Barnaby Joyce said his four daughters would be affected if same sex marriage
"We know that the best protection for those girls is that they get themselves into a secure relationship with a loving husband and I want that to happen for them."
Um. Excuse me Mr Joyce. Yes, can you see my hand raised? I have a question. It's a question that is being asked a lot at the moment, but i feel it's a legitimate one... What the fuck? Look, I know you're going to cop a lot for this, people will question how letting homosexual people get married will change your daughters chances of marriage. I'm not actually here to question you about that.
I'm here to ask you if you would like me to quit my job? You see, Mr Joyce. I'm a teacher. I spend, and have spent the last 4 and a half years educating young women (and men) that they can be anything that they want to be. That they can achieve whatever they want to do, and there are no barriers in the way of their success other than the ones they put there. But there you are, telling my female students that their academic success doesn't matter so much because the best "protection" for them is marriage. Protection from what, may i ask? Poverty? Abuse? Illness? Because last time i checked it was education, not marriage, that protected women. Isn't that what the UN is trying to do? Raise the education level of girls, get them out of poverty, lower the already-too-high birthrate? Lower the chances of infant mortality? Education, Mr Joyce. Not marriage.
But you probably don't want me educating your daughters anyway Mr Joyce. You see, I'm 26 and I'm not yet wed. Maybe i should quit my job and go on a husband, sorry, protector hunt. Get that security i really need. Not in the full-time stable employment i have now, but from a man. Because we all know they don't die, or leave, or become abusive. They're always supportive protectors right? I won't need this pesky thing i call a career when i get one of them to look after me. They live forever right? Or at least longer than me....
I just feel a bit sorry for your daughters Mr Joyce. That you don't value them as individuals. That you see marriage as being crucial to their lives. That as much as you tell them that you want them to get an education and a career it will still be secondary to their relationships with a member of the opposite sex... What if they revolutionise the way we treat diseases? Use stem cells to cure Parkinson's? Change someones life by being a nurse, or a teacher or a social worker? Aren't those things more valuable? Doesn't educating your daughters, and the daughters of all people, play a greater role in providing protection for not only themselves, but the people that they go on to educate play a bigger role in protection than a piece of paper joining them to one person for as long as they can take it?
Maybe you should consider that, Mr Joyce.
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