tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post5742433184469606078..comments2024-03-26T06:17:49.527-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: Childless By Whose ChoiceStuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-59173861782941048112015-04-08T11:57:57.253-07:002015-04-08T11:57:57.253-07:00And before Kate Bolick there was Ann Taylor Flemin...And before Kate Bolick there was Ann Taylor Fleming:<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/Motherhood-Deferred-A-Womans-Journey/dp/0788165585sestamibinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-32225379586260327182015-04-07T16:03:21.971-07:002015-04-07T16:03:21.971-07:00re: The feminist argument for reproductive freedom...re: The feminist argument for reproductive freedom, for freedom to choose tells women that they should not have children until they are fully established in their careers. It does not tell them that delay creates a risk of not having children at all.<br /><br />I find this argument tiresome, even if there's some truth to it. <br /><br />Yes, women are like children, and not capable of thinking for themselves, and when women listen to uppity women, they become uppity themselves, and become deluded, if it wasn't for the benevolent conservative men telling women they don't have a right to aspire to equality, not because of tyrannical men, but mere biology afterall. We're on your side, just looking out for your best interest you know.<br /><br />And more:<br />re: Some feminists believe that the fault lies with a patriarchal society that forces women, for no discernible reason, to mother their children. They tend to see motherhood, whatever its biological basis, as a socially constructed conspiracy to oppress women.<br /><br />Again these uppity second wave feminists can't be trusted to tell the truth, to acknowledge honest risks of various "life choices".<br /><br />And <br />Vivian Gornick: Second wave feminism persuaded women that they did not want marriage and motherhood. What women really, really wanted was a freedom to self-actualize as individuals who can make their own rules. <br /><br />Is this really true, or is it a stawman argument again? Is it possible to consider SOME women might want to aspire first to family, and SOME women might want to aspire first to career, and they could get along with their divergent costs and benefits?<br /><br />It would seem to me that feminism if it had any purpose at all is that it enabled women to have MORE THAN ONE model for their self-esteem - wife and mother.<br /><br />But besides bashing feminism and family planning, there are certainly many interesting questions here to consider. The first and primary one is what makes for a meaningful life for people who never "choose" to have children, men or women.<br /><br />One difficult problem for young women can be mothers, who eventually want to be grandmothers, and I've seen this, and I've also seen two sisters, where as soon as one got married and had a child, the pressure went off and later the other one stayed unmarried and felt a calling to go into the ministry.<br /><br />So that make me think about the problems of "single children", maybe especially daughters, if they feel pressured by their parents to follow a certain life path.<br /><br />I don't know what fraction of women would, knowing there are plenty of children in the world, decide willingly to not have their own, but it looks like a higher fraction than you might guess. So if feminism gives these women a sense of freedom and self-directed purpose, that would seem a good thing.<br /><br />And it also made me think of China's ill-conceived one-child policy, how much pressure there is for a single child to succeed, and how easy it is to spoil that child, all because of an assumption that all women should have children, and one is better than none.<br /><br />While I've thought the reverse. Let the women who really want to be mothers have 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 children, and after 2 or 3 she'll probably be pretty good at the job, and each child will have fractionally less pressure to conform to the values of his or her parents, and find their own path.<br /><br />But again, that means we need serious consideration, for the diverent needs of the childless are to find a place in society that has honor and meaning and all that. So they don't have to have regrets at the end of their lives, even if we all might need some process to grief for the "road not taken", whether the mother who could have been an astronaut, or the astronaut who could have been a mother.<br /><br />So let the experiment continue, eyes wide open, and personal responsibility intact.<br />Ares Olympushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09726811306826601686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-91398591095062110332015-04-07T10:54:53.413-07:002015-04-07T10:54:53.413-07:00Thanks for the reference. As far as I can tell, th...Thanks for the reference. As far as I can tell, the proposal dates to Friedrich Engels' book, The Origin of the Family... published in the 1880s.Stuart Schneidermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-46752357442274860522015-04-07T10:48:39.798-07:002015-04-07T10:48:39.798-07:00I believe Oswald Spengler saw this coming:
The Ib...I believe Oswald Spengler saw this coming:<br /><br />The Ibsen marriage appears, the "higher spiritual affinity" in which both parties are "free" - free, that is, as intellegences, free from the plantlike urge of the blood to continue itself, and it becomes possible for a Shaw to say "that unless Woman repudiates her womanliness, her duty to her husband, to her children, to society, to the law, and to everyone but herself, she cannot emancipate herself". The primary woman, the peasant woman, is mother. The whole vocation towards which she has yearned from childhood is included in that one word. But now emerges the Ibsen woman, the comrade, the heroine of a whole megalopolitan literature from Northern drama to Parisian novel. Instead of children, she has soul-conflicts; marriage is a craft-art for the achievement of "mutual understanding." It is all the same whether the case against children is the American lady's who would not miss a season for anything, or the Parisienne's who fears that her lover would leave her, or an Ibsen heroine's who "belongs to herself" - they all belong to themselves and they are all unfruitful.<br /><br />- The Decline of the West (1918) pg 105Soviet of Washingtonnoreply@blogger.com