"Women remain, as linguists say, the 'marked' sex, the nonstandard, defined as the opposite of the male norm."

"There is no one effortless way to look as a congresswoman, no uniform of business suit and tie that allows her to blend in. Most female politicians handle this by approximating male attire with some tweaks. Usually that involves a blazer, pearls, and very discreet hair and makeup — ideally, none of which gets talked about. But there is power in rejecting this model. Power in embracing the variety of embellishments available to women — earrings, lipstick, dresses, different hair styles. And an extension of this power can be a woman experimenting with baring her belly, along with her reproductive journey. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is consciously working to fuse her body and mind on the public stage, to show us what real, human, embodied and, yes, female power can look like. She will not be a mere 'thing in a suit,' as she said."

Writes Rhonda Garelick, in "Ocasio-Cortez Rewrites the Rules" (NYT gift link).

It's an old idea — that feminine beauty is powerful and that power-seeking women can implement beauty to rise in the political world. Cleopatra, etc. But Garelick adds the notion that a woman baring her belly to the public and making a show out of shifting her fertility into the realm of science and technology will augment the power achieved through beauty and fashion. The old idea is a cliché. It works as far as it works. The new idea is barely coherent.

Moving the frozen eggs to the front burner.

I don't know how much more of this we'll be seeing, but I wanted to record what seems like an incipient trend, the women's issue we somehow suddenly need — egg freezing.

1. A couple days ago, in an episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Why Adults Are Getting Cancer at a Younger Age," there was the story of a 36-year-old woman with breast cancer, facing surgery and chemotherapy, who was asked by her doctors if she wanted to freeze her eggs: "And so first things first, like my brain wasn't even on the cancer. My brain was like all the things that go into freezing your eggs and what that meant for like my future and what that meant. Like my boyfriend and I at that time, like we weren't talking about having kids...." And the journalist assures us that "egg freezing is a really intense process, it's intense emotionally and it also intense physically."

2. In yesterday's NYT, there was "Ocasio-Cortez Opened Up About Freezing Her Eggs. She Got Women Talking. Many women say being open about the fertility treatment is a form of empowerment. But critics say all the talk can be misleading" (gift link). "Until about 2012, freezing eggs to preserve fertility was considered an experimental intervention for urgent cases like cancer patients whose fertility would be compromised by treatment. Like breast cancer, menopause and menstruation, egg freezing has become yet another women’s health issue in which open discussion is seen as a form of empowerment. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez herself said that it was 'badass that I’m going to be giving myself shots in the green room' of a TV studio..."

"I'm not sure why WaPo covered this, but ignored trump wearing a wig that is styled like his mother's hair during her last year of life."

That's the top-rated comment (by far) on the WaPo article, "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she’s freezing her eggs/The Democratic congresswoman, 36, said she made the decision to undergo the fertility procedure to 'feel more in control of my life'" (gift link).

I was trying to figure out whether and how to blog the AOC story. I saw her video yesterday:

AOC is starting her journey for freezing her eggs!

Sharing her doing the shot.

"Don't be weird about this even though I know you all will be".

She knows the internet so well. pic.twitter.com/2ywzN8R5d9

— Winter (@LeftyWinter) August 9, 2026

I haven't seen such a display of political abdominal flesh since the days of LBJ and his gall bladder surgery:

Still wondering how to blog that. But what's all this about Trump and his wig?

"Over oysters and soft cheeses — things she wouldn’t be able to eat while pregnant — she raised a glass to her 'tribe' and the awesome strength of women."

I'm reading "They Started I.V.F., Then Split. Now Who Gets Custody of the Embryos? For 47-year-old Erin Millender, this will likely be her last chance to become a mother. Her husband no longer wants to have a child with her" (NYT).

That's a gift link, because you've got to read the details. I had a strong opinion based on the headline, but then my sympathy shifted, more than once, as I read the article. The story — the details about this particular woman and man — gets really complicated. 

"[Guy Edward] Bartkus was said to have identified with 'pro-mortalism,' a philosophy that claims death is preferable to being born in the first place."

"His extremist beliefs, which he recorded in manifestos, included being against bringing babies into the world without their consent to spare them from future suffering. The suspect attempted to live-stream the explosion, although authorities said the video failed to upload.... Bilal Essayli, the US attorney for Los Angeles, wrote on social media that Bartkus appeared to be 'anti pro-life.'"

From "Terrorist bombed fertility clinic ‘to spare babies suffering’/Guy Edward Bartkus was the only fatality in the explosion at a facility in Palm Springs, California" (London Times).

