What Women Need: Unrelenting Accountability

There is one clear and present reason why conservative men, whether in politics or religion, are largely incapable of really transforming our culture, and it is a glaring issue. What is this issue? It is simply the fact that they by and large do not understand how to hold women truly accountable for their role in degrading society, or even really think that you should hold them accountable. I have seen this problem for a while now and it is incredibly widespread, endemic really, and is probably one of the core reasons why our society is in the bad moral and cultural situation that it is.

The reason this is such a problem is that these conservative men will look at the bad behaviour of women and then immediately look around, behind, or above that woman who is acting badly and try to find the man or men responsible for her sin. And if they cannot identify a specific man or class of men, they will just broaden it to all men or male society in general. Now, of course, as a bible believing Christian, I do believe that men should be held ultimately responsible for errors in their family, community, church and wider society. God has created men to hold authority and lead.

When Adam and Eve both sinned in the garden it was Adam that was held responsible, for instance. This is not an interpretation just held up by a so-called “patriarchal lens” either, the entire gospel hinges on this point; Jesus Christ, the second Adam according to Paul, came to reverse the sin and damage done by the first Adam. This shows who God held ultimately responsible. So, these conservative men have started off with the correct basic assumption that men are ultimately responsible and need to be held to account, but they have not applied this accountability properly. Because they have failed to recognize that part of being a man and holding the perpetrators responsible, is to also hold women to unrelenting accountability as well as men.

Let me give two examples, both of which I saw on Facebook. I have not named the men who made these posts, because who they are is not the issue. Both these men are on the side of what is good, true and beautiful, and advocate for strong Christian morals. I have no issue with them or their wider advocacy. These posts are simply representative of a much more widespread issue, and so it is the ideas, not the purveyors that I want to address. This is an internal Christian/Conservative dispute that I believe needs to be corrected if the conservative right is going have any success in turning society around.

The first example is on the issue of abortion,

Notice that this post frames women as the victims of abortion. This is a common approach of conservative men on the right, particularly those who are in positions of public advocacy against abortion. In fact, this is true for many women as well. They often seek to appeal to women as the victims of the abortion, rather than framing them as the perpetrators they are. As the image notes “a recent global report highlights terrible carnage on women.” Many conservative men either see the issue through this framework or at least seek to address it this way in the public sphere. Ultimately this is an attempt to seek to rescue women from evil being perpetrated on them, rather than correctly seeing how these women are perpetrating the evil.

Some men with this perspective will defend this approach vociferously if you challenge them on it. They do not see any except maybe the tiniest minority of women who have had abortions as intentional perpetrators of the crime. Yes, they see them as sinners, but only as sinners who have been coerced by men, society, or circumstances, or ignorance into doing something they would prefer to have never done in the first place, or did not have full agency in doing. They almost completely remove the agency of women, and I have even seen men struggle to even comprehend what you are talking about when you drill down on why their rhetoric completely falls short of winning ground on the issue, except perhaps with fellow conservative men and some conservative women, who already agree anyway. It is essentially a white knight approach to solving the issue.

Sure, there are women who are exactly as these conservatives describe. And there are women who have been in this situation who will openly share their story about being coerced by men or their circumstances into having an abortion, and these women will garner quite an emotional response, especially from men who see virtually all women who have had an abortion as a victim. But it is just false that abortion happens largely because of the influence or coercion of men. For instance, “The vast majority of women who had abortions in 2021 were unmarried (87%), while married women accounted for 13%, according to the CDC, which had data on this from 37 states.”[1]

Single women are responsible for their decisions, are they not? And some studies show that it is particularly mothers and mothers-in-law who are the most influential people in convincing younger women to have an abortion.[2] So, the idea of male influence being a major factor is demonstrably wrong. This makes sense as well from the perspective of experience.

To whom would most women, especially unmarried women, go to seek wisdom in a situation like this? Their mum, or an older woman they trust. This reality flies in the face of the conservative stereotype that abortion happens because vulnerable women are falling under the pressure of aggressively pushy men to abort their children. Many men don’t ever get a say.

Even a study designed to evaluate the influence of men in abortions notes that many women saw their mothers or their own personal beliefs as more significant influences in their reasons to have an abortion than their partners.[3] It also notes often men put pressure on women not to have an abortion, or refuse to provide the resources for the woman to have one, or, often the case is that they support the woman in her decision.[4] So while it does note instances of men coercing abortions, this is far from the majority of men’s influence in the situation.[5]

The cases of women being coerced by bullying men into abortions does exist, but it is nowhere near the full picture. This is why the Australian pro-life movement is so ineffectual; their rhetoric does not point to the truth. That truth is that for many women abortion is a right that grants them increased liberation, or power over their own choices, and therefore, rhetoric that frames them as victims is not capable of moving the needle. It just receives derision from such women. Good rhetoric points to the truth, pro-life rhetoric does not. This is especially clear when you look at women’s reasons for abortions.

