The Kennedy Doctrine

by digby

Without delving into the issue too deeply (because, you know, I’m too tired) I have been struck by one aspect of Garance Franke-Ruta’s proposal to criminalize flashing on camera for 18-21 year old women. (For the best take on it, IMO, see Avedon.)

Anyway, what jumped out at me when I read Garance’s piece a few days ago was that it was the second time in the last month or so that I’ve heard the same startling rationale used in an argument about women’s rights: that some women come to regret their decisions after they make them so all women must be protected from that possibility. The earlier version of this argument, of course, was in Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in the “partial-birth” abortion case.

I realize that Franke-Ruta’s argument is based on the idea that 18-21 year olds are not mature enough to make this decision, but I’m having a hard time seeing why, if this were so, Anthony Kennedy couldn’t argue (and probably will) that they should be prohibited from having an abortion until they are 21 either. The paternalism that is strongly implied in Kennedy’s formulation is made explicit in Franke-Ruta’s, but the underlying idea is very much the same: both Kennedy and Franke-Ruta seek to save women from themselves — women whom they assume are prone to make mistakes with their bodies that they later regret. This is a very bad trend.

You don’t hear the argument being made that young males should be prohibited from joining the armed services because it might be a decision they could regret later — and I would suggest there are far more of them than young women who wish they hadn’t flashed their breasts on camera at spring break. I can only speculate as to why these paternalistic ideas always seem to cluster around women’s sexuality — Franke-Ruta even uses the very old term “scarlet letter” in her piece — but it clearly seems to have something to do with women’s agency and not men’s.

I’m not sure I believe that the problem is all that serious (there is a distinct whiff of “rock and roll is destroying America’s youth” about all this) but stipulating for the sake of argument that it is, the solution to such problems can’t be paternalistic laws designed to save 18-21 year old women from doing things they later wished they hadn’t. The list of such behavior is literally endless — lawmakers won’t have time to do anything else.

Update: Franke-Ruta wrote me an email saying that she did not actually propose to criminalize flashing for the camera and she explains this further, here. What she proposes instead is to make it illegal for them to sell those images. I don’t think that changes my point, but it is not exactly the same thing as criminalizing flashing and should not be interpreted to mean that.

Also, her proposal does not actually include 21 year olds, but rather only 18,19 and 20 year olds.

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