[fhdkweig]

Controlling reproduction means controlling women. Controlling women seems to be a high priority for crotchety old men. But that doesn't really answer your question, it just rephrases it.

I think it is like anorexia. Someone who has no control over their own lives tries to control the few things they can. An anorexic controls their food, but a married man controls his wife and kids. It makes even the weakest person feel strong to have someone to boss around.

[skissane]

> Controlling reproduction means controlling women. Controlling women seems to be a high priority for crotchety old men.

You ignore that so many leading anti-abortion activists are women. I think for example of Joanna Howe, [0] who is arguably the most prominent activist against abortion rights in contemporary Australia-and far from some “crotchety old man”, she is a 43 year old law professor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Howe

[philipov]

I don't think you need an analogy like that to explain why people want to control women. They want to control women for the same reason they want to control men. Is it any mystery why people seek power? Those with power can decide how to distribute the resources of the society in a way that preferences them and their inner circle.

Access to reproduction is one of the most basic resources a society has available. It is common for the old men to control the young men by being the ones to decide who gets access to women. "Work for us loyally, and we'll allow you to get married"

[fhdkweig]

I don't think they are trying to control men. I'm not seeing any evidence of that. When I see a law that attacks women, it is very clearly targeted towards women, but I don't see anything that clearly targets men.

[philipov]

Controlling women means controlling men. The most basic way to do that is by controlling who is allowed to get married. Attacks against the reproductive rights of women are caused by a desire to avoid "side channels" by which a couple could avoid passing through the systems established to control marriage.

Society became much more complex than a tribal village where the elders decide everything, and so have the levels of indirection in how control of reproduction is wielded. The situation is also quite a bit more complicated now that populations are able to grow so far above the local carrying capacity of the land. Yet we can still trace a line back to when it was necessary for a community to collectively maintain the sustainability of their population by deciding how many children could be supported at any one time.

[lelanthran]

> When I see a law that attacks women, it is very clearly targeted towards women, but I don't see anything that clearly targets men.

Drafts? They typically only targeted men, with a large possibility of maiming or death as the result.

[philipov]

"After you get back from the war, your reward will be a wife and household."

[nailer]

> Access to reproduction is one of the most basic resources a society has available.

The topic is not access to reproduction. Nobody is controlling access to pregnancy.

> the ones to decide who gets access to women.

Nor is access to women.

[skrebbel]

> crotchety old men

Such as Giorgia Meloni?

[fhdkweig]

I don't know what is going on in Italy, but that's why we are doing it in America.

[altern8]

Oh, a post about Italy. Let's take this opportunity to talk about America :-D

[fhdkweig]

I zeroed in on khalic's mention of "far right populism" which I thought was a universal term, but skrebbel made it sound like that doesn't apply to Italy (but I still think it does), so I clarified.

[lolgab]

The first thing she did in office was a order to be called "il signor presidente", masculine of the correct "la signora presidente". She's not an old man but behaves as such and the fascist side of her support is strongly misogynist.

[geremiiah]

This is the kind of rational you arrive to, if you spend too much time in feminist circles and never bother to actually try to understand the other side. I can assure you that nobody thinks in terms of "controlling women".