You would think, from reading
the extensive debate about Facebook's and Google’s decisions to subsidize any
female employee who wants to freeze her eggs, that the companies were trying to
correct an error in nature.
Some might say that they are
playing God and trying to correct a design flaw, but, for the purposes of this
post, we will say that, from a feminist perspective, egg freezing corrects an
injustice that is written into the natural order.
By all evidence, God is not a
feminist.
For reasons that continue to
escape me, feminists seem to believe that men and women cannot be truly equal
until they are exactly the same. In part, this explains why they insist on
abortion on demand. They are sorely offended to know that a man can walk away
from the reproductive consequences of coital act far more easily than can a
woman. Abortion on demand will, to their minds, even things out.
Similarly, knowing that the
biological clock seems to work against women, they embrace egg freezing because
it allows women to postpone child bearing in favor of career advancement.
In many ways, this war against
nature is a futile exercise. Like it or not, a man can father far more children
than a woman can bear. A man’s reproductive potential is nearly limitless. A woman’s
is strictly limited.
That is why, incidentally, we
are more willing to send men into harm’s way and why we tend to be more
protective toward women. Classically the female body is more valuable, less
disposable than the male.
Feminists don’t see it that
way, because feminists have very little use for science.
Dr. Chavi Eve Karkowsky
explains the injustice:
Because
of the longstanding unfairness of biology, men do not have the same time
pressure for reproduction. And because of a second unfairness of biology,
freezing sperm is easier, cheaper, less invasive, and exceedingly likely to be
successful. But as we continue to discover some of the concerns associated with advanced paternal
age (generally, health problems more subtle than those associated with
advanced maternal age, but still present), perhaps male sperm preservation
should become a job perk as well.
True enough, there are some
risks with advanced paternal age, but men can produce children far later than
women can.
One might ask, because nearly
none of the women writing on the topic seem to have considered the issue: might
there be a reason why a woman cannot conceive after she enters perimenopause?
For all I know, the biology
evolved as it did because an older mother will have less energy and perhaps
even less time to raise her children. Since a mother’s presence is more
important than a father’s in the earlier years of a child’s life, biology dictates
that her children will be more likely to have a mother for a longer period of
time.
Of course, no one thinks very
much about such matters. Precious few of the articles question whether it is
best for women to forgo childbearing in favor of career advancement. Nearly all
the articles are looking at the issue from a feminist perspective. They want to
know whether the new policy about egg freezing is good for feminism, not
whether it is good for women or their children.
Lizzy Crocker shows what the
debate is really all about:
It’s
also a practical move on the part of tech companies who want to grow the size
of their female workforce, knowing that they lose most women around the time
they have children.
And
if the policy was being implemented in a female-dominated industry, wouldn’t we
be celebrating it as a feminist achievement that affords women greater autonomy
over their reproductive rights?
A feminist achievement… greater
autonomy… more reproductive rights… less enslavement to reality. Call it what
you will, Crocker does not ask how well a fifty year old woman will be able to
bring up an infant.
Surely, feminism is more about
what is good for feminism, and less about what is good for women. If women tend
to drop out of the workforce to spend more time with their children, why is
that choice, freely taken, a bad thing?
It might be bad for feminism,
but what if it is the best for the children?
Feminism does not care.
Nor is it so much about what is
good for Google and Facebook. Many who have commented on the new policy suggest
that the companies are really doing it to retain their best female employees…
by tricking them out of having children when they are young.
And yet, these companies are
doing very well right now, even with their workforce skewed in favor of white
and Asian males. Do you really believe that they would be doing better with
more women, and with more women who are childless and alone?
Moreover, a woman who waits
until she is in her 40s is far less likely to find a suitable husband. In a few
cases, she will. In most cases, she will not.
If she already has a husband,
what advantage accrues to either of them to have children when they are well
into middle age?
And, of course, nature still
has a say in the matter. The probability of getting pregnant from frozen eggs
is still very, very low.
Sarah Elizabeth Richards
explains:
“What
if it doesn’t work? The technology doesn’t always live up,” says Naomi Cahn,
law professor at George Washington University who writes about reproductive
technology. “Egg freezing creates the opportunity to transcend the biological
clock, but it also creates the illusion that we will always be able to
transcend the biological clock.”
