One support I see as essential to responding to reproductive asymmetry (a term that's new to me and that I really like!) is paid parental leave. I tell anyone who will listen that 1) FMLA leave is available to BOTH PARENTS, not just the mother and 2) my husband is the only man I've ever met who took all 12 weeks of his FMLA leave and that was essential to our ability to navigate having premature twins. I work in a male-dominated industry and I think the most leave I've ever seen a man take following the birth of a healthy baby was two weeks and this is uncommon, most men are back after a week, with maybe a reduced schedule for a few weeks after that. FMLA leave is unpaid which means you can only stay out of the workforce as long as your savings account and vacation time can support you; most people do not have 3 months of living expenses as cash on hand, and even fewer people have vacation time which accrues to the point of being able to take 3 months off and not miss a paycheck (full disclosure that this was our situation; my husband's employer allows sick leave to roll over year-to-year and he's a generally healthy person who had been there for 14 years when our twins were born. 3 years later when we had our 3rd his sick leave balance was much smaller but he still had enough to stay home for 6 weeks). If we had paid parental leave and suddenly it became normal to see fathers leave the workplace for 2-3 months around the birth of a child, then it would not be seen as a "problem" that is only associated with female employees!
You've set up what is potentially a false dichotomy, here. A person could want freedom to walk away at some times, and support in bearing womanly (or indeed manly) responsibilities at other times. I completely agree that the latter needs to be supported, but I suspect that dismantling the former is unlikely to be helpful, in that regard. Most of the time, when women don't have the freedom to do something for reasons involving biology, men are all too happy to say "Whoops, how did that happen? Oh, well, not our fault, guess you'll have to put up with it" and completely ignore the role of society in making childbearing and child-rearing so difficult.
This is a complex issue. Ample parental leave for both parents is certainly one part of the solution, as is an expectation (and understanding) that fathers will also take time off when a new baby arrives. My husband had nine weeks of paid leave available from his employer, and it was flexible in when it could be used, so we used other types of leave for a couple of weeks when the baby was born, and then invoked his parental leave when our baby was about eight months old, in order to help with my transition back to work. That was really helpful.
In addition, I would like to see a society in which we don't feel we have to hide the realities of childbearing. There's real pressure to say that, no, being pregnant doesn't affect your ability to work at all (even though morning sickness hits hard, for some people, and you can get pretty exhausted, towards the end, too). We also need to acknowledge that being a birthing parent is a different experience to being a non-birthing parent -- the lesson of how "stopping the tenure clock" around the birth of a child mostly just leads to a huge boost in the careers of fathers is an important one, here. Fathers can and should be taking time to help with a new baby, but there's no way to make the experience of giving birth "equal" to the experience of having your partner give birth.
I find myself disturbed by the ways in which society is willing to take advantage of the manifold vulnerabilities associated with pregnancy and childbirth. There are the ways in which the medical system holds the health of mothers and babies hostage to an overly-restrictive regime in which doctors are assumed to have authority over details as small as whether a birthing mother can stand or lie down. We need better mental health support for new mothers who may be experiencing post-natal depression. We need to recognise the ways in which a pregnant woman (or a new mother) is particularly vulnerable to abuse; we need to not be ashamed of the ways in which the psychology of childbearing plays into this, telling us that if someone (perhaps literally) poops on us then we should take care of that person rather than protesting.
We need to support the compatibility of care and of ambition -- two powerful sources of meaning that neither men nor women deserve to be cut off from. If women lose out on career opportunities because they want to take care of their preschool children (in a full time or even just part time capacity), the assumption is that this is their "choice" and that nothing has gone wrong, here, even if taking that time means they lose out on important life dreams, or find themselves relegated to less prestigious, more "feminine" job positions, because those are the types of jobs that will consider accommodating them.
This also influences when women choose to bear children. There's this fear that if we have children too early (by which I mean, in our twenties), we won't be "established" in our careers, and will find ourselves forever cut off from certain opportunities. We take it as given that entering the workforce as a mother will be hard, that we will need previous experience we can point to in order to prove to employers that we are worth hiring, and that if we don't have that experience then it's a foregone conclusion that we will miss out.
