The Bizarre, Misguided Shaming of Single and Childless or Childfree Women by Pro-Lifer Abby Johnson – (Not All Single, Childless Women are Liberal, Pro-Choice Feminists)
When I was on Twitter the other day, someone who I follow on Twitter commented on a Tweet by a lady calling herself Abby Johnson.
A reminder: I sometimes follow people on social media who I don’t fully agree with on all topics. I’m a conservative, but I follow some liberals and progressives, including women who call themselves “radical feminists.” A lot of those radical feminists are pro-choice; they support abortion, I do not.
Like me, most of those radical feminists do not support “sex work” (strip clubs, prostitution, etc), and they do not support transgender activism.
Here is how Abby Johnson is currently describing herself on her Twitter bio (@AbbyJohnson):
Planned Parenthood Director turned Pro-Life Advocate! CEO of @ATTWNministry
. Global Ambassador for @COL1972official
. Best selling author & speaker. Mama/Wife
— end Twitter bio —
I am sincerely glad to hear that Johnson flipped her opinion on abortion, that she went from being pro-choice to pro-life.
Johnson seems a bit familiar. I think I may have seen her interviewed on Christian television program “The 700 Club,” in one of their CBN news segments, or perhaps I saw her on Fox News at some point?
At any rate, I am dismayed by her Twitter feed. Unfortunately, she, like many of my other fellow conservatives, falsely equates motherhood and wifehood with womanhood. I corrected her on that under a few of her other tweets.
(I’m not sure if Johnson is a Christian or not, but from her tweets, I can see that she leans right – as I do – and she also is pro-life, does not support transgenderism. I too am pro-life, and I sure as heck do not support progressive transgenderism, ie, allowing biological men who say they are women into women’s prisons, women’s locker rooms and so forth).
Also like a lot of other conservatives, Johnson holds a lot of false stereotypes about secular, liberal feminists. Not all feminists support trans activism, are anti-men, anti-nuclear family, and so on. There are actually women feminists who are married mothers.
If you’ve followed my blog, you will already know that I am middle-aged, I am single by circumstance (not by choice – not that men or women who choose to be single should be criticized for that, either), I am a conservative, I am anti-progressive trans agenda, and I am pro-life.
I am not opposed to The Nuclear Family, parenthood, and marriage, but I am opposed to the deification of such by other conservatives.
(Yes, most conservatives have unfortunately turned “the family,” motherhood, fatherhood, and marriage into idols, and they frequently love to make negative assumptions about, and insult anyone, who isn’t married or who doesn’t have children).
Let’s look at some of Johnson’s tweets – here’s the first one that I saw the other day, because someone I followed on Twitter commented below it (link to her tweet):
So, what does Johnson do with conservative, pro-life, anti- leftist transgender activism, middle-aged never married women such as myself, who was a devout Christian for decades, who had expected to get married, never met the right guy, remained faithful to biblical sexual ethics – no sex outside of marriage, hence no pregnancies?
Why is Johnson lumping pro-life, conservative, single, childless women, such as myself, into the same group with progressive, pro-choice, pro-progressive- gender- ideology women? Which is what she’s doing, because she’s equating being a woman, and/or a decent, happy woman, with being married and a mother.
Johnson is unnecessarily insulting other pro-life, conservative women who never did marry, who may never marry, and who do not have children, and she’s doing this to score a few points against what she terms “radical feminists,” who she (like many of my other fellow conservatives) wrongly assume, are all man-hating, baby-hating, single women who are lonely, miserable Cat Ladies.
(The Cat Lady trope is very sexist and needs to die off already. I usually see men tossing this at women. It feels a little more gross to see a woman tossing this sexist stand-by at other women to insult them with.) 
In trying to score points against radical feminists, many of whom are actually married with children (and possibly cats) of their own, Johnson creates collateral damage.
Meaning…
Not all conservative, anti-trans agenda, pro-life women are married, can get married, or want to get married. Not all conservative, anti-trans agenda, pro-life women have children, can have children, or want to have children.
Why is Abby Johnson throwing such conservative women under the bus? To get some cheap shots in at liberal, feminist, pro-choice women?
