.

Outsourcing is normal in today’s globalized economy. But now the global south are not only offering services such as customer support and low skilled assembly work to their wealthier counterparts. From the New York Times:

An enterprise known as reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly expanding business in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers for foreigners say they have recently been inundated with requests from the United States and Europe, as word spreads of India’s mix of skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices.

Yes, it’s wombs for rent. For about 25.000 US dollars, you get payments for the surrogate mother, medical procedures, plus plane tickets and hotel nights for two trips to India, one for the fertilization and one for collecting the baby. The egg donor and the surrogate are different women, as it is said to be less likely for the surrogate to bond with the baby if there is no genetic connection.

The surrogacy business in India has made a sharp upturn in the last years, and people in the business are afraid that less scrupulous providers will smell the money and leave ethics aside.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development said in February that it was weighing recommending legislation to govern surrogacy, but it is not imminent.

An article published in The Times of India in February questioned how such a law would be enforced: “In a country crippled by abject poverty,” it asked, “how will the government body guarantee that women will not agree to surrogacy just to be able to eat two square meals a day?”

Some people might argue that we should view this as any business transaction, but I’m not at all comfortable with the idea of viewing reproduction as a commodity, especially when there is such huge power differentials in play.

“Surrogates do it to give their children a better education, to buy a home, to start up a small business, a shop,” Dr. Kadam said. “This is as much money as they could earn in maybe three years. I really don’t think that this is exploiting the women. I feel it is two people who are helping out each other.”

Mr. Gher agreed. “You cannot ignore the discrepancies between Indian poverty and Western wealth,” he said. “We try our best not to abuse this power. Part of our choice to come here was the idea that there was an opportunity to help someone in India.”

In the Mumbai clinic, it is clear that an exchange between rich and poor is under way. On some contracts, the thumbprint of an illiterate surrogate stands out against the clients’ signature.

This kind of globalization makes me very uncomfortable, and I think the practice should be examined with a critical eye. That does not mean that we should pass judgment on the persons on either side of the transaction - the couple who can’t conceive for whatever reason (Mr. Gher and his partner who are featured in the article are gay), and the woman who by carrying someone else’s baby can make a lot more money than she would on a normal job.

But there are so many issues here: what if the surrogate changes her mind? What if the couple changes their mind? What if the surrogate mother wants out? In India, this is regulated with contracts, but once again we have to look at the wealth and power differential here. As far as I can tell from quickly researching the subject, in the US, while surrogacy may not be illegal, contracts relating to it have been declared unenforceable. In Sweden, surrogacy is illegal, while in neighboring Finland, it’s legal. However, no money is allowed - the surrogate is doing it for altruistic reasons.

One thing which also makes me uncomfortable about the whole thing is that one reason why Indian surrogates are increasingly popular (besides the relatively cheap costs, good medical professionals and favorable legislation) is that Indian women are easier to “police”. As it says in the article:

Dr. Naina Patel, who runs the Anand clinic, said that even Americans who could afford to hire surrogates at home were coming to her for women “free of vices like alcohol, smoking and drugs.” She said she gets about 10 e-mailed inquiries a day from couples abroad.

Just how much say should the couple using the surrogate have to say over what the surrogate mother does to her body? You’re using her womb, yes, but the whole body is affected by the pregnancy, and so is the mind. No drinking, smoking or drugs during pregnancy - perfectly fine and reasonable of course, but what else can you compel the surrogate to do? I think with this international reproductive outsourcing there is more potential for abuse and for using the power/money leverage to make unreasonable demands.

My comment for the day is this, that I found over at PostSecret (go there for more Valentine’s day themed good stuff).

Apparently, on the other side of the Atlantic, February 10-16 is Freedom to Marry Week (the 11th edition this year). As far as I know, this isn’t done in Sweden, but marriage equality and a gender neutral marriage law is very much on the political agenda right now, and it looks like a proposition on changing the marriage law will be presented by the government during this term of office. And a recent poll showed that 71 percent of Swedes are in favor of same sex marriage (more here).

Of course the opposition - in parliamentary politics only represented by the Christian Democrats, a minority party in the now ruling four party coalition - is loud. They try to push the idea that they do in fact speak for the majority, and when the result of the poll was published, they argued that people had misunderstood the question and wasn’t really aware of what a change in marriage law would mean. (Brimstone! Man and dog! The end of civilization!)

Their main arguments are the usual suspects.
1. “Won’t somebody please think of the children”. Well, I know that fundies of all stripes and colors have a hard time grasping this, but marriage and children are separate entities. Children is no direct outcome of marriage, and marriage is no prerequisite for children, legally or biologically.
A law which allows same sex couples to marry does nothing to their ability to have children. When I got married, my ability to have children did not change. Neither will it for same sex couples.
Equally, preventing same sex couples from marrying will not hinder them from having children. There are already an unknown number of children living with same sex parents in Sweden. If you really want to “protect” them, and any future children of homosexuals, you need to sterilize all gays and lesbians, repeal the laws that makes adoption and insemination legal, and get the social services to take custody of all the children that are already in same sex families. This has nothing to do with marriage whatsoever.