Childbearing takes a lot of time and energy, there's no doubt about that. But the tradeoffs aren't fixed. When society is willing to come together around new parents and help them out, that makes a huge difference. When that societal support is paired with a respect for mothers as full human beings, rather than a view of mothers as saintly madonnas who can and should martyr themselves unnecessarily ... well, I don't even know what that would look like. I want to find out.
The first support I think of is getting rid of the idea that delaying childbearing is an appropriate way to fix reproductive asymmetry. Whether it's pushing free IUDs on poorer women, holding up a "success sequence" of delaying childbearing until age 25 or 30, writing onerous restrictions into paid family leave laws to push women back into the labor force (cf. Isabel Sawhill's critiques of DC Paid Family Leave), or abortion, a society that looks at children as an obstacle to women's equality isn't going to effectively respond to the dependence of having and raising children.
I've read this article several times, and am not through thinking about it, but finally something out of the swirl of "what's wrong and what can be done about it" gets clear. Two things are needed at the same time, for both women and men. For one thing -- to decrease an illusory, fantasy idea of freedom -- for if you know you've conceived a child, you're never truly free of that, no matter what either father or mother does. And the other thing -- not second, in fact perhaps even more basic -- to increase the sense of true belonging. (This reminds me of your book, Leah, which I've not yet read -- about how to create a community of belonging.) Both of these things are needed -- desperately, for many people in our society, and to some extent I think, for most.
Think about how almost all advertising and article illustrations build on our human fear of not belonging -- which our society also makes a realistic fear in many other ways. (Even for people who seem secure in every way -- if the security has been constructed from fear, it's an illusion.)
At the same time, ads and illustrations keep showing us that we're foolish to be content and rooted, because there are other places and situations that look so much better. Think of Instagram and Facebook too. So and so just got back from this fantastic vacation...and look at this new house! In some ways social media is even more seductive, because it's such an easy way to keep in touch with extended family and friends...or at least, it gives the illusion of really "keeping in touch."
Material poverty makes all this so much worse. That said, I don't discount the spiritual and emotional poverty that may be much worse. If I had to choose, I'd choose the material poverty and the social handicaps that come with it.
I've never forgotten how a study showed that young black men in a big city ghetto -- New York? Boston? -- expected to live no longer than 20 years, if that. And we wonder why many don't plunge from total lack of belonging -- except perhaps to a gang -- into "responsible family life?" I'd start right there -- real belonging for all boys and men. And yes of course, girls and women. And yes, I'm a feminist.
One concern that I have is that I don’t actually think Family Leave is adequate. A baby doesn’t suddenly become easier after 12 weeks or 4 months. (If anything, it was easier to work during the potato-like first 4 months than the curious exploratory 6-12 months.) I’m not sure if the problem is that our daughter was higher needs than most, or that we are both basically only children and don’t know what to do with babies. We have only been able to keep our heads afloat with having one parent stay home and having extra babysitting support. We moved to be closer to relatives in part to get that babysitting for free / from our parents. I honestly wonder if a straight up cash tax credit would be better than FMLA because it could encourage arrangements that are long-term more sustainable. FMLA is very boom or bust - 40 hours a week off and then 40 back on. Something that would give a bit more time/space/resources to be moms without such dramatic shifts would be more useful.
I am reminded of a comment I once heard from one of my all-time favorite “other feminists,” the late Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, who pointed back beyond abortion to the emergence of the Pill: “In one fell swoop, widespread availability of oral contraceptives undid what Western Civilization had been trying to do for 2000 years, that is, hold men responsible for the children they engender and the women who bear them.”
What supports do you see as most essential to respond to reproductive asymmetry?
I think the tragedy of reproductive asymmetry is that the "my body, my choice" message underpinning birth control and abortion meant that it became a woman's problem only, and not something a man never need be concerned about.
The only way I see it changing is that it would require a major change in how women navigate and manage their relationships with their partners so that they know it isn't about women's bodies only, but men as well. Make sure men have a stake in it.
I imagine there are plenty of women who are doing that already in committed relationships. That is where it needs to begin, on the personal level.
I think a truer analysis of how our current society started failing men and women in the 60s/70s would emphasize the destruction of labor unions and the legitimizing of mass firing rather than Roe v Wade and the second wave feminism that let women publicly wear pants, work in more industries, and apply for credit.
And any critique of “unwanted sex and the hierarchies of power that generate it” shouldn't ignore the role of the Church in idealizing women's purity and chastity while insisting men can't control their urges.
