So I totally stole this from another thread on another forum that I am a member of.. http://www.thesophiahouse.com/forum/index.phpBut the other forum is mostly religious in perspective with not very many members who identify themselves with feminist thought be it radical or more conventional feminist thought... Anyway, I was interested to see what ya'll think.
http://community.feministing.com/2009/01/say-no-to.html
Say No To...
Along with the emancipation of women, sexual liberation has become very much a part of politics around the world. To the conservatives, both these issues challenge ‘family values’.
But what if there were no families? What if we say no to reproduction?
My understanding of reproduction is that it is the basis of the institutions of marriage and family, and those two provide the moorings to the structure of gender and sexual oppression. Family is the social institution that ensures unpaid reproductive and domestic labour, and is concerned with initiating a new generation into the gendered (as I analyzed here) and classed social set-up. Not only that, families prevent money the flow of money from the rich to the poor: wealth accumulates in a few hands to be squandered on and bequeathed to the next generation, and that makes families as economic units selfishly pursue their own interests and become especially prone to consumerism.
So it makes sense to say that if the world has to change, reproduction has to go. Of course there is an ecological responsibility to reduce the human population, or even end it , and a lot was said about that on the blogosphere recently (here, and here), but an ecological consciousness is not how I came to my decision to remain child-free.
Because reproduction is seen as a psychological need, even a biological impulse, that would supposedly override any rational concerns arising out of a sense of responsibility, ecological or otherwise, I would like to propose emotional conditioning to counter such a need or impulse to reproduce. Using my own life as a case study, I conclude that I came to a resolve not to reproduce through largely unconscious emotional reactions . I like children, but every time I fantasized of having one, I felt pangs of guilt over how for this 'impulse' of mine, someone else would have to put their body on the line.
I used the word 'felt' to indicate how there wasn't much rationalizing on my part. And this feeling went way back: I was raised in an extended family setting with a lot of women, and as they got married, I noticed their lives becoming either extremely stressed (if they chose to work) or extremely limited in their scopes, and sometimes even threatened in a pregnancy. This feeling was reinforced when people's indifference to women's condition frustrated me.
Another feeling came from growing up near the poor: married people become much less charitable when they had their children to ‘take care of’, which means expensive schools, football clubs, game consoles, etc., etc. Because of the social premium on marriage and family, the poor also have children, only their children have no future and can easily be exploited by the economic system. If families are for raising and 'taking care of' children, what about the poor and their children? With high incidence of domestic violence, child abuse and 'juvenile delinquency', there are little 'family values' that the underprivileged can realistically talk of.
Thus as I realized how the cultural imperative on starting a family was unfair to women and the poor, I felt an instinctive aversion to it. That is the emotionally conditioned response that could override our responses to needs and instincts that make us want to reproduce. And if we rule out the biological 'instinct', which is strictly only to have sex and not to reproduce, my case for saying no to reproduction becomes much stronger.
http://community.feministing.com/motherhood/
So, fellow idealists, what are your thoughts on this?
I originally said something like: So then..the best solution to the injustice in the world is to end it all? As the writer says, "So it makes sense to say that if the world has to change, reproduction has to go. Of course there is an ecological responsibility to reduce the human population, or even end it "
Why even speak of change, or abolishing poverty, oppressive gender roles, etc. etc. then? Why even write this article if human life has so little value at the core? If in the end, we're not worth it..
http://community.feministing.com/2009/01/say-no-to.html
Say No To...
Along with the emancipation of women, sexual liberation has become very much a part of politics around the world. To the conservatives, both these issues challenge ‘family values’.
But what if there were no families? What if we say no to reproduction?
My understanding of reproduction is that it is the basis of the institutions of marriage and family, and those two provide the moorings to the structure of gender and sexual oppression. Family is the social institution that ensures unpaid reproductive and domestic labour, and is concerned with initiating a new generation into the gendered (as I analyzed here) and classed social set-up. Not only that, families prevent money the flow of money from the rich to the poor: wealth accumulates in a few hands to be squandered on and bequeathed to the next generation, and that makes families as economic units selfishly pursue their own interests and become especially prone to consumerism.
So it makes sense to say that if the world has to change, reproduction has to go. Of course there is an ecological responsibility to reduce the human population, or even end it , and a lot was said about that on the blogosphere recently (here, and here), but an ecological consciousness is not how I came to my decision to remain child-free.
Because reproduction is seen as a psychological need, even a biological impulse, that would supposedly override any rational concerns arising out of a sense of responsibility, ecological or otherwise, I would like to propose emotional conditioning to counter such a need or impulse to reproduce. Using my own life as a case study, I conclude that I came to a resolve not to reproduce through largely unconscious emotional reactions . I like children, but every time I fantasized of having one, I felt pangs of guilt over how for this 'impulse' of mine, someone else would have to put their body on the line.
I used the word 'felt' to indicate how there wasn't much rationalizing on my part. And this feeling went way back: I was raised in an extended family setting with a lot of women, and as they got married, I noticed their lives becoming either extremely stressed (if they chose to work) or extremely limited in their scopes, and sometimes even threatened in a pregnancy. This feeling was reinforced when people's indifference to women's condition frustrated me.
Another feeling came from growing up near the poor: married people become much less charitable when they had their children to ‘take care of’, which means expensive schools, football clubs, game consoles, etc., etc. Because of the social premium on marriage and family, the poor also have children, only their children have no future and can easily be exploited by the economic system. If families are for raising and 'taking care of' children, what about the poor and their children? With high incidence of domestic violence, child abuse and 'juvenile delinquency', there are little 'family values' that the underprivileged can realistically talk of.
Thus as I realized how the cultural imperative on starting a family was unfair to women and the poor, I felt an instinctive aversion to it. That is the emotionally conditioned response that could override our responses to needs and instincts that make us want to reproduce. And if we rule out the biological 'instinct', which is strictly only to have sex and not to reproduce, my case for saying no to reproduction becomes much stronger.
http://community.feministing.com/motherhood/
So, fellow idealists, what are your thoughts on this?
I originally said something like: So then..the best solution to the injustice in the world is to end it all? As the writer says, "So it makes sense to say that if the world has to change, reproduction has to go. Of course there is an ecological responsibility to reduce the human population, or even end it "
Why even speak of change, or abolishing poverty, oppressive gender roles, etc. etc. then? Why even write this article if human life has so little value at the core? If in the end, we're not worth it..
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