I’m a conservative, and while I do not agree with feminists (radical or otherwise) on every issue, I am not okay with Johnson (or other conservatives) shaming or insulting liberal or pro-choice women over their marital or parenting status, or that of mine or that of other conservative women.
I cannot imagine how Johnson hopes to change any pro-choice minds by carrying on like she is?
Maybe she just enjoys being inflammatory on social media, I think something all of us have been guilty of at one time or another, but I figure if she is serious about stopping abortion and getting pro-choice women to change their minds, her way of going about it seems counter-intuitive and likely to fail.
I sent this Johnson lady several tweets, including one where I said (link to tweet):
Some of us reading your tweets are pro-life conservative, never married & childless women who don’t support the Trans agenda.
(Link to post)- Why all the articles about being Child Free? On Being Childfree or Childless – as a Conservative / Christian
— end tweet —
Then, on February 11, 2023, Johnson made this comment:
I’ve had miserable feminists attacking me online for the past two days so I’d like to make a couple things clear: Abortion is evil, women don’t have to be feminists, and men in dresses aren’t women.
— end tweet —
Before I get to my response: I take it that Johnson equates feminism with being single, and assumes all single women are “miserable” because they are single. That is not the case.
Not all single women are miserable from being single or whatever else, not all feminists are single, and being married with children is not a guarantee of happiness and fulfillment.
Some women are in loveless or abusive marriages, for example, a topic I return to below.
Some mothers are so frazzled by motherhood, or regret it so much, that (Link): they murder their own children.
So please, let’s not pretend that marriage ‘n’ motherhood is a constant Land of Lollipops all the time.
On the 12th, I replied to Johnson’s comment above with this (link):
Is this in regards to your tweet shaming women for being single or childless? I’m not a feminist, I’m a conservative – it’s tasteless to attack other women for not being married/ not having children. 1 Cor 7 says marriage detracts from service to God, btw. Jesus never married.
— end tweet —
(I also sent her this tweet, with a link to an essay entitled (Link): “Three Reasons Women’s Ministries Might Want to Focus Less on Marriage and Motherhood“)
Here is a Feb. 10, 2023 tweet Johnson made (link):
Dear women: You do NOT have to go be a girl boss. Wanting to be a wife and mom is more than enough. Those are two of the most important duties on the planet.
— end tweet —
Under that comment of hers, someone said (link),
Your husband is a stay at home father for 8 kids while you work…so why isn’t it enough for YOU, Abby?
— end tweet —
Johnson replied (link),
I’m not a stay at home mom, but I think it’s a beautiful thing to do. Why does it bother you that I’m affirming women who make that decision?
— end tweet —
My comment to Johnson on that:
You can affirm mothers and wives without insulting single women or childless or childfree women for being single, childless, or childfree!
It’s not necessary to insult or ridicule single, childless (conservative, pro-life, anti-transgender agenda) women such as myself (or liberal, pro-choice women) to extol motherhood or marriage. This shouldn’t be a difficult concept for you to grasp.
I also left Johnson a quote tweet (link):
Now, recall, that is under her tweet here:
Dear women: You do NOT have to go be a girl boss. Wanting to be a wife and mom is more than enough. Those are two of the most important duties on the planet.
— end tweet —
The Bible sure doesn’t say anywhere that being a wife and mom are “two of the most important duties on the planet.”
Some of the women recorded in the Bible had jobs outside the home, and the God of the Bible was fine with it.
See also:
(Link): The Conservative, Christian Case for Working Women by J. Merritt
By the way, I seldom see hyper-parenthood, hyper-marriage conservatives like Johnson make comments like, “Fatherhood and husband-hood are the most important jobs a man could ever do!”
You’ll notice that only women are expected to give up their own dreams, agency, and goals to support a man in his.
Only women in this worldview are expected to define themselves primarily, or only, by being a spouse (wife) and a parent (mother), which is unhealthy!
For one thing, not all women can get married or pregnant.
I never met the right guy, so I remain single – churches lacked single men my age, and the dating sites were filled with weirdos and perverts.
Some married women are infertile.
