I only skimmed it, so maybe I missed the giveaway. But I honestly don’t know for sure, although I lean toward thinking it’s serious. Read it yourself and decide whether the author really believes it’s wrong to decide whether a baby is a boy or a girl.
Things are breaking up out there
High water everywhere
–Dylan/Patton
Funny — on Rod Dreher’s blog the other day I made the same recommendation. Why mark the baby male or female on the b.c. or the hospital records at all? Just stamp them all ‘TBA’ and be done with it.
I guess that would work, with the proviso that any such announcement should not be construed as final.
Especially in the realm of gender politics, the satirist is hopelessly behind reality.
It should be satire. Sadly, I don’t think it is. But then as I had cause to say elsewhere an hour ago, there’s a Monty Python skit for everything. 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcHdF1eHhgc
The author wrote it as a straight piece, unless she’s a Sokal-level prankster. See her website. What the intentions of the editors are is more obscure.
I just glanced over it again and in all seriousness, if I were to see this passage in isolation:
“Obstetricians, doctors, and midwives commit this procedure on infants every single day, in every single country. In reality, this treatment is performed almost universally without even asking for the parents’ consent, making this practice all the more insidious. It’s called infant gender assignment: When the doctor holds your child up to the harsh light of the delivery room, looks between its legs, and declares his opinion: It’s a boy or a girl, based on nothing more than a cursory assessment of your offspring’s genitals.”
I would think it was satire.
Amazingly apropos Python skit. I though I had seen Meaning of Life but I don’t remember that at all, so obviously I need to watch it again. Did I see Polly from Fawlty Towers in there as a nurse?
you probably did. I’ll have to look at it again to see if it was her.
I don’t think I’d want to watch the whole of MoL again, but I’m happy to watch the highlights!
The one with the Grim Reaper is priceless. That one and this skit on birth were my favourites, I think.
Just watching that Birth skit again. So funny.
“What do I do?”
“Nothing, you’re not qualified”
“And what are you doing this morning?”
“It’s a birth”
“And what kind of a thing is that?”
“Well it’s where you take a baby out of the mother’s tummy”
“Amazing what we can do now-a-days!”
None of which would be nearly as funny without the upper-class-twit delivery. I think I’m going to watch some Fawlty this weekend.
I would think it was satire.
A professor at one of the state colleges in Virginia (an economist, no less) informed me that I was ‘despicable’ and a ‘disgrace’ for speaking dismissively of Donald McCloskey, the economic historian who had that surgery ca. 1995 (“As for McCloskey, no one should give succor to his dysfunctions and delusions.”). Pressed, he had no explanation for his anathemas. That’s just what’s taken for granted in that social world. The professor in question is 66 years old and has lived in Harrisonburg, Va. for 37 years; not exactly the West Village.
What some people take as given is bizarre.
“None of which would be nearly as funny without the upper-class-twit delivery.”
Indeed. 🙂
“Did I see Polly from Fawlty Towers in there as a nurse?”
I think the actress who played her was Cleese’s wife (or ex-wife by that time.)
Another appropriate Python sketch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3Q2HZRjHHQ
“But it’s not a proper cat…”
Yes, she was–I remember reading that somewhere in a Fawlty-Towers-fanboy phase when I was trying to find out about all the actors. What was her name…Connie Booth. Isn’t “Prunella Scales” (Sybil) one of the most awful names imaginable?
“not a proper cat” might be a useful bit of code.
“not exactly the West Village.” Yes, the mores of such enclaves are now geographically dispersed. Although I haven’t been part of such an exchange, it could certainly happen here in remote Alabama.
I couldn’t see “Polly” in that Birth skit.
Yes, the name Prunella Scales is rather ghastly!
Yes, the mores of such enclaves are now geographically dispersed.
The surrounding community in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County seem to ignore the faculty and administration at the college pretty assiduously. The place does not look like a college town at all (and from an aesthetic standpoint, that’s too bad). The only mention of the faculty I’ve ever heard was some mild annoyance about a professor who’d gotten himself elected to the town council and was an irritant to those interested in municipal golf courses.
I think that’s pretty typical of college towns. Town seems to generally regard gown as more or less harmless eccentrics. Gown tends to see town as, to use a politically incorrect term from the past, Indian territory. Though I can think of a couple of profs who are active and respected in their communities.
Especially in the realm of gender politics, the satirist is hopelessly behind reality.
Yep. How, for example, could one top Facebook’s now offering 50 gender options?
There’s a photo in that piece showing part of Facebook’s drop-down list for this. What in the world do you think the difference is between “Trans” and “Trans*” ?
Can’t imagine. I have been hearing about Facebook’s 50 varieties for a while but so far have avoided actually finding out what they are. Though as your example shows I don’t think reading the list will enlighten me entirely.
For the first few paragraphs I thought it was going to be about the circumcision debate… but it’s just silly.
I thought that, too. The thing is, she’s dead serious.
Oh dear. And we just let someone do this to my poor little grandchild this morning!
Oh well. Too Late.
AMDG
So you’ve set yourself up to share the blame for all its problems.
I pretty much figure I was in for that anyway.
AMDG
You’re such a Bad PersonTM, Janet.
Who is the irresponsible parent who allowed such a dire thing to happen to a defenseless baby?
I guess congratulations are in order though. 🙂
Thanks!
AMDG
And when you see his picture on Facebook, you will see that it was absolutely necessary to classify him as male.
AMDG
I must say, he does look like a guy. A sort of grumpy one at that. Caught him at a bad moment, I imagine. Getting born is probably even more irritating than being waked up by an alarm clock.
And he was born so fast that he hasn’t had a chance to get adjusted to the new world. He does look grumpy, but he wasn’t at all when I was there. I just held him and we looked at each other. It was quite pleasant.
I just remembered that conversation about bad Christian art and I remember I said something about pictures of baby Jesus where he looked like a grumpy little old man that ought to have a cigar hanging out of his mouth. I guess Vincent looks quite messianic.
AMDG
AMDG
Vincent! Great name!
“I guess Vincent looks quite messianic.”
That type of religious painting is Grumpy Baby Jesus Art.
“Getting born is probably even more irritating than being waked up by an alarm clock.”
Indeed. 
I’m so glad I don’t remember!
Speaking of waking up with an alarm clock, when I was in boarding school in high school one of the other students would put his two and a half-foot speakers out in the hall first thing in the morning and play this ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwYX52BP2Sk) full blast. He thought it was funny.
I’m sure he was quite mistaken. Did y’all let him live?
Getting born is probably even more irritating than being waked up by an alarm clock.
Well, on his mother’s end of things, it was exactly the same.
AMDG
Which makes you wonder how the human race has ever propagated.
Not really.
AMDG
“Did y’all let him live?”
We don’t talk about that…..
Heh!
Did you see this?
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/07/human-all-too-human
It bothers me a bit that they are responding.
AMDG
Light On Dark Water 
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