The reasons most women decide to have abortions are lifestyle choices, that affect their career or their social circumstances. 40% claim a financial reason.[6] 4% claim a lack of employment.[7] 36% claim timing as an issue.[8] And 20% claimed it would interfere with careers.[9] 29% are mothers who just don’t want another child.[10] 12% claim health reasons. 7% claim to simply be immature or too young.[11] The most relevant statistic to our purposes is that 31% of women claim partner reasons, this may include coercion, but is not even mostly that.[12]

These partner reasons can be things like the woman having an unstable relationship, or that they were not yet married,[13] though some do claim the partner is abusive or did not want the baby.[14] However, only 5% claim influence from family or friends is a factor,[15] and remember the most influential family member in other research is a mother or mother-in-law, not the husband or boyfriend. So, a woman is more likely to get coercion or at least influence from another woman than from a man. The data completely rebukes the women-are-victims-of-abortion narrative.

Most women who have abortions do so because that is what they WANT to do, and like many other people who make distasteful decisions, they then find one of many different reasons to justify why it was the right decision. But this does not change the fact that it is, more often than not, a willing choice. Abortion is not carnage on women’s bodies, though it can result in that. It is carnage done by doctors, nurses and pregnant women, mothers, on the most helpless person in the room, the baby. Women need to be held accountable for this. The conservative man is not capable of doing this, his view of women is not fully based in reality. Why this is the case, we may come back to in a future piece.

The second example I want to address is prostitution,

I have no hesitation calling to account the men who participated in this sin with Lily (pictured above). But Lily is not a victim here of anything but her own decisions, unless it comes out that she was forced into this by coercion or other threats of violence. But all the evidence says that she was not coerced to do this, because she openly admits, brags really, that extreme sex is her hobby and that she loves the fame and fortune from these deplorable acts.[16] This is a hybrid of prostitution and porn, a natural but deplorable development in our highly online age.

Notice however that the man who wrote this post immediately focuses on the man or men who should be blamed for this woman’s whoredom, “I wept for Lily and wondered where her dad is. I want to punch all the blokes who took advantage of her…” This is the response of a man who cannot even see the accountability of a woman. It is right to be disgusted by these men, but we should also be disgusted at what this woman did. Lily is an adult, a relationally backward one of course, but still an adult. There is no doubt that all the men who watch this rubbish or got involved, are responsible for their part in this. But to say that this kind of porn, or any kind, only exists because men patronize it is only half true. It also exists because women can profit from it, and some of these women enjoy the power, prestige, wealth and fame that come from this line of not-work.

Let me pause for a moment here. I know that many women in the sex trade are slaves who have been coerced into it. This is a reality. I think the men who coerce such women are among the worst people on the planet. They should be investigated, tried, prosecuted and hung, if found guilty. Such exploitation is evil. We even see prostitutes in the Bible respond with great repentance and joy to Jesus, in large part because he was probably the first man in some time to treat them with dignity. So, I in no way want to absolve any men from their guilt in this deplorable crime and sin or diminish the impact that good men can have in helping women avoid this kind of life.

But women like Lily are just as guilty and as responsible for porn as the men who consume it. Porn, and many forms of prostitution, exist because they are incredibly lucrative professions not just for men but for many of the women involved as well. And the women who voluntarily engage in this stuff need to be held to account as well. This is something conservative men often cannot even fathom to do. They see a woman in this situation and they immediately see a victim. They see a woman who has had one, two, or three abortions and they immediately see a victim, they do not see a perpetrator. They see these women as women who have been victimized by men, and while this can be true, it is not always true, sometimes these women are exercising their sexual power over weak men.

Conservative men have failed to harken to the wisdom of the Bible which does see women as agents in their own sexual sin. For Proverbs 5 tells us,

“My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, 2 that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge. 3 For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, 4 but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol; 6 she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it…20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?”
Proverbs 5:1-6, 20

Unlike conservative men who almost find it impossible to see women as having their own agency in sexual sin and acts like abortion, the Bible is very honest about this issue and points out the dangerous nature of this type of sexually licentious woman. Ironically, conservative men have fallen into a progressive lie without even realizing it; the idea that men always hold the power in male/female dynamics. This is a feminist pillar, and it can often be true. A woman is never wise to allow herself to be alone with an untrustworthy man, because she is at a strength disadvantage. But what feminists do not acknowledge is that it goes the other way too.