For another thing, your spouse will probably die before you, and he may die very young, due to a car accident or a heart attack, or your spouse may develop early dementia, and you’ll (Link): end up being his care-taker, not his life partner.
Your children will eventually grow up and move out of the house and (Link): rarely contact you.
You will be (Link): left alone, with no spouse and no children.
That take about being a married mother being the most important job in the world is Johnson’s opinion and value judgement, which she has a right to believe in, but I condemn her, or anyone else, for shaming and guilt tripping other women into thinking if they are not a married mother, they are in error of some kind, or wasting their life.
If Jesus thought that being a married mother was the most important duty in the world, he sure didn’t demonstrate it in passages such as this one (link):
Matthew 12:46-50
Jesus’ Mother and Brothers
46 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him.
47 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”
48 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”
49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.
50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
From Matthew Chapter 10: 36, 37 (link), Jesus of Nazareth speaking:
A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
37 Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me…
Johnson’s view also heavily implies, or it comes across as, if you’re a woman who did not or could not marry or reproduce, there is nothing important or meaningful about your life. That implication is in her attitudes and comments, whether she intends it or not.
A woman does not have to marry or become pregnant to have worth, or for her life to have purpose, meaning, importance, or worth.
The Bible actually says in (Link): 1 Corinthians 7 that marriage detracts from service to God.
Here are some other things that 1 Corinthians 7 has to say about marriage (and hence parenthood – if you’re not married, according to biblical sexual ethics, you shouldn’t be having sex, and having no sex means not getting pregnant, so you will not be a mother):
(8) Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do.
(28) … But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.
(32) I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord.
(33) But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—
(34) and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit.
But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband.
(35) I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.
(I also do not support any secular, liberal feminists who shame or guilt women who do marry and have children, or shaming women who want to marry and have children.
I do not support progressive environmentalists who try to scare women away from marrying or having kids, all because the progressives think having less children is better for the planet.)
Johnson reminds me of Lori Alexander (“The Transformed Wife”) and Matt Walsh.
Johnson seems to falsely equate every woman’s value or purpose with motherhood and marriage (which Lori Alexander does), there’s no factoring in people’s differing life situations
– such as, in my case, I had hoped to be married, but I just never met the right man to marry, so I remained never-married into middle-age (she, like Lori Alexander, seems to just assume ALL never-married women are 23 year old secular, liberal feminists who hate men and marriage, or chose career over baby-making) –
– and like Matt Walsh, she, Johnson, makes some pretty un-nuanced, condemning, incendiary, controversial comments which she knows will cause a lot of strong reaction, but then later tweets that she’s being “attacked” by the very people she was intentionally riling up in the first place.
It’s so disingenuous, i.e., “I’ve had miserable feminists attacking me online for the past two days so I’d like to make a couple things clear …” (link to that comment of hers, which was the outcome of her earlier inflammatory tweet here)
Catholic, conservative commentator Matt Walsh does the same thing – Walsh’s favorite tactic is to make highly obnoxious, insulting comments, he obviously gets blow-back from others (and he knows he will get blow back), than feigns surprise and innocence, sits there in his ‘response’ You Tube videos about the controversial tweet he made, asking,
“Who, me? Why are all these people on Twitter angry with me? Why are you picking on me? I’m being attacked! Whatever did I do? Everything my tweet said was totally reasonable!”
It’s narcissistic button pushing, narcissistic baiting.
Making highly provocative comments is done on purpose to get strong reactions, and when the Johnsons and Walshes of the Twitter world get the incensed or snarky responses they do, they put on a gross, fake incredulous, surprised face: “Who me? Why are all these people upset with me?”
If you are a pro-life, anti-leftist-trans-agenda person, such as myself, stop it with the Friendly Fire.
You’re inadvertently insulting single and childless women every time you tweet out insults and false, negative assumptions about single, childless women (not all single, childless women are Crazy Cat Ladies who are pro-choice, hate men, and vote Democrat).
You’re not going to win friends and influence people by shaming or insulting women over being single and childless, whether they are conservatives, or progressives, or liberals.
(And why no pressure on single, childless men to run out marry and start being fathers? Only women get targeted for this rhetoric.)