I don't think there is an organized "anti pro-life" movement (to be distinguished from the pro-choice opponents of the pro-life movement). Here's the L.A. Times article about Bartkus's manifesto:

"Mr. Musk has told people close to him in recent months that he envisions his children (of which there are at least 11) and two of their three mothers occupying adjoining properties."

"That way, his younger children could be a part of one another’s lives, and Mr. Musk could schedule time among them. Directly behind the villa is a six-bedroom mansion.... When in Austin, he often stays at a third mansion about a 10-minute walk away.... One of the mothers, Shivon Zilis, an executive at Neuralink... has moved into one of the homes with her children. But Claire Boucher, the musician better known as Grimes, who is the mother to three of his children, is in a protracted legal fight with Mr. Musk and has so far steered clear. The third mother is Mr. Musk’s first wife, Justine Musk, with whom he has five living children, all in their late teens or older. There is room in the Austin compound if they were to visit, though he is estranged from at least one of those children.... Mr. Musk has said that I.V.F. is a more efficient way of having children because it allows parents to control parts of the process, according to a person who understands his thinking.... In 2021, without Ms. Boucher’s knowledge, Mr. Musk donated sperm to Ms. Zilis, who became pregnant with twins through I.V.F.... That same year, the billionaire and Ms. Boucher were expecting a second child also conceived via I.V.F. but carried by a surrogate.... Further complicating matters, Mr. Musk took a name that he and Ms. Boucher had chosen for their daughter — Valkyrie — and gave it to one of Ms. Zilis’s twins...."

From "Elon Musk Wants Big Families. He Bought a Secret Compound for His. As the billionaire warns of population collapse and the moral obligation to have children, he’s navigating his own complicated family" (NYT)(free-access link).

I wonder what kind of "control" he is doing with IVF.

"Many are drawn to Steinberg for his claim to have a 92 per cent accuracy rate in predicting eye colour."

"'We are not making blue eyes,' he says. Rather, his clinicians implant the embryo that carries the DNA for blue eyes. 'But we are learning that there are five different shades of blue, because parents might call up with a five-year-old and say, "Well, this isn’t quite the blue we were thinking about."' IVF at his clinic — involving hormone treatment of the mother, egg extraction and fertilisation — costs about $30,000, then $10,000 for each test for genetic abnormalities. Two famous singers came to see him who wanted their child to be a singer too — which he could not facilitate...."

I'm reading "Want a girl with blue eyes? Inside California’s VIP IVF industry/In the state’s low-regulation fertility clinics the perfect child may soon be available — for a price. Megan Agnew meets the doctors, mums and surrogates" (London Times).

From the anecdote that begins the article: "The couple conceived their first daughter, Aspen, the old-fashioned (and free) way, and she was born four years ago — her hair fiery red like her father’s. Soon afterwards Hartley wanted a second daughter. 'I grew up in a family full of girls,' says the stay-at-home mother. 'It was, like, girl family vibes.'... 'I thought, we have one redhead, let’s have a blonde. But my doctor said you can’t do that — yet. So then we were, like, OK, we’ll just have the girl.'...The couple received one round of IVF treatment at the Southern California Reproductive Center... It worked. Bardot arrived very quickly one night in autumn and is now nearly two — and, by chance, strawberry blonde. 'It was perfect... Bardot has my features, so I have my mini-me and Neil has his. So I got what I wanted in the end.'"

Imagine naming your little girl Bardot, then going around enthusing about how she looks like you. Imagine going public about using IVF to sex-select and to try to get blue eyes.

"Three years ago... JD Vance... suggested in a TV interview that some Democrats including Vice President Harris are 'a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable.'"

"Those 2021 comments are resurfacing on social media now.... [M]any... are embracing and owning the 'childless cat lady' label as a point of pride.... 'There’s a movement,” declared Nikki Barnes, a previous member of the Democratic National Committee from Florida, accompanied by a 'Childless cat ladies for Harris 2024' image quickly amassing nearly 2 million views. On TikTok, people are snapping up 'Cat ladies for Harris 2024' stickers."

From "‘Childless cat ladies,’ Jennifer Aniston, and Swifties take on JD Vance/Celebrities including Jennifer Aniston and Whoopi Goldberg cite many reasons women don’t have kids. Others are embracing being a childless cat lady like Taylor Swift" (WaPo).

It's clever to take an insult and turn it around like that. I'm trying to think of other examples of that. There's "nasty woman." And "suffragette."

Another reaction to Vance's "childless cat ladies" is that not everyone who is childless is childless by choice:

“I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States,” actress Jennifer Aniston wrote Wednesday.... “Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.... I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.”