2. “What’s next?! Dogs and coffee tables and your own daughter and forty women oh my!” (a.k.a. the slippery slope argument). Today, the right to marry is limited by five factors: sex, age, relationship, number and species. Changing one of them does not mean that they all change. There is no “inherent” logic saying that a change in one of them, will bring on a change in all. For example, in 2006, France raised the age limit by which girls can marry from 15 to 18 years of age. I’m sure similar changes has been made elsewhere, also in Sweden, and this doesn’t seem to have changed any of the other factors. No slippery slope there, then.
(And to state the obvious: When we were to get married, me and the husband-to-be, had to sign a paper stating that to the best of our knowledge, we weren’t related nor were we already married to someone else (and maybe some other stuff which I now have forgotten) - the consideration of impediments to marriage (yes, I had to look that up in the dictionary). We had to sign this paper. As far as I know, neither dogs nor coffee tables can sign legally binding agreements. Neither can they answer “yes” when the officiant asks, you know, the question. The argument is so stupid, but it keeps getting dragged up again and again.)

And please, God has nothing to do with this. God is not mentioned in the marriage law. In the eyes of the state, a marriage is a legal contract which grants certain rights and responsibilities. The problem is that today, certain religious associations (the Church of Sweden, but also others) have the legal right to wed people. The right is also given to non-religious persons, such as judges, and others that have been approved by the state. That religious associations have the right to exercise public authority is strange, to say the least, especially since the state and the Church of Sweden have been separated for eight years now (yes I know it’s weird that we, one of the world’s most secular countries, had a national church for that long). Make marriage separate from religion! If people want to have a Swedish church ceremony, or a Muslim one, or Jewish, or Wiccan, or whatever, that’s fine. If you feel that your marriage isn’t “real” unless you have promised this and that in front of God and the congregation, or have danced seven times backwards around a fox den at full moon, by all means go ahead and do it. But it has nothing to do with the law, and it should have no legal implications.

Via Feministing, I found this story called “Marry him: The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough“, written by a Lori Gottlieb and published in the US magazine The Atlantic.

Short story: If you’re a single and childless woman over thirty, you should stop being picky and just settle for a guy you find tolerable. From the article:

And despite growing up in an era when the centuries-old mantra to get married young was finally (and, it seemed, refreshingly) replaced by encouragement to postpone that milestone in pursuit of high ideals (education! career! but also true love!), every woman I know—no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure—feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried.

Oh, I know—I’m guessing there are single 30-year-old women reading this right now who will be writing letters to the editor to say that the women I know aren’t widely representative, that I’ve been co-opted by the cult of the feminist backlash, and basically, that I have no idea what I’m talking about. And all I can say is, if you say you’re not worried, either you’re in denial or you’re lying. In fact, take a good look in the mirror and try to convince yourself that you’re not worried, because you’ll see how silly your face looks when you’re being disingenuous.

That’s right. If you’re not worried about your state of (heterosexual) singleness when you’re a female over thirty, you’re either lying or in denial. You can’t possibly be happy with the way things are. No missy, what you need to do is this:

My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.

So it’s better to already be disillusioned to begin with, than to have experienced passion and butterflies in the stomach-happiness and then realizing that no, it wasn’t forever (but that you can work on it)?

Now, that small annoying habits and weird tastes shouldn’t be definite deal-breakers with a partner you otherwise feel happy with, I can agree with. But that you shouldn’t worry about passion and intense connection, that is just sad. There is a vast difference between expecting a knight in shining armor on a white stallion to sweep you off your feet and take you to the land of magical faeries and lollipops where you’ll be happily ever after™, and settle for just anyone that you can tolerate.

I think Hugo Schwyzer put it really well in his response to Gottlieb’s article:

There’s much to be said for compromise in intimate relationships. But wisdom is knowing the difference between a “have to have” and a “would like to have”. And I think the collective experience of a great many people is that at least a period of powerful, mutual, sexual longing falls into the first category.

The article is really long, and just when you think it can’t get worse, it does. For instance, she’s telling people (sorry, women), that when you’re forty, even if the thought of being touched by a certain guy repulses you, you should make an “adult compromise”.

Choosing to spend your life with a guy who doesn’t delight in the small things in life might be considered settling at 30, but not at 35. By 40, if you get a cold shiver down your spine at the thought of embracing a certain guy, but you enjoy his company more than anyone else’s, is that settling or making an adult compromise?

To Gottlieb, marriage seems to be a business arrangement. The husband is a way of getting a free babysitter and financial security - this quote is particularly puke-worthy:

Even women who settle but end up divorced might be in a better position than those of us who became mothers on our own, because many ex-wives get both child-support payments and a free night off when the kids go to Dad’s house for a sleepover.

Yay, first I married a guy I didn’t really care about and whose touch sent shivers down my spine and now we’re divorced and everything turned out so well cause he still gives me money AND I get a night off when he takes the kids to his place. I’m so happy!!!
/snark

You know, couples who do marry because they love each other and have an “intense connection” and truly want to spend the rest of their lives together - even these couples grow apart and get tired and weary of each other. So what’s going to happen to the couple who merely “settled” with each other? Somehow I don’t think they will hold the blueprint to a healthy, happy, equal relationship.

What’s disturbing is her lack of feeling for the man in the equation - is she going to tell him that she has “settled”, or is she going to put on a charade to lead him to think that it’s twu vuw while she really suspects that he’s gay? (Yes, that is an example from the article.)

And to bring children into this equation is just evil. Gottlieb is a single mother (she used a sperm donor). So when she “settles”, she will not only inflict a bad relationship on herself but also on her kid. And kids notice when their parents aren’t happy with each other. There doesn’t have to be any yelling or slamming in doors or abuse of any kind. Kids notice when there is a lack of love. Kids notice when adults pretend. And it’s not making them feel good about themselves.
Trust me on this one.

Pandagon takes on the article here, and Feministing here.