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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26165 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024

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I would argue it's just feminism. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Pregnancy sucks for women, it takes 9 months and does permanent damage to their body. It's only natural that as women gain more power in society, they make the rational choice to not have kids and do other things instead.

It jumps out at me that all the high fertility socities you list- Mongolia, the Amish, the Haredim- are, uh, not very feminist groups. I think people get distracted looking at the economy, because most socities get more feminist as they get wealthier.

I know some people will argue with this by saying "but what about Korea!" And I would argue that Korea is actually a very feminist society now, maybe not in the same way as the US, but in the sense that women have a huge amount of social power there. Notably, they elected a woman president, while still excluding women from the draft. The men are killing themselves at work just so they have a chance at getting married, but the women are under no obligation to produce a baby.

Japan, South Korea and China aren't exactly bulwarks of feminism compared to western countries and yet they have even lower birth rates than most European countries.

this is one of those things that gets 10000x updoots on reddit and yet no one can ever show the work to actually prove it. why do you think that east easian countries are all horribly unfeminist?

I guess I remember reading about sexual harassment in Japan being more common, like women getting groped on the subway and stuff. But yeah, to be honest, I don't really know why the idea is my in head that they are less feminist now that I think about it.

This did get me thinking on how you would quantify feminism in a country. There are things like the Global Gender Gap Report and the Gender Inequality Index, but I am generally pretty sceptical of these types of reports, because they tend to oversimplify the matter at hand. For what it's worth, the Global Gender Gap Report has the East Asian countries a bit lower than Western countries but the Gender Inequality Index has Japan and South Korea right up there with Western European countries.

However, my argument might still stand with other examples. Eastern European countries tend to have low birthrates as well, if anything usually lower than Western European ones. Although it is anecdotal, I do know some people from various Eastern European countries and have discussed cultural differences with them and as best I can tell, countries like Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine all have low birthrates as well despite having generally much more conservative ideas about gender roles than say Sweden or the Netherlands.

as best I can tell, countries like Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine all have low birthrates as well despite having generally much more conservative ideas about gender roles than say Sweden or the Netherlands.

Eastern European countries had and have much more progressive ideas about gender roles thanks to socialism. However, their birth rates were higher due to the elimination of the rat race:

  • they had a relatively solid QoL floor: if you had more kids you were entitled to a bigger apartment and even a car, you had ubiquitous daycare and your old position was reserved for you at your job
  • they had a relative solid QoL ceiling as well: if you weren't a cunning wordcel planning to climb the party ranks, you had no real reason to delay childbirth: your salary by the time you retired could be 200% of your starting one or it could be 190%, not really worth it

When the Iron Curtain came tumbling down, all these limits were gone as well. Forget about doubling your income by retirement. You could double it EVERY YEAR. Worse, you HAD to double it every year because hyperinflation. And at the same time, there were no glass ceilings like in the West: while some heavy industrial jobs were verboten for the weaker sex, women managers were the norm.

I was writing a reply about my anecdata that led me to the view that Eastern Europe is less progressive about gender than Western Europe, but when I was trying to fact check some related claim I wanted to make I stumbled across the Eurobarometer about Gender Stereotypes. Quickly scanning through some of the results, it doesn't actually seem like there is a clear trend of EE being more or less sexist than WE.

Interestingly, Galicia(Ukraine) is likely the most conservative area of the Christian world about stuff like that, and is a fertility bright spot in Europe despite the overall Ukrainian fertility rate being east asia tier.

Thanks, that's a good response. I don't know how to quantify it or prove it either. I've just noticed that a lot of people on the internet seem to think "oh, those east Asian countries are all so sexist" to the point where its becoming a stereotype.

Eastern Europe I think is more of an economic problem. A lot of this countries really cratered with the end of the USSR, but have since recovered a bit

But they are bulwarks of feminism compared to 1920s America, as is everywhere else in the developed world.

"Permanent damage to your body" is something millions of people will willingly do if the STATUS incentive is high enough:

  • Military Special Operations
  • Professional Athletes
  • High stress jobs with extreme levels of compensation (Banker, High end Surgeon, big Litigator etc.)

In fact, what I just listed above are some of the tippy-top status markers for men. Personal health is not at all sacrosanct (flip the coin; millions of people smoke, drink too much, eat too much, and never exercise).

"millions" means about 0.1% of world population yet we want >80% women to become mothers.

I don't think I see your point and, to the extent that (I think) I do, I reject it.

Are you saying that it's unreasonable to expect 80%+ of women to go through pregnancy and labor? I mean, I get it, it's not like this is a species level existential issue - oh, wait, that's exactly what we're talking about.

This is a deeply values based discussion. Pregnancy and childbirth might "suck" and "ruin your body" but the end result is the creation of a human life and, if done during peak fertility years, decades of love and joy. Furthermore, it's necessary for the species to continue itself.

That this observation (about minority of men) is a very weak evidence whether median woman would be affected by it

I can't make heads or tails of what you're saying.

Are you saying that it's unreasonable to expect 80%+ of women to go through pregnancy and labor?

It's obviously unreasonable to expect 80% of women to be held to the same standards of special military operators or pro athletes, and, if that's not relevant, why did you bring it up?

This is an amazing conflation of two points. I wouldn't want to debate you in person as you seem adept at twisting an argument.

Point 1: Incentives matter. People will put themselves through extreme hardships given proper incentives (this was the Special Ops / pro military argument)

Point 2: We should expect the overwhelming majority of women to go through childbirth as the species is dependent upon it.

Your franken-counter-assertion "We are demanding that women be like special operations!"

I see what you did there. It was well done, my congratulations.

That’s more succinct than what I was going to say, but yes. More than half of women are still having children.

