He Who Shouts Loudest Wins?
Dear Mr. Russell,
Yes, is the answer.
Men are still trying to tell women what to do with their bodies.
Letters editor to the National Post, Paul Russell answered a comment on Monday about the editorial coverage of Morgentaler being named to the Order. The comment? That the majority of dissenters against Morgentaler and abortion were male.
Russell does agree that the abortion debate is pretty gendered. He points out the numbers in the letters received. Ninety males dissented against Morgentaler while only 32 women did, only 13 men sided with Morgentaler while 26 women did. So women disagreed with abortion only 25.8% of the time when compared to men. So in a crowd of anti-abortionist 75% will be male.
Russell contends that he is “not in the position” to answer whether or not men are trying to control women however. There is one other comparison however that I think should have been brought to the forefront, the fact that 105 men replied vs. only 58 women. Men wrote 64% of all opinions, for and against. Do men just care more than women about abortion? Hardly. Do men just write more to the National Post? Yes they do, judging from the editorial page that day. I would argue that men in general just write more to newspaper publications, so I would be wrong to say that men are ‘just’ trying to control women’s bodies, they are just trying to control everything.
And it works, it works because in today’s culture of popular media those who shout the loudest are the ones who will be heard. I mean if you had read that piece by Russell you might have thought, “Hey, Canada really isn’t too happy about Morgentaler and abortion.” If you had done some quick math you would have noticed that 76% of the responses were against Morgentaler getting the honour. So it becomes surprising, that in actuality, the numbers are basically reversed.
According to an Angus Reid Strategies poll, only 29 percent opposed Morgentaler getting the honour.
We used to worry about the will of the majority trampling the rights of the minorities, now we have to worry about the majority being drowned out by the loud mouths.
Picture Credit to sincerelyxme.
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