"I’d been a part of the pro-life movement my entire adult life... But now I’m left wondering how much of the movement was truly real."

"How much was it really about protecting all human life? And were millions of ostensibly pro-life Americans happy with pro-life laws, only so long as they targeted 'them' and imposed no burden at all on 'us'?

Writes David French, in "The Great Hypocrisy of the Pro-Life Movement" (NYT). He's looking at the reaction to the Alabama Supreme Court decision that treated IVF embryos like in utero embryos under the state’s wrongful death statute.

Pro-lifers "caved, almost instantly, on a core philosophical element of the movement — the incalculable value of every human life no matter how small — and the movement is now standing by or even applauding as Trump is turning the Republican Party into a pro-choice party, one more moderate than the Democrats, but pro-choice still...."

"Evelyn, half-Native American and half-Black, with curly, sandy brown hair, felt internally broken as the weight of unmet expectations..."

"... and the fear of the unknown seemed to overtake her when she accidentally became pregnant. While Evelyn struggled academically, Whiteman had degrees, a community of friends, and a supportive, boisterous Grenadian family. But after struggling to find a Black sperm donor, she would stand in the entryway of the empty guest bedroom in her newly constructed home, praying and longing for a baby. Now Evelyn and Whiteman were bound together, by a child...."

From "After abortion attempts, two women now bound by child" (WaPo)(free-access link, so you can discern the abortion and racial politics for yourself).

Background: "America has a Black sperm donor shortage. Black women are paying the price. Black men account for fewer than 2 percent of sperm donors at cryobanks. Their vials are gone in minutes."

"Evangelical tradition has built a public identity around being pro-family and pro-children, and many adherents are inclined to see I.V.F. positively..."

"... because it creates more children.... But the Alabama decision 'is a very morally honest opinion,' said Andrew T. Walker, associate professor of Christian ethics and public theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The ruling, he said, shows the direct line of reasoning between belief that life begins at conception, and opposition to abortion and I.V.F. 'It’s going to force conservative Christians to reckon with potentially their own complicity in the in vitro fertilization industry,' he said. The Roman Catholic Church is perhaps the largest institution in the world that opposes I.V.F. Nearly all modern fertility interventions are morally forbidden. The I.V.F. process typically includes many elements that the Catholic Church opposes. There’s masturbation — an 'offense against chastity,' according to the catechism, or teaching — often required to collect sperm. There’s the fertilization of an egg and sperm outside a woman’s body — outside the sacramental 'conjugal act' of sex between a husband and wife. And there is the creation of multiple embryos that are often destroyed or not implanted — an 'abortive practice.'..."

From "What Christian Traditions Say About I.V.F. Treatments/While Catholic teaching expressly forbids in vitro fertilization, Protestants tend to be more open" (NYT).

"Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory."

Wrote Chief Justice Tom Parker, in a concurring opinion, quoted in "Alabama Rules Frozen Embryos Are Children, Raising Questions About Fertility Care/The ruling raises worrisome legal issues for would-be parents far beyond Alabama whose hopes for children may depend on in vitro fertilization" (NYT).

It has become standard medical protocol during in vitro fertilization to extract as many eggs as possible from a woman, then to fertilize them to create embryos before freezing them. Generally, only one embryo is transferred at a time into the uterus in order to maximize the chances of successful implantation and a full-term pregnancy.

“But what if we can’t freeze them?” [asked the head of a group that represents the interests of infertility patients]. “Will we hold people criminally liable because you can’t freeze a ‘person’? This opens up so many questions.”...

I'm seeing the idea that the economics of the infertility treatment business have been radically transformed (at least in Alabama). 

"Some people in the US are rushing to get sterilized after the Roe v. Wade ruling."

That's the headline at CNN.

The evidence: "several gynecologists tell CNN they've seen an increase in people requesting tubal ligation." So... several gynecologists. Noted.

But there's an anecdote about a woman who's finding it difficult to get the surgery:

Will post-Roe legislation protect embryos left over from the process of in vitro fertilization?

I'm reading "Infertility Patients and Doctors Fear Abortion Bans Could Restrict I.V.F./The new state bans don’t explicitly cover embryos created outside the womb, but legal experts say overturning Roe could make it easier to place controls on genetic testing, storage and disposal of them" (NYT).

[M]any fear that regulations on unwanted pregnancies could, unintentionally or not, also control people who long for a pregnancy.... So far, the texts of the laws taking effect do not explicitly target embryos created in a lab.... By using the word “pregnancy,” most trigger bans distinguish their target from an embryo stored in a clinic....