Reproductive asymmetry and our response to it is a vital and interesting discussion that I'm so glad you're hosting. People across all parts of our political spectrum can agree that our society fails families and fails both men and women as parents and people. Fixing this failing is vital, and can go into all sorts of interesting policy nooks and crannies (like guaranteed basic income, healthcare for all, child credits, baby boxes, so so many directions). But the idea that a response to reproductive asymmetry should include forcing women into unsafe illegal abortions (which are increasing in our country anyway due to limited abortion access and healthcare costs) and/or increasing surveillance of pregnant bodies boggles me.
Leah, can you or Ms. Bachiochi give more clarity and context around the "walk away" wording and what she means by that. I am not sure if I agree with it, given the following sentence: a man "blithely return[s] to the course of his life." I don't think that's an accurate portrayal of the issues surrounding why women get abortions whatsoever. Often, women who do get abortions do have supportive partners, are married, and together make a truly tough and challenging decision. It is not based on not sexual autonomy or freedom. Instead, it is based on factors such as lack of health care, poverty, the immense strain of a 9-month long pregnancy on a woman, etc. Or, yes, a woman has an unsupportive partner who is abusive, who treats her terribly, or perhaps even raped her, and is now pregnant with her assailant's child.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with the assertion that reproductive freedom is a way of playing catch up. I see the reasoning and even see where it occurs in society, but I don't think that's not the case. I have personally thought a lot about this type of stuff over the past year. I have "undo" many of the things I was told and accepted in Catholic schools and circles. (I'm still proudly Catholic, though.) have found that most of the (politically conservative-based, usually) rhetoric on women's issues Empirical evidence states that birth control is not harmful to women — it doesn't cause cancer; it doesn't forever alter women's bodies, etc. Yes, there are outliers, but primarily the data states otherwise. And I do think it is time we talk about these issues more openly and honestly.
> What supports do you see as most essential to respond to reproductive asymmetry?
First thing I think of is people who will take the role of a gracious listener... someone to listen to a newly-pregnant woman who thinks her world is going to fall apart... and keep listening as she tries to figure out if she can see a vision for how to "do life" with a kiddo way earlier in her life than she imagined.
I imagine this listener and the would-be counselee having potential for misunderstanding! (You are dealing with something so raw, and affecting every part of your life!) Some families have money problems that are inexplicable to others. Not just the immediate nuclear family lacking sufficient means, but walls and barriers like, "I can't ask members of my extended family for financial help." "Why not?" And the answer is something like, "Because of a culture where members of my family have been incredibly unreliable with money/informal-loans in the past, it will give me pariah status." ("Pariah"! That's the word. That's one of the huge asymmetries that's been retained.)
Meanwhile, a woman deemed privileged will have her own struggle, as she wrestles with her vision for moving forward with education/career at the pace all her peers do. (people have mentioned this already!) Or she fears she won't be able to provide her child with the status symbols that are considered "essentials" for kids by her upper-middle-class peers, and, well, in a culture where "good moms" will "obviously" provide those things, she's looking ahead at shame.
I wonder if - throughout already-existing-structures in America - there is enough... for any woman or family to be supported through the raising of an unlooked-for child. If such a mother or father would be able to accept help. Without shame.
A support team of one close friend/counselor who is an excellent listener and gives hours a week (or a community of people who know how to really listen!) should be able to see a woman [who's apprehensive about having a child at an early stage of life] through a process of changing her narrative, changing her vision, and re-orienting her existing relationships. (esp. with family members, and with the child's father)
To leave a more serious comment than my last one, I think the area in which both women and men need more support is family leave and work hours that respect family needs. If we could shift society from its current work-takes-all mentality to one that genuinely valued children and family life, that would go a long way towards erasing the effects of what you've termed reproductive asymmetry, and it would benefit men as well as women.
What if men could be charged with assault and battery for every unintended pregnancy, even if the sex itself was consensual? (I don't really think that's a very good answer--as the mother of a son, I'm appalled by the idea--and yet I've thought for some time now that it's an argument that might be worth making, just to point out the imbalance in the consequences of pregnancy for men and women. Pregnancy and childbirth are physically grueling ordeals--there should be some form of redress when a woman is forced to endure them when she doesn't want to.)
