I wrote this hetero- and cis-normatively because I’m lazy.

The family-planning decision table that Fred posted a while ago may abstract away a lot of nuance, but it also drew my attention to something interesting:

Wouldn’t it be nice if, when a couple gets pregnant, the man could choose to raise a child that the woman didn’t want? The world isn’t that way because the woman has to gestate the fetus inside her body, and she has jurisdiction over her body.

Nobody likes power asymmetry, especially men. So the natural response to this state of affairs is to try to gain control of the means of reproduction. Either by interferring with women’s jurisdiction over their bodies (anti-choice) or by controlling women more broadly.

I believe as long as this power asymmetry exists, men will try to oppress women. That means there are only three ways to achieve equality:

1. remove the desire to reproduce from men (negate the power)
2. make oppression of women impossible (entrench the power)
3. give men the opportunity to make their own reproductive choices without impacting women (share the power)

Society is working on the first and second options, but what about the third? Ex utero reproduction will set us free!