Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Obamacare Mentions Breasts 44 Times...

... and prostate glands, zero, according to Christine Hoff Sommers at NROAnn Alhouse offers five excuses reasons for this apparent discrepancy in the interest between the site of the classic women's cancer, and the classic men's cancer, and other acts of sex discrimination in the legislation such as "elaborate and expensive networks of special programs to promote women's health."
1. Focusing on breasts works for everybody: Men love breasts and women feel cared for.
Of course, men love breasts, and women love breasts (but I notice they appreciate my appreciation less as time goes on).  As Tracey McCain points out in "Rule 5", "Everybody loves a pretty girl," and breasts are one of the primary distinguishing characteristics of a pretty girl".  Still, girls have other pretty parts that are not subject to the same attention, so that can't be the sum of it.
2. Treating women's bodies as a special problem, requiring special attention, works for the most retrograde traditionalists and for progressive feminists.
I hate to credit the democrat interns and low level staff members who really wrote this 2000 page hunk of shit with thinking that deeply; I find it very unlikely that they could put themselves into the minds of neanderthals retrograde traditionalists even if they tried.  Nevertheless, I will consider a possibility for the professor's sake.
3. Women tend to monitor their health and consume more health care services, especially these preventive programs. There are no programs for men, because men wouldn't respond to programs. The main use of men is getting them into the insurance pool to contribute to the cost of caring for women and children.
This is almost certainly true, but why in the world would a legislative act set up to force health care rationing have special treatments for women who already consume the majority of health care?
4. Women actually need and deserve more care. Men are expendable. There is a shared social interest in preserving the women for reproductive purposes, for the maintenance of stable households, for the nurturing of children, and for looking after the elderly.
I tend to regard this as an artificial split from excuse reason #3, both views a result of a difference in the outlook of men and women (at least in America).  Men tend to have a more individualistic outlook, that they will earn what it takes to keep them and theirs healthy, while women tend to see society as a giant support agency for people, following the somewhat dated but still largely observed split between the largely male role of provider and the largely female role of nurturer.  With government taking the role of the providers, who needs men?  Women can just enjoy nurturing each other while they starve and freeze in the dark.
5. Gender politics work, but only on women.
Now we get down to the crux of it; women and liberal democrats whine about discrimination in education even as the schools in higher education come to be dominated by women; they whine about being discriminated against in business, but they do not try to start or enter business in the same numbers, and they whine for discrimination in sports because they could never be able to compete with the best male athletes in any sport requiring a modicum of strength.

But professor, as a law professor, you are seeking a single answer when, as it usually is in biology or any field relating to organisms, all of the above...

44 and not a prostate in sight...  Wombat-Socho included this in his weekly "Rule 5 Sunday: Medicine Show!" Linked at The Classical Liberal "Gucci Galore", too.

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