One support I see as essential to responding to reproductive asymmetry (a term that's new to me and that I really like!) is paid parental leave. I tell anyone who will listen that 1) FMLA leave is available to BOTH PARENTS, not just the mother and 2) my husband is the only man I've ever met who took all 12 weeks of his FMLA leave and that was essential to our ability to navigate having premature twins. I work in a male-dominated industry and I think the most leave I've ever seen a man take following the birth of a healthy baby was two weeks and this is uncommon, most men are back after a week, with maybe a reduced schedule for a few weeks after that. FMLA leave is unpaid which means you can only stay out of the workforce as long as your savings account and vacation time can support you; most people do not have 3 months of living expenses as cash on hand, and even fewer people have vacation time which accrues to the point of being able to take 3 months off and not miss a paycheck (full disclosure that this was our situation; my husband's employer allows sick leave to roll over year-to-year and he's a generally healthy person who had been there for 14 years when our twins were born. 3 years later when we had our 3rd his sick leave balance was much smaller but he still had enough to stay home for 6 weeks). If we had paid parental leave and suddenly it became normal to see fathers leave the workplace for 2-3 months around the birth of a child, then it would not be seen as a "problem" that is only associated with female employees!
You've set up what is potentially a false dichotomy, here. A person could want freedom to walk away at some times, and support in bearing womanly (or indeed manly) responsibilities at other times. I completely agree that the latter needs to be supported, but I suspect that dismantling the former is unlikely to be helpful, in that regard. Most of the time, when women don't have the freedom to do something for reasons involving biology, men are all too happy to say "Whoops, how did that happen? Oh, well, not our fault, guess you'll have to put up with it" and completely ignore the role of society in making childbearing and child-rearing so difficult.
This is a complex issue. Ample parental leave for both parents is certainly one part of the solution, as is an expectation (and understanding) that fathers will also take time off when a new baby arrives. My husband had nine weeks of paid leave available from his employer, and it was flexible in when it could be used, so we used other types of leave for a couple of weeks when the baby was born, and then invoked his parental leave when our baby was about eight months old, in order to help with my transition back to work. That was really helpful.
In addition, I would like to see a society in which we don't feel we have to hide the realities of childbearing. There's real pressure to say that, no, being pregnant doesn't affect your ability to work at all (even though morning sickness hits hard, for some people, and you can get pretty exhausted, towards the end, too). We also need to acknowledge that being a birthing parent is a different experience to being a non-birthing parent -- the lesson of how "stopping the tenure clock" around the birth of a child mostly just leads to a huge boost in the careers of fathers is an important one, here. Fathers can and should be taking time to help with a new baby, but there's no way to make the experience of giving birth "equal" to the experience of having your partner give birth.
I find myself disturbed by the ways in which society is willing to take advantage of the manifold vulnerabilities associated with pregnancy and childbirth. There are the ways in which the medical system holds the health of mothers and babies hostage to an overly-restrictive regime in which doctors are assumed to have authority over details as small as whether a birthing mother can stand or lie down. We need better mental health support for new mothers who may be experiencing post-natal depression. We need to recognise the ways in which a pregnant woman (or a new mother) is particularly vulnerable to abuse; we need to not be ashamed of the ways in which the psychology of childbearing plays into this, telling us that if someone (perhaps literally) poops on us then we should take care of that person rather than protesting.
We need to support the compatibility of care and of ambition -- two powerful sources of meaning that neither men nor women deserve to be cut off from. If women lose out on career opportunities because they want to take care of their preschool children (in a full time or even just part time capacity), the assumption is that this is their "choice" and that nothing has gone wrong, here, even if taking that time means they lose out on important life dreams, or find themselves relegated to less prestigious, more "feminine" job positions, because those are the types of jobs that will consider accommodating them.
This also influences when women choose to bear children. There's this fear that if we have children too early (by which I mean, in our twenties), we won't be "established" in our careers, and will find ourselves forever cut off from certain opportunities. We take it as given that entering the workforce as a mother will be hard, that we will need previous experience we can point to in order to prove to employers that we are worth hiring, and that if we don't have that experience then it's a foregone conclusion that we will miss out.