Just like a man wearing a dress does not make him a woman, a woman getting married or being pregnant does not make her a woman – a woman is a woman because she was born a woman!
I am not anti-marriage or anti-parenthood, but please stop “over promising” marriage and motherhood, and painting a “rosy” picture of married motherhood – which is how so many of Abby Johnson’s tweets come across, when she’s not shaming women for being single or childless.
I have far too many news items on this blog I’ve collected over the years of married mothers who did not find happiness, meaning, or purpose in being a wife or mom, some of them admit to regretting motherhood, some were abused or murdered by their husband or own children or grandchildren!
Obviously, then, marriage and parenthood are not guarantees of perpetual health, happiness, and bliss – not for every woman in every case all the time.
Stop insulting women for being single or childless or childfree, regardless of their political beliefs – but be aware that there ARE single and childless or childfree CONSERVATIVE WOMEN.
Every time you think you’re taking a shot at pro-abortion progressive or liberal women, by mocking their single or childless life (which is not okay), you are, at the same time, also putting down CONSERVATIVE, pro-life women who happen to be single and childless or childfree (which is also not okay).
I can see from the content and tone of Abby Johnson’s social media that being a wife and mother did not make her more loving, understanding, ethical, open minded, caring, responsible, and godly. I hope she changes course.
There’s no need to promote marriage and parenthood by insulting singleness and being childless and childfree, and it’s false to assume that all single, childless women are pro-choice, are Crazy Cat ladies, or are progressives.
Related Posts:
(Link): Check Your ‘Cat-Lady’ Preconceptions About Childless Women
(Link): It’s Okay If You Don’t Have Baby Fever! by Olga Khazan
(Link): Sorry, but being a mother is not the most important job in the world by Catherine Deveny
(Link): Site for Parents Who Have Been Dumped By Their Adult Kids
(Link): Dear Prudence: Help! I’m Glad My Awful Husband Is Dead.
(Link): Inside the Growing Movement of Women Who Wish They’d Never Had Kids by S. Treleaven
(Link): Family as “The” Backbone of Society? – It’s Not In The Bible
(Link): Craigslist confessional: I’m in my 40s, never married, and a virgin—but I’m happy by Abigail
(Link): Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey
(Link): Why We Thought Marriage Made Us Healthier, and Why We Were Wrong by Bella DePaulo
(Link): The Myth of the Career Woman by M. Notkin – Why Women Are Still Single in Their 30s and Older
(Link): Unmarried and Childless Women Are the Happiest, Happiness Expert Claims (2019 Study)
(Link): She Married a Christian Psychopath She Met Via a Dating Site
(Link): Do You Rate Your Family Too High? (Christians Who Idolize the Family / Marriage) (article)
(Link): Neither Fully Widow Nor Fully Wife – Married People Will Be Single Again
(Link): Man Who Lost His Wife Puts Sign in Window Asking for Friends: ‘It’s My Last Resort’
(Link): Really, It’s Okay To Be Single – In order to protect marriage, we should be careful not to denigrate singleness – by Peter Chin
(Link): Woman Allegedly Drowns 93-Year-Old Grandmother in Kitchen Sink, Bathtub to Dodge Nursing Home Bills
(Link): Celibate Christian Woman Asks Christian Host Why God Will Not Send Her a Husband
(Link): Single People Aren’t Problems to Be Fixed or Threats to Be Neutralized By Ella Hickey
(Link): When You’re Married and Lonely by J. Slattery
(Link): Groom Finds Bride Dead Morning After their Wedding
(Link): Christian Couple Dies in Helicopter Crash Hours After ‘Fairytale’ Wedding
(Link): Joanne The Widow Lady Wants to Know Why God Didn’t Answer Her Prayer to Keep her Husband With Her
(Link): Sex and Alzheimer’s – Selfish, Perverted Husband Rapes His Alzheimer’s Wife
(Link): Why Can’t Other Christians Understand I Am Happy Being Single? by Emily Brown
(Link): Christlike or Pornlike? A Christian Woman’s Role in Marriage by Andrew J. Bauman and Taylor May
(Link): Married Woman Signing off as “Looking Ahead” Admits to Being in Sexless Marriage for TEN YEARS
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