Who’s Your Daddy: The Problem of Paternalism

Paternalism is officially defined as “the policy or practice on the part of people in positions of authority of restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those subordinate to them in the subordinates’ supposed best interest.” In theory paternalism is benevolent in the extreme and treated as a respectable moral necessity. But in practice the idea of paternalism is extremely dangerous to autonomy and the reproductive justice movement. When I had sex for the first time one of my best friends, a man, reacted quite contrary to what I’d expected from him.