Childbearing takes a lot of time and energy, there's no doubt about that. But the tradeoffs aren't fixed. When society is willing to come together around new parents and help them out, that makes a huge difference. When that societal support is paired with a respect for mothers as full human beings, rather than a view of mothers as saintly madonnas who can and should martyr themselves unnecessarily ... well, I don't even know what that would look like. I want to find out.
The first support I think of is getting rid of the idea that delaying childbearing is an appropriate way to fix reproductive asymmetry. Whether it's pushing free IUDs on poorer women, holding up a "success sequence" of delaying childbearing until age 25 or 30, writing onerous restrictions into paid family leave laws to push women back into the labor force (cf. Isabel Sawhill's critiques of DC Paid Family Leave), or abortion, a society that looks at children as an obstacle to women's equality isn't going to effectively respond to the dependence of having and raising children.
I've read this article several times, and am not through thinking about it, but finally something out of the swirl of "what's wrong and what can be done about it" gets clear. Two things are needed at the same time, for both women and men. For one thing -- to decrease an illusory, fantasy idea of freedom -- for if you know you've conceived a child, you're never truly free of that, no matter what either father or mother does. And the other thing -- not second, in fact perhaps even more basic -- to increase the sense of true belonging. (This reminds me of your book, Leah, which I've not yet read -- about how to create a community of belonging.) Both of these things are needed -- desperately, for many people in our society, and to some extent I think, for most.
Think about how almost all advertising and article illustrations build on our human fear of not belonging -- which our society also makes a realistic fear in many other ways. (Even for people who seem secure in every way -- if the security has been constructed from fear, it's an illusion.)
At the same time, ads and illustrations keep showing us that we're foolish to be content and rooted, because there are other places and situations that look so much better. Think of Instagram and Facebook too. So and so just got back from this fantastic vacation...and look at this new house! In some ways social media is even more seductive, because it's such an easy way to keep in touch with extended family and friends...or at least, it gives the illusion of really "keeping in touch."
Material poverty makes all this so much worse. That said, I don't discount the spiritual and emotional poverty that may be much worse. If I had to choose, I'd choose the material poverty and the social handicaps that come with it.
I've never forgotten how a study showed that young black men in a big city ghetto -- New York? Boston? -- expected to live no longer than 20 years, if that. And we wonder why many don't plunge from total lack of belonging -- except perhaps to a gang -- into "responsible family life?" I'd start right there -- real belonging for all boys and men. And yes of course, girls and women. And yes, I'm a feminist.
One concern that I have is that I don’t actually think Family Leave is adequate. A baby doesn’t suddenly become easier after 12 weeks or 4 months. (If anything, it was easier to work during the potato-like first 4 months than the curious exploratory 6-12 months.) I’m not sure if the problem is that our daughter was higher needs than most, or that we are both basically only children and don’t know what to do with babies. We have only been able to keep our heads afloat with having one parent stay home and having extra babysitting support. We moved to be closer to relatives in part to get that babysitting for free / from our parents. I honestly wonder if a straight up cash tax credit would be better than FMLA because it could encourage arrangements that are long-term more sustainable. FMLA is very boom or bust - 40 hours a week off and then 40 back on. Something that would give a bit more time/space/resources to be moms without such dramatic shifts would be more useful.
I am reminded of a comment I once heard from one of my all-time favorite “other feminists,” the late Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, who pointed back beyond abortion to the emergence of the Pill: “In one fell swoop, widespread availability of oral contraceptives undid what Western Civilization had been trying to do for 2000 years, that is, hold men responsible for the children they engender and the women who bear them.”
What supports do you see as most essential to respond to reproductive asymmetry?
I think the tragedy of reproductive asymmetry is that the "my body, my choice" message underpinning birth control and abortion meant that it became a woman's problem only, and not something a man never need be concerned about.
The only way I see it changing is that it would require a major change in how women navigate and manage their relationships with their partners so that they know it isn't about women's bodies only, but men as well. Make sure men have a stake in it.
I imagine there are plenty of women who are doing that already in committed relationships. That is where it needs to begin, on the personal level.
I think a truer analysis of how our current society started failing men and women in the 60s/70s would emphasize the destruction of labor unions and the legitimizing of mass firing rather than Roe v Wade and the second wave feminism that let women publicly wear pants, work in more industries, and apply for credit.
And any critique of “unwanted sex and the hierarchies of power that generate it” shouldn't ignore the role of the Church in idealizing women's purity and chastity while insisting men can't control their urges.
