Society actively maintains a heavy dose of smoke-and-mirrors around the beauty-value-fertility tradeoff. It might not be deliberate, and more an emergent property of our civilization. But, the degree of obfuscation is mind-boggling.
Childbirth transforms a woman's body, yet before-after images are nigh impossible to find. Vaginal tearing is the norm (9/10) during childbirth and never mentioned. The impact of breast feeding on a woman's permanent beauty/perceived value is never part of the breast-feeding conversation. Childbirth comes at a heavy cost, despite what you believe, this cost is hidden away in a box.
Note: maternal mortality has cratered in the last few decades, but our civilization evolved in an era where child-birth was indeed a woman's 9-11 / Vietnam. She signed up for a 9 month deployment, and god only knows if she'd come back unscathed or at all.
We can't speak the truth, because truth leaks from both sides. DINK couples & spinsters help maintain the peace out of politeness, and married-couples reciprocate. Once the 'shaming is okay' pandoras box is open, we have no clue how the spinsters will respond.
All societies operate under polite fictions. It may seem redundant, but they're lindy. Abolish them with great caution.
My 2050-2100 prediction:
Embryo selection, Crispr and mechanical wombs will be figured out.
Fertility will recover. The tech will spread like wild-wire, becoming the prominent form of childbirth. Once the negative risk of childbirth is eliminated, the spinster-shaming will begin at earnest.
In the process, we will lose our humanity. A woman's brain changes after pregnancy. Mothers have been the gatekeepers of all humanity since time eternal. Once women stop undergoing pregnancy, a new type of motherhood will emerge, and with it, a new type of humanity.
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this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
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Notes -
Society actively maintains a heavy dose of smoke-and-mirrors around the beauty-value-fertility tradeoff. It might not be deliberate, and more an emergent property of our civilization. But, the degree of obfuscation is mind-boggling.
Childbirth transforms a woman's body, yet before-after images are nigh impossible to find. Vaginal tearing is the norm (9/10) during childbirth and never mentioned. The impact of breast feeding on a woman's permanent beauty/perceived value is never part of the breast-feeding conversation. Childbirth comes at a heavy cost, despite what you believe, this cost is hidden away in a box.
Note: maternal mortality has cratered in the last few decades, but our civilization evolved in an era where child-birth was indeed a woman's 9-11 / Vietnam. She signed up for a 9 month deployment, and god only knows if she'd come back unscathed or at all.
We can't speak the truth, because truth leaks from both sides. DINK couples & spinsters help maintain the peace out of politeness, and married-couples reciprocate. Once the 'shaming is okay' pandoras box is open, we have no clue how the spinsters will respond.
All societies operate under polite fictions. It may seem redundant, but they're lindy. Abolish them with great caution.
My 2050-2100 prediction:
Embryo selection, Crispr and mechanical wombs will be figured out.
Fertility will recover. The tech will spread like wild-wire, becoming the prominent form of childbirth. Once the negative risk of childbirth is eliminated, the spinster-shaming will begin at earnest.
In the process, we will lose our humanity. A woman's brain changes after pregnancy. Mothers have been the gatekeepers of all humanity since time eternal. Once women stop undergoing pregnancy, a new type of motherhood will emerge, and with it, a new type of humanity.
"Motherhood will be dead. Long live motherhood."
Every step will be defensible but what emerges might not be humanity.
As long as that which emerges loves itself, explores and embraces and seeks to understand the alien, and pursues greatness, that is Humanity.
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