Especially in election years, the following cliché is often trotted around in its many forms:
“If you don’t have a vagina, don’t tell someone else what to do with theirs.”
While I absolutely agree with this statement’s underlying principles, as I’m a huge fan of “personal liberty” in most of its forms, I think the cliché is so flawed, it might actually hurt the argument it’s trying to win.
For example, take the following form of the cliché that follows the same approach:
“If you don’t have children, don’t tell someone else how to raise theirs.”
This might sound reasonable at first, but let me elaborate it to make it clearer:
“Just because one does not have children, they couldn’t possibly–shouldn’t ever–be able to describe what child abuse is, and try to prevent others from committing it.”
If you agree with the very last statement, you’re wrong and are no longer intellectually qualified to discuss this matter. You can stop reading now, thanks for trying, at least.
…
Often, that’s how I feel when folks use the “if you have no vagina, you have no basis to prevent others from using theirs however they see fit” argument. It makes for a good sound bite, but it’s wrong, and it’s hard to actually win an argument when you’re actually wrong.
Maybe you still disagree. That’s fine. Assume for a moment that you’re actually right, and as a consequence, men become totally silent on the matter of women’s health. Are you trying to really convince me that there aren’t women out there who are pro-life or anti-abortion? Just because they have the plumbing, does that give them the right to tell other women what to do with theirs? Does it make them right? Should women listen to them?
Of course not. What plumbing you have is not what qualifies you as having the “right” to tell someone what to do with theirs.
We mutually agree on rules and establish laws in order to maintain order. Some folks try to abuse the system to enforce their personal sense of ethics and morality, and that’s unfortunate.
In America, we have rules and laws around rape. “If you don’t have a penis, don’t tell me what to do with mine” is clearly a ridiculous defense of rape, but “if you don’t have a vagina, don’t tell me what to do with mine” isn’t a ridiculous defense of abortion? See what I did there?
If you want to argue in favor of personal liberty, and I think every person who enjoys any sense of freedom should do so, if you want to ever win, you must stop arguing using a framework that can never win–one that’s clearly flawed and wrong.
No related posts.
Programmer, husband, father, singer, guitarist, tinkerer, reverse engineer, strange, and living in New Jersey. 
In general, I agree with you. Let me repeat that – I agree with your logic and I also think that the ‘if you don’t have…’ argument is flawed and rarely convinces me of much.
Where I disagree with you is in the assertion that “it’s hard to actually win an argument when you’re actually wrong”. This assertion does not match my experience. The largest and most obnoxiously distracting recent example that comes to mind being GWBush’s administration being factually and logically wrong about a WMD threat and an association between Iraq and the twin tower attack , and yet ‘winning’ the argument to attack Iraq.
When you tell your reader “you’re wrong and you’ll never win”, you turn them off and make them defensive in much the same way that they turn you off by suggesting that possession of a body part should somehow be required for someone to advise appropriate usage of that body part.
So, what catchy phrase do you have to suggest as an alternative?
Cause honestly, catchy phrases WIN. They win a lot. That and LOLCATs. Or a good Ryan Gosling photo with some text on it. Except that wouldn’t win so well with alledgedly hetero conservative types. Maybe Sarah Palin’s photo with some text on it. That would win.
You’re absolutely right, in that you can gain a lot of support from weak-minded people through propaganda …
I suppose you can make short term gains using it (e.g., convincing people to support aggression against Iraq, or bombing an abortion clinic, etc.), but “winning” is a more lasting effect, like ending slavery.