Reproductive asymmetry and our response to it is a vital and interesting discussion that I'm so glad you're hosting. People across all parts of our political spectrum can agree that our society fails families and fails both men and women as parents and people. Fixing this failing is vital, and can go into all sorts of interesting policy nooks and crannies (like guaranteed basic income, healthcare for all, child credits, baby boxes, so so many directions). But the idea that a response to reproductive asymmetry should include forcing women into unsafe illegal abortions (which are increasing in our country anyway due to limited abortion access and healthcare costs) and/or increasing surveillance of pregnant bodies boggles me.
Leah, can you or Ms. Bachiochi give more clarity and context around the "walk away" wording and what she means by that. I am not sure if I agree with it, given the following sentence: a man "blithely return[s] to the course of his life." I don't think that's an accurate portrayal of the issues surrounding why women get abortions whatsoever. Often, women who do get abortions do have supportive partners, are married, and together make a truly tough and challenging decision. It is not based on not sexual autonomy or freedom. Instead, it is based on factors such as lack of health care, poverty, the immense strain of a 9-month long pregnancy on a woman, etc. Or, yes, a woman has an unsupportive partner who is abusive, who treats her terribly, or perhaps even raped her, and is now pregnant with her assailant's child.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with the assertion that reproductive freedom is a way of playing catch up. I see the reasoning and even see where it occurs in society, but I don't think that's not the case. I have personally thought a lot about this type of stuff over the past year. I have "undo" many of the things I was told and accepted in Catholic schools and circles. (I'm still proudly Catholic, though.) have found that most of the (politically conservative-based, usually) rhetoric on women's issues Empirical evidence states that birth control is not harmful to women — it doesn't cause cancer; it doesn't forever alter women's bodies, etc. Yes, there are outliers, but primarily the data states otherwise. And I do think it is time we talk about these issues more openly and honestly.
> What supports do you see as most essential to respond to reproductive asymmetry?
First thing I think of is people who will take the role of a gracious listener... someone to listen to a newly-pregnant woman who thinks her world is going to fall apart... and keep listening as she tries to figure out if she can see a vision for how to "do life" with a kiddo way earlier in her life than she imagined.
I imagine this listener and the would-be counselee having potential for misunderstanding! (You are dealing with something so raw, and affecting every part of your life!) Some families have money problems that are inexplicable to others. Not just the immediate nuclear family lacking sufficient means, but walls and barriers like, "I can't ask members of my extended family for financial help." "Why not?" And the answer is something like, "Because of a culture where members of my family have been incredibly unreliable with money/informal-loans in the past, it will give me pariah status." ("Pariah"! That's the word. That's one of the huge asymmetries that's been retained.)
Meanwhile, a woman deemed privileged will have her own struggle, as she wrestles with her vision for moving forward with education/career at the pace all her peers do. (people have mentioned this already!) Or she fears she won't be able to provide her child with the status symbols that are considered "essentials" for kids by her upper-middle-class peers, and, well, in a culture where "good moms" will "obviously" provide those things, she's looking ahead at shame.
I wonder if - throughout already-existing-structures in America - there is enough... for any woman or family to be supported through the raising of an unlooked-for child. If such a mother or father would be able to accept help. Without shame.
A support team of one close friend/counselor who is an excellent listener and gives hours a week (or a community of people who know how to really listen!) should be able to see a woman [who's apprehensive about having a child at an early stage of life] through a process of changing her narrative, changing her vision, and re-orienting her existing relationships. (esp. with family members, and with the child's father)
To leave a more serious comment than my last one, I think the area in which both women and men need more support is family leave and work hours that respect family needs. If we could shift society from its current work-takes-all mentality to one that genuinely valued children and family life, that would go a long way towards erasing the effects of what you've termed reproductive asymmetry, and it would benefit men as well as women.
What if men could be charged with assault and battery for every unintended pregnancy, even if the sex itself was consensual? (I don't really think that's a very good answer--as the mother of a son, I'm appalled by the idea--and yet I've thought for some time now that it's an argument that might be worth making, just to point out the imbalance in the consequences of pregnancy for men and women. Pregnancy and childbirth are physically grueling ordeals--there should be some form of redress when a woman is forced to endure them when she doesn't want to.)