Some medical and legal experts have proposed... creating one embryo at a time by storing sperm and eggs separately and thawing them only to create individual embryos as needed... 

[Another option] is called “compassionate transfer.” 

A 2020 position paper by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine says the term refers to a request by a patient to transfer embryos in her body “at a time when pregnancy is highly unlikely to occur, and when pregnancy is not the intended outcome.” For people who see the frozen embryo as human life, a compassionate transfer is a kind of natural death for the embryo, rather than having it destroyed in a lab. 

Katherine Kraschel, an expert on reproductive health law at Yale Law School, noted that clinics could be forced to store embryos that embryologists have determined are unlikely to result in a pregnancy. “It could also mean that ‘compassionate transfer’ is recommended not to honor a patient’s moral valuation of their embryos but because the state has imposed its moral valuation upon them,” she said. 

Another concern is that special consideration for the women who participate in I.V.F. can — and therefore will — be portrayed as racist:

Judith Daar, dean at the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University and an expert in reproductive health law, said that passing a state law that would distinguish infertility patients from those seeking an abortion risked having a discriminatory impact, “given that the majority of I.V.F. patients are white, while women of color account for the majority of all abortions performed in the U.S.”

"'Free IVF' as China tries to reverse declining birthrate."

Headline at the London Times. 

"A senior No 10 source said that male primogeniture was 'a nonsense.' Scrapping it was 'being looked at,' along with 'three or four other things.'"

Ha ha. It's nonsense, but they're only up to the point of looking at it and still considering several other options. 

The quote is from "Ladies first in Tory plan to abolish male primogeniture/Daughters may take hereditary peerages under new bill" (The London Times). 

After seven miscarriages and two rounds of IVF Charlotte Carew Pole was “absolutely thrilled” when she gave birth to her daughter, Jemima.... “‘Congratulations, what a shame it wasn’t a boy’, or ‘How quickly can you have another?’” were some of the comments she received.

“There was a general expectation that I must keep pumping them out until a boy arrived. And all because I married a man who will inherit a title.... He doesn’t care about it, and neither did his parents. But the more I thought about it, the angrier it made me. I was outraged that this was still happening. Why should you look at a scan and be disappointed it’s a girl?”....

Male primogeniture – inheritance by the eldest son - is a feudal relic, designed to ensure that estates remain undivided on the deaths of their owners, and kept out of the hands of women too weak to fight off predators.... Britain and Lesotho are the only two democracies with reserved seats in parliament for hereditaries.... The reservation of seats in parliament for men almost certainly contravenes Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights, prohibiting discrimination on grounds of sex....

"Sex selection abounded in China’s ultrasound rooms and abortion clinics during the 1980s and ’90s..."

"... but laws and regulations enacted since 2001 have forbidden hospitals from carrying out the procedure. Unfortunately, this has led to the emergence of a network of so-called black clinics: underground establishments that offer illegal sex screening and abortions, and are usually operated by unqualified personnel. When preimplantation genetic diagnosis technology — a way of profiling the genes of an embryo before implantation in the womb — was first used in Chinese clinics in 1999, some of these customers then began appearing at underground IVF clinics, too. In the vast majority of cases, couples undergo illegal sex screening because they want to give birth to a boy, not a girl. Chinese society has historically favored sons over daughters for a number of reasons, particularly the notion that only sons can continue the family line. Although this cultural preference for boys harms society as a whole, couples who opt for illegal sex screening never seem to remember that many of their hoped-for baby boys will one day struggle to find romantic partners, thanks to their parents’ contribution to the country’s skewed sex ratio."

From "Chinese Couples Want Boys — Trust Me, I’m a Fertility Doctor/Too many parents-to-be come to me asking about illegal sex screening, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg" (Sixth Tone).

Should young women — in their 20s, with no children — be permitted to have the ultimate in birth control...

... sterilization?

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists weighed in on the topic last year with an updated policy statement on the benefits and risks of sterilization. The statement concludes that it's both a safe and effective means of permanent birth control. "Women who have completed their childbearing are candidates for sterilization," it says — without elaborating on what, precisely, that means. Does it refer to women who have already had a child, or several, and have now decided they're done? Or could that category also include an 18-year-old woman who has determined she's "completed" before ever getting started?

A major area of focus for ACOG, and the OB-GYNs it seeks to counsel, is the question of regret....

Via Metafilter, where somebody says:

Kinda don't get why this is so controversial - there's nothing like the same sort of outrage over guys getting their tubes tied, even if they do it young.