Sometimes the woman holds all the sexual power in the situation and a man is without spiritual or moral strength before her, “20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?” We see a clear example of a woman trying to exercise this kind of power over a man in the Bible, Joseph, though he had the moral fortitude to run away from her. We also see examples the other way, such as with Jacob’s daughter Dinah who was seized by Shechem. The Bible is more honest in pointing out that the balance of power is not always one way.

The point is not to paint women as holding all the responsibility nor to paint men with it all, but rather to be realistic about the shifting nature of the power dynamic between men and women and to note that sometimes women hold all the cards in a sexual situation and that many men are incredibly weak in the situation. Countless men can tell you that they had a child aborted against their will, or even their initial knowledge, and countless men can’t because they will never know that it happened to them. Women are, more often than not, the perpetrators in abortion, and legally and almost just as often practically, they hold all the power. Even in situations where a man is coercing a woman to have an abortion the woman will be alone with the doctors and can speak up about it if she wants to. The man in that situation is scum, and should face some kind of legal sanction, but it does not mean that women do not usually hold all the cards in abortion.

Conservative men need to learn that taking responsibility as men means not just holding men responsible ultimately for the state of society, but also holding women relentlessly to account for their actions, as well. They could, ironically, learn from this old song I heard again for the first time in ages the other day:

“Boys and girls wanna hear a true story?
Saturday night I was at this real wild party
They had the liquor overflowing the cup
About 5 or 6 strippers trying to work for a buck
And I took one girl outside with me
Her name was Lonni, she went to junior high with me
I said, “Why you up in there dancing for cash?
I guess a whole a lot’s changed since I seen you last.”
She said

What would you do if your son was at home
Crying all alone on the bedroom floor
Cause he’s hungry
And the only way to feed him is to, sleep with a man for a little bit of money
And his daddy’s gone
Somewhere smoking rock now, in and out of lockdown
I ain’t got a job now
So for you this is just a good time, but for me this is what I call life

Girl you ain’t the only one with a baby
That’s no excuse to be living all crazy
Then she looked me right square in the eye
And said every day I wake up hoping to die
She said…I know about pain cause
Me and my sister ran away so my daddy couldn’t rape us
Before I was a teenager
I been through more shit that you can’t even relate to…

…Hold up!
What would you do?
Get up on my feet and let go of every excuse
What would you do?
Cause I wouldn’t want my baby to go through what I went through
Come on, what would you do?
Get up on my feet and stop making tired excuses
What would you do?
Girl, I know if my mother can do it, baby you can do it…”[17]

What would you do? “Get up on my feet and let go of every excuse.” What is he saying here? Woman, take responsibility for your life. And then he tells her that is exactly what his mother did. And countless women have done this. It is a bit of a trope in society that women do not like having accountability. If this is the true, and many people can give anecdotal evidence that it is, then the person who struggles to do something, should not they be held to a stricter standard to help them achieve it?

The people who wrote this song knew that a large part of the answer to the problem was holding women relentlessly accountable. He does not say, “Oh dear, I am so sorry to hear that.” He instead says, “let go of every excuse.” Conservative men need to realize that to help change society around you cannot fail to call 50% of society to a much higher level of accountability.

The next time you see a woman who has had an abortion don’t think, “Oh you poor girl.” Think, “That poor kid, what kind of mother does such a thing to her child?” This does not mean the woman cannot experience grace and forgiveness and that you cannot have compassion on her. It just means we should not immediately default to absolving the perpetrator of harm to that child by shifting the blame away from her. The child is the victim. Abortion is a form of abuse. We would never absolve a man who hurt his child, so why do it with a woman?

I do not believe this issue can change until conservative men in this public space fearlessly hold women to the same level of accountability that they would any adult man. Ironically, this is actually men taking responsibility and being willing to receive all the attacks for being labelled “anti-woman” etc, etc, when this could not be further from the truth. Abortion and porn do hurt women. And holding women to a higher account than we generally do, will help steer more and more women away from these things. Which is the ultimate goal, is it not?

[1] Jeff Diamant, Besheer Mohamed, Rebecca Leppert, 2024, “What the data says about abortion in the U.S.” https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/25/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-us/

[2] Samantha Putterman, 2022, “Recent research suggests that 15% of abortions are the result of coercion.” https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jun/24/tweets/scant-evidence-15-abortions-are-result-coercion/

[3] Joe Strong, 2022, “Men’s involvement in women’s abortion-related care: a scoping review of evidence from low- and middle-income countries” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8956302/

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Hannah Nichols, 2022, “What are the different reasons to have an abortion?” https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/reasons-for-abortions#reasons-for-abortion

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10]Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.