Mackenzie Dawson adds:
According
to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, when a woman 38 or younger
freezes her eggs, the chance of one frozen egg yielding a baby is between 2 and
12 percent.
As
women get older, the pregnancy rate per frozen egg drops even further….
The
egg-freezing measure seems to be meant to level the playing field between
genders; a laudable goal, but the gender pay imbalance has been shown to only
kick in after people have children, making this a bit of a moot point.
Emma Rosenblum offers the most
salient commentary, from one woman’s mother:
Her
mother, however, would still like her to get on with it. “She said to me, only
half-jokingly, ‘I’m glad you went to business school and work 100 hours a
week—and don’t have time to meet anyone—so you can afford to freeze your eggs.’
Thanks, Mom.”
The
final, slightly paternalistic recommendation: It’s best to conceive through
natural intercourse at an appropriate age.
But, why is this advice, coming
from a mother, “slightly paternalistic?” It manifests a knowledge of human
biology and does not presume to be able to overturn nature’s laws.
The moral of the story is that
this is an enormously complex issue. Most of the women who have written about
it have done so in exemplary fashion. And yet, their considerations of the
implications of the policy suggest that the corporate officers who instituted
it have not worked hard enough on the issues.
9 comments:
"In many ways, this war against nature is a futile exercise. Like it or not, a man can father far more children than can a woman."
I think this would read better if you added "bear" or "give birth to".
Eventually, and I expect, in the not-distant future, feminists will the outraged by this.
Which seems strange, because they avidly support abortion and birth control, and seem to hate the idea of bearing children.
Good suggestion... thanks.
I wonder if it has ever occurred to feminists that the unspoken premise behind egg freezing is that having children now will interfere with a woman's career. That's the main reason women want to delay children. But don't they consider that idea sexist? After all, a man can have children in his 20's or 30's without interfering with his career. Are they agreeing that women have a greater burden to care for children and that having children distracts women from a career in ways that don't apply to men? I thought they didn't believe men and women had any differences. It's confusing keeping up with their twisted logic sometimes.
This egg-freezing program is an extension of existing efforts by corporations to spike the numbers of women in key positions.
Corporations, especially crony-capitalist entities, are already falling all over themselves to promote women to visible leadership positions, and to induce those women to remain.
One thing that causes problems for women in the workforce...speaking here specifically about women who do wish to have children...is the expansion of educational credentialism. There is a lot more flexibility in terms of work/motherhood for a woman who starts her career at 21 or 22, right out of college, versus one who gets an advanced degree or two and doesn't really start her career until 27 or 28 or even 30.
In regards to the wonders of reason and science, I remember in college reading B.F. Skinner's Walden II, a fictional small-community utopia, where every knows your name, where babies were communally raised, and young people were encouraged to have children as early as they like, without consequence, since they wouldn't be mothers and fathers, and child rearing would be left to the behaviorism experts.
That solve's the biological clock too. Maybe Skinner was a Feminist, for all I know?
And for the 4 millionth time -
No one is equal, there is only an EQUAL right to be unique!
How F'ing long will it take for common sense to return???
Both jamestown and Plymouth settlements were communes which almost totally destroyed the people involved in them. The "takers" will always arise and the "makers" will stop being the providers. Why exert any effort when someone else will do the work?
Both of these settlement survived when they went to ownership of property and "Gasp" much of what the Left finds wrong with society.
If there was any real reasoning and actual attention to science we would not constantly face the same problems over an over again. If any of this made sense Leo G's comment would be accepted as fact and we would move on to more pressing problems.
It would seem to me that a lot of this depends on technology to constantly meet expectations and have a number redundancies that almost never happen in real life. Then include something like Ebola, which if current knowledge is to be believe, stays active in sperm months after, http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/10/08/sex-in-a-time-of-ebola/, given mutations, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2798086/mutant-ebola-warning-leading-u-s-scientist-warns-deadly-virus-changing-contagious.html might affect survivability of eggs, et al. Our own stupidity exemplified by Obama and the administration may may all of this moot.
"They are sorely offended to know that a man can walk away from the reproductive consequences of coital act far more easily than can a woman. Abortion on demand will, to their minds, even things out.." -
Penis envy..?
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