Why are unplanned pregnancies always blamed on the woman?

Question

It took a man just as irresponsible for it to happen.

I am not pregnant.
Don't read more into the question than is here.

And as I was asked in another question:
"Ever hear of condoms???"

They do go on the penis afterall.

I asked it in this section very deliberately because of this question:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgGLIGBcqzOUiNjK1RyDR5Psy6IX?qid=20070802215531AA8WCfC&show=7#profile-info-Bf3ETx1zaa

Get with the program. Sex and the consequences of sex is very much a political issue.

I know where babies come from, and I don't need a moral lecture. This quesiton is about the double standard. This isn't a question about trust. This is a question about the double standard. Rape is illegal by the way. Consentual sex is not. Your analogy is flawed, and your reasoning less than stellar.

Answer 1

its sexist.
one con on here said 'women have to learn to not have sex if they don't want kids'

women don't have to learn anything.
sex takes two people.
and consenting to sex is not consenting to parenthood.

men can use condoms and there is a pill for men. they can also have vasectomies if they really don't want children

Answer 2

It's a chicken or the egg situation. Women are often judged more harshly for getting pregnant than men are for impregnating a woman. Does this condemnation drive women to be more selective, thus turning them into sexual "gatekeepers"? Or is it just based on their sex drive? Who knows? I don't like pointing fingers or allocating blame, especially through the use of sweeping generalizations. If there is a problem that I could have prevented, I tend to take responsibility for it, regardless of other factors.

Answer 3

Since when are unplanned pregnancies all blamed on the woman?? When did the world get this memo, and how did I miss it? Last I checked, it did take two people to make a baby. Oh wait, no it really doesn't anymore. I keep forgetting, we don't need people to make babies anymore.

Anyway, back to the subject, they aren't blamed on the woman, but the woman cannot walk away from the pregnancy like a man can. Oh wait, yes she can! We can kill our unborn babies!

I give up, can't answer this question.

Answer 4

Simple: Women own the uterus. You can whine and blame all you want, but if you don't do something, or make absolutely sure the man has done something, you will be the one with the problem. The chicken man can always run and hide. If you don't acknowledge your responsibility and make sure you are protected, is the stupid man who begged to go bare-back to blame? ....or you, the woman who had a lot more to lose and LET him? If adequate protection is used and one just happens to slip by, both are to "blame" and hopefully the man will take responsibility.

Answer 5

You have twelve forms of birth control If you used two of them the chance of you getting pregnant are millions to one. But you still cant keep your self from getting pregnant.
You are saying the man bears 50% of the responsability because he decided to trust you with birth control. You knew he had none on. You never said you were being reckless with birth control. Women like you think that even if they lie about birth control and the man still bears half the responsability. This is like a man claiming a woman bears half the responsability for being raped because she trusted him not to rape her.
Now ther is one final point. In every other absolute right in this country has absolute responsabilities with it. You and most women believe that women should have absolute reporductive rights to their body. No man can force you tp get an abortion. However you do not have more than half the responsability. What fills the void in irresponsability.
This is why so many children are born out of wedlock. It is not because men are irresponsable. It is because women do not have what it takes to be responsable with their body. Is is simple not to get pregnant but all women like you do is to blame men for trusting you.

Answer 6

Takes both to get pregnant. a woman would not get pregnant, if she used protection or on birth control. A man should also use protection. Both are the blame. I myself, have not heard any one blaming women for unplanned pregnancies. Does not hurt to ask " you got protection". If not, do not have sex, then there would be no unplanned pregnancies.

Answer 7

The same reason women get pregnant just to collect child support, after telling the guy, "i can't have kids" or "im on the pill"..... Unplanned pregnancies are blamed on the woman because a man cannot get pregnant? there, wasnt that simple?

Answer 8

You are right this is an extremely political issue on many counts from Women's Liberation to Overpopulation.

The answer to your question is a historical one (hysterical too maybe). Historically we have always lived in a male patriarchal society, where rights to sexual intercourse for the man are deeply embedded into law and culture. Religious belief systems, societal norms and health issues have all impacted on our view of female sexuality.

To put this view simply this is a question of the morally good versus the morally bad and can be best seen in Victorian literature and law. The consequences for a woman of unplanned pregnancy was jail or the workhouse. The argument is complex but simply the key idea is that for a woman to get pregnant, she must be clinically insane or morally bad.

Men held rights of ownership over women throughout history, again this is embedded into law, culture and religion. This started to change with the Women's Liberation Movement, but progress has been slow.

Patriarchal views of woman and motherhood reclaimed much of the advantages gained after the second world war in Britain, where woman who had been doing 'men's jobs' to help the war effort were railroaded back into the role of homemaker and stay at home mother in the mid 1940s to late 1950s. This was led by Government incentives and campaigns.

In 1960s the sexual revolution was (allegedly) started because the pill became widely available which meant that women could now control their fertility. Alongside this there were more couples living together without marrying and increasing consumer wants and demands. Including the start of mass home ownership.

The earnings gap between men and women became a political issue in the 1960s that still has not been addressed today. Anyway, whilst the 1960s are looked back on as times of sexual freedom they were not for women who got 'caught' by pregnancy. Illegal abortions and single mother homes and abortion within marriage rapidly grew and became the new accepted norm.

So Women have always been blamed for pregnancy.

Second part of this answer: This is MY OPINION only. I think that women have lost out in much of our recent history. Women's rights were an incredibly strong force in promoting ownership of property, 'More' equal rights in pay and voting etc. Similarly the sexual revolution gave women the freedom to control their fertility and make choices (although still morally condemned for making those choices).

Why do I say we (as women) have lost out?
Your second part of the question states 'It took a man just as irresponsible for it to happen'. That is my point exactly. We have lost out because the expectation of Lifelong Marriage provided us with the means in which to have children, in security and safety, to be provided for, to be cared for and supported throughout the child's upbringing.

My women's lib friends strongly disagree with this view and having defended this opinion many, many times I recognize that it is not a popular one. I am not suggesting that women should not work, are less able to work, are less intelligent, are less in any way. What I am arguing is that men are being allowed to be irresponsible because their key 'function' as husband and main breadwinner no longer applies.

Women, even single women can and do successfully bring up happy, contented, confident children who contribute to society. My point is that the gender roles are important because the woman is vulnerable in pregnancy, birth, child rearing so the man's role is as protector.

When we encourage sexual freedom, many partners, where society pays through taxation for unplanned pregnancies, there are no real consequences for a man. So why should he be responsible about contraception? Why would a man with no emotional, financial or familial ties take responsibility for sex? We as women have lost out not only in the status of motherhood but in the benefits provided by a stable long term relationship or marriage.

So why are women blamed for unplanned pregnancies? Because we 'allow' them to happen. It is a consequence of female sexual freedom.

Answer 9

I personally woudn't blame the woman, but it is probably because young women are seen as more sensible then young men, so they expect the woman to have done something about it.

Answer 10

It's not that the woman is always to blame. It's just that the woman is the one who faces the biggest responsiblity.

People frequently confuse responsibility with blame.

Answer 11

"Think of a man. Now take away reason and responsibility."

-Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall in 'As Good As It Gets' when asked how he writes women so well in his novels.