It’s a bit odder in Korea, which still has mandatory conscription for men, but fewer than half of women are having babies. Seems related to almost their entire childhood being stressful, not just a year here or there.

Yup.

You can convince a young guy to literally endure repeated blows to the head if the payoff is high enough.

I have yet to see evidence that reticence about pregnancy and childbirth is responsible for more than a non-negligible percentage of the fertility decline, although I suppose you can say every little bit adds up.

Instead I think people don’t want babies, rather than not wanting pregnancy. People don’t look forwards to sleepless nights and changing diapers(yes I’m aware this isn’t a huge deal in practice), they want the flexibility to not have to worry about childcare arrangements, they dread paying for daycare or remember parts of their own childhoods that sucked(and I think this is underdiscussed- by all evidence a big part of the conservative fertility advantage is literally republicans looking forwards to going to t-ball games), they’re afraid the man in their life isn’t committed enough(and extended periods of premarital cohabitation are an increasing problem).

Sure, babies too. the whole package deal is kind of a crappy deal when you think about it logically. worst deal in the history of deals, etc. It's not surprising that women are choosing not to take it.

the whole package deal is kind of a crappy deal when you think about it logically.

I think you ought to stop and examine exactly why you think this, i suspect the answers may surprise you.

i can't find it right now, but someone linked a substack here a few months ago that laid out in brutal detail just how bad the entire process of childbirth is for women. Of course maybe it pays off in some longterm, ineffable, spiritual joy, but you should be able to appreciate why a lot of women wouldn't willingly take that deal.

Nobody I know who has children thinks the suffering of pregnancy or childbirth is on the same order of magnitude as the benefits of having children

Presumably those were all people who had a choice to have kids? At least the choice to not abort. You might hear differrently from women in 3rd world countries where they really don't have a choice (if you can even get them to speak honestly)

Uh, it pays off not in some long-term, ineffable, spiritual joy but in a baby.

I remember the piece you're talking about. It was of course, written by a woman who has never had children.

Meanwhile, women who have children usually have more than one.

do you have a link to it, or remember the author's name? I wanted to read it again but I can't remember it.

Again I think you ought to stop and examine why you would believe such a thing seeing as (as @Gaashk observes) childbirth is arguably a "better" deal than it has ever been in human history and yet birthrates have declined. What do you think is up with that?

On the other hand, birth rates have been dropping especially fast over the past decade, when women have had choices for generations, and things like ultrasounds, epidurals, prenatal testing, formula, c-sections for the convenience of the doctors, and whatnot have been improving. Childbirth is less bad than before. Even feeding babies is less bad than before. Freedom of women is about the same, at least in the anglosphere. Yet birth rates continue to drop.

As you said, the birth rate has dropped despite healthcare getting better, which suggests that it's not a simple matter of healthcare. But while women might have had the same legal rights for a while now, their social and economic power continues to increase.

But while women might have had the same legal rights for a while now, their social and economic power continues to increase.

That's one way to look at it.

Another way to look at it, however, is that as wages are equalized, the wife's income is more likely to be essential to the household budget, such that she is expected and needed to go back to work as soon as possible.

Also, the prenatal programs are pushing breastfeeding. So she's expected (not able, I mean expected) to work until she gives birth, then breastfeed for a month or two, then drop her infant off at daycare and pump at work, and still get up in the middle of the night to feed her infant, while also working a full day outside the home. Even elementary teachers are struggling with this, with a generally easy schedule/ They hide their children in windowless offices on "professional development" days, for instance, because they aren't allowed to organize childcare amongst themselves.

Maybe making childbirth safer, easier, and more delayable has led to women putting off having a baby, because now it's not a now-or-never, might-as-well-get-it-over-with kind of thing like it was?

This appears as you typical minding to me. Honestly, the more I think about the deal, the more it appears to be, logically, the best deal in the history of deals, and someone who can make deals that are better than that one is someone who must be in an almost unimaginably privileged position.

not have to worry about childcare arrangements, they dread paying for daycare

This is only a reason if both parents work outside the home. If one parent is a homemaker no daycare is required.

If lack of daycare / affordability was impacting fertility I'd expect to see higher tfr in countries that have improved access / lower cost care available. Is this what we see?

My suspicion is that what they want is the flexibility to not have to worry about children. The cohort of childless or low fertility women I've the most exposure to other than the lesbians, would see themselves dipicted in fiction as the women from 'Sex in the City' or the strong capable lady doctors of 'Grey's Antotomy'. Free childcare would be unlikely to promote children in this cohort.

Whether free childcare raises the TFR is a question with an answer that depends on how you adjust for confounders IIRC, which almost certainly means that even if it does work it doesn’t work very well. But that’s one thing in a list and I mostly agree with you about what it actually codes for.

That would be a lot more convincing if we didn't incur permanent damage to our bodies merely by staying alive.

As it happens, "why bother caring about my body's state if I'll die anyway" is in fact not very convincing counterpoint to me.

It is a different situation.
It's like I'm asking you to spend money on something I think is worthwhile, and you say "but then I will have less money" except the government keeps the printer on 24/7, you know?

Preserving one's decaying youth at the price of preventing the next generation is literally fairy tale evil queen levels of morality.

I believe the canonical fate for people who make such a bargain is to be cast in a bottomless abyss.

Not exactly esoteric symbolism. But there are few moral choices that are less universalizable than this one.

It's a fertility crisis, not a parenting crisis. Can it really be called selling out your children if you never have any?

Well it's not exactly leaving hungry kids in the woods to fend for themselves but it certainly is selling out the future for the present.

As it happens, there are tons of thing people do to their body regularly that incurs damage. The idea that pregnancy is unique is the outlier position.

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