(I joke, of course I know that endemic sexism is why.)

And somebody responds:

I think it's worth saying out loud, nevertheless: the patriarchy values women primarily on the basis of their ability to rear children and provide sexual pleasure to men. A young woman wanting her tubes tied is explicitly refusing to cooperate with her assigned role, and that is not looked kindly upon by the men who take it upon themselves to regulate women's bodies.

Should young minds be making such permanent decisions? Here's a BBC article "Is 25 the new cut-off point for adulthood?"

"Neuroscience has made these massive advances where we now don't think that things just stop at a certain age, that actually there's evidence of brain development well into early twenties and that actually the time at which things stop is much later than we first thought," says [child psychologist Laverne] Antrobus.

One usually sees this sort of expert opinion in the context of discussions of criminal sentencing, but it sprang to my mind as I read about a woman "explicitly refusing to cooperate with her assigned role" and resisting "the men who take it upon themselves to regulate women's bodies." That sounds as though it might be a somewhat immature way of thinking about your personal life, a temporary stage that you might develop beyond. But the decision to have a child is also permanent, and we completely accept young minds making that decision, and tubal ligation can be reversed (and IVF is also still possible).

"It’s pretty cynical and presumptuous to ask friends, family and strangers for money for crazy expensive IVF."

"It’s tacky and tasteless. What are they going to ask for next? The child’s private school or college fund?" said bioethicist Jennifer Lahl, looking at crowd-funding projects by couples who need money to make their baby.

But the Paranada-Frieds shrug off her assessment. “The circles we move in are not judgmental,” says Scott, 35, a teacher who wed his actor boyfriend in Manhattan last summer. “They know that Jay and I will make wonderful parents. That’s all that matters.”

If you think that's making it sound more like etiquette than ethics, the linked article include advice from the author of "The Etiquette Book: A Complete Guide to Modern Manners." She says:

"Whenever someone says anything that is offensive or inappropriate, you just reply, 'Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.'"

That sounds hard to say without a sarcastic edge. Let me suggest instead: Oh, my, and I was just thinking that the circles we move in are not judgmental.

"First gay couple to become fathers in UK spend £65k to ensure next child is a girl."

It's illegal to use IVF for sex selection purposes in the UK, so they had to come to America to pursue their goal. Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow already have 4 boys and one girl, and they want another girl — or 2 or 3 — for little Saffron to play with:

The millionaire dad [Barrie] added: 'We can’t wait to spoil our new daughters. I want to buy them pink Prada dresses and babygros. We will recycle too. We are going to use Saffron’s old wicker crib from Harrods, which cost £5,000, and divide one of the £100,000 diamond necklaces she does not wear any more into individual pieces for the babies. And we want to decorate the nursery as a rainforest!'...

Tony said: 'If sex selection was not possible, we would still have more children and love them, whatever their gender. But the technology is available and we wanted girls to balance our family. It causes outrage but I bet most people would do it.... The kids love the idea of getting sisters. They are so close. They are all such different characters, but get along so well.”

Barrie... said: “Saffron’s clothes come from every designer from Gucci and Karen Millen and she has 500 pairs of shoes. We spent £50,000 having her room designed like a swanky London flat with a 39-inch plasma TV and furniture from Harrods. The boys are not as bothered about clothes, but we get them the latest iPads and laptops. People say we should not spoil them, but they deserve it."

We all deserve it, no? The question is: Do you have the money to buy it? They are rich, they can buy what they like? Do you have a problem with that? Or do you think they're choosing the wrong things? And if you do, what business is it of yours?

Is it okay to want a girl because you want a kid that you can dress up in fashionable clothes?
	Yes, but you can't use sex selection technology to get that.
	Yes, and go ahead and use sex selection if you can afford it.
	Yes, and the government should pay for sex selection treatment.
	No, that's the wrong attitude to have, but I'm not going to stop you from buying the technology.
	No, and you should be banned from using technology to get that.
	No, and people like you shouldn't be allowed to have children.
pollcode.com free polls

UPDATE: Rereading this many years later, I wondered how things went for the Drewitt-Barlow family. I found this, from 2021: "EGG-CELLENT BOND/My ex dumped me for our girl’s boyfriend – but we’re best mates & I’ll use the same egg donor so our kids are siblings" (The Sun). "Our girl" is Saffron, the one they wanted another girl to play with. She grew up and got a boyfriend, and then Tony, one of the dads, stole her boyfriend. But they all live together, and we're told Tony made $90 million selling Bitcoin.