As I understand it not a few of the officials of NOW had no interest in procreation or the act thereof.

My favorite two stories were, Love was the Plan, the Plan was Death and The Screwfly Solution.

But also look at R. A. Heinlein, who portrayed active and intelligent woman, but got called a fascist because he thought that raising children was the most important thing. I also brought up the children question and argued the demographic problem people speak of now, but was ignored. Let’s face it, the question of children was the ignored elephant in the room as far as the woman’s movement went.

This would indicate one of several things,abstinence(fat chance)different kinds of sex or birth control, all would seem to be from choice

One main reason, as I mentioned above, is the enormous cost of raising children and the removal of a wage earner for the first few years of a childs life.This contrasts with a time when a child was a working asset at an early age.

I have often heard women say they would have liked another child but they couldn’t afford it.

With full time education taking the commencement of work up to the age of 18 to 30 most people don’t have the resources,or live long enough, to support large families.

Immigrant groups still cleave to the traditional model,children do work from an early age,the elderly are cared for within the family.

In the long run,none of this matters the culture that out breeds you will be the dominant culture.

Theresa Kerry Heinz, wife of a presidential candidate, most certainly denigrated mothers. NOW is very supportive of this idea. We hear quite often in our society that having a career is a far greater achievement for the female than those who choose to be a stay-at-home mother. Our society ridicules young mothers as stupid peons who are too afraid of making it in the “real world”. The list of Motherhood denigration is endless.

“the idea was to empower both women and men to have choices beyond strict socially-enforced gender roles. Which has been successful to a great degree, and a good thing”

Deconstructing the female’s ability to birth life has actually led to the socially backward gender-role that females exists for the sole purpose of providing pleasure for the male.

Today the female spends billions to transform herself into the ideal and ageless sexual beauty in order to receive acknowledgement of her identity. We see in our society that females are encouraged to sell their external selves as a means of gaining wealth, power and status. Females with big breasts on child-like bodies are represented as the ideal women, whereas, child-birth is seen as a distortion of this ideal. My belief is that the 20th century feminist movement is primarily responsible for creating this distorted version of gender empowerment when it destroyed our greatest power to birth life.

As a 42 year old women former 20th century feminist, I do not see this as either a success, or a good thing.

when I was a young feminist in the 70s (and I read all the manifestos, so I know what the arguments were), the idea was to empower both women and men to have choices beyond strict socially-enforced gender roles. When has been successful to a great degree, and a good thing. Mainstream feminism has never denigrated mothers.

Don’t agree. I know women who had children and felt looked down on, insulted, and mistreated by the women’s movement. These were very liberal women too. Likewise, at the time you speak of I asked, why not just help us get along, but all I saw was hostility. I have no doubt you believe what you say, but to me it just looks like an illusion. Try seeking out other peoples experience and see if they agree with you. And pay attention, don’t simply dismiss them as not taking responsibility for their own choices. That is just a total copout.

That is still different from having a large family so the 10 year old can milk the cows and the 12 year old can spin the wool. It is pretty consistent in developing nations that as they become more industrialized and urban and the infant mortality rate goes down, families get smaller.

Syn, that’s a gross charicature of 20th c. feminism, media generated mischaracterization similar to the hatchet job done on Bush this year. The socialist wing of feminism did seize the movement from the individualist wing, but when I was a young feminist in the 70s (and I read all the manifestos, so I know what the arguments were), the idea was to empower both women and men to have choices beyond strict socially-enforced gender roles. When has been successful to a great degree, and a good thing. Mainstream feminism has never denigrated mothers.

I know several women who ate in their 40s and now want to have kids, and blame feminism for “brainwashing” them so that they waited so long. This is easier than taking responsibility for their own choices. After all, plenty of feminists are married with kids.

Could it be that a society (Old Europe) which has an ethos of unquestioned (and it is; there is no abortion debate in Europe whatsoever, nor is there much debate–yet–about the welfare statism that is killing European civilization), bland, socialistic relativism, and where being argumentative is frowned upon, could it be that this sort of passivity means that there is no emotional safety valve whatsoever, so that when sufficient provocation comes, a surprising level of violence is the result?

Yes.

Lindenen:

Society will get more of whatever it tolerates and a lot more of whatever it encourages. Among many other things, Europe tolerates burglary, for example. Buglary rates are huge in Europe. And burglary there is becoming increasingly violent.

Tolerate crime and a society will have more crime. Encourage abortion and a society will have more abortion.

When all is said and done we get what we wish for.

Caroline:

I don’t mean this as an attack on the choices you made. But the Population Bomb, in retrospect, was nonsense. There were people at the time who said it was nonsense.

For the past 3 decades or more we’ve been hearing (at least those of us within earshot of Euros) that the US was consuming the world’s resources at a world wrecking rate. China and India will soon far surpass US consumption of resources and they will do so without a fraction of the US’s regard for environmental care.

People will figure out how to grow enough food. We’ll figure out how to sustain orselves. There is no steady state and we’ve got to understand where science ends and junk science begins.

The growth of muderous ideology is the most serious threat we face, IMO. Perhaps I’m wrong. I certainly hope so.

Oh, and why don’t affluent people reproduce? Because affluent people are most interested in comfort and pleasure. Children are difficult. They are inconvenient. The interfere with our sleep. They interfere with our work. They mess up the house and break things. They cause us trouble or, if we’re lucky, merely aggravation. To affluent people children are a nuisance. Affluent people are interested in now, not tomorrow. The promary problem the Euros face is that they’ve lost sight of tomorrow for the sake of now. They are more interested in their vacations and hobbies than in whether or not their civilization will survive.