Overpopulation & The Taboo Of Questioning Motherhood
Have you noticed the state of the planet these days? On every continent, on an incredibly pervasive basis, the activities of humans are killing virtually every other species, decimating the environment, and wrecking the natural systems we inherited. The number of humans on the planet has now clearly overshot the carrying capacity of the world to support our numbers. We must voluntarily reduce population, and do so immediately, or we will soon be forced to do so by the scarcity of resources. If you doubt this, and/or if you want the theory and numbers, then read William Catton’s classic book entitled Overshoot: The Ecological Basis Of Revolutionary Change.
But we are a reasonably self-aware species, we have known for some time what it is that we are doing, so how is it that we have allowed this to happen? As it turns out there are powerful forces prohibiting our public and open discussion of overpopulation. One of the notions that blocks us from rationally controlling our numbers, which blocks us from publicly discussing the need to change our prolifically procreating ways, involves the “sacred” notion of motherhood. Both men and women now erroneously agree that there is something special, something to be revered about motherhood. We believe motherhood must never be questioned, maligned, or disrespected. It is no mistake that one of the synonyms for something that is “wholesome and American” is “motherhood and apple pie.”
For a woman to push out from her birth canal yet another human being, when our sheer numbers are so clearly the cause of so much of what is the matter with the world, that is nothing special. It requires no talent, no intelligence, and no advance planning. Vast numbers of women dream of becoming mothers, as though it is somehow the ultimate fulfillment of their femininity and womanhood. And vast numbers of men are willing accomplices, enabling these women to have still more children. Even when the presence of a man to support and enable the process is not part of the equation, an increasing number of women are choosing to be single mothers, choosing to raise children on their own. We should not be celebrating these women as “liberated” or “progressive.” We should instead be identifying them as selfish, self-absorbed, and ignorant. All ecological arguments aside, every child who is brought in to the world should have the benefit of both a mother and a father.
Our culture’s reverence for motherhood, our desire to respect and protect mothers and the children they beget, that is evident in many of our traditional American ways. For example, we will often take special efforts to open doors, or give up our seat, for pregnant mothers or mothers with children. In those situations where only some will survive, we still commonly say: “women and children first.” There is a deference to, and respect for women with young children that once may have had its place, but this sentiment has now become malignantly dysfunctional and clearly outdated.
We men can and should look specifically to how men have contributed to this sorry state of affairs. Men have been led to believe that being “responsible” fathers was somehow a socially desirable state. When it comes to the cold hard reality of our overpopulation problem, we can see that it is no better than being a childless husband, or for that matter, being a childless man who is not married.
Men have thought it was their enshrined and hallowed role to financially support women when women wanted to have children. Thanks to feminism, the traditional male role as provider is now in tatters, if it perchance still exists in its rare pure traditional form anywhere in America today. The traditional male role is instead these days frequently exploited by selfish women who want men to support them financially. It is, for example, now common for a young woman to get pregnant with a guy who she is having sex with, and then banish him from her life, and have the baby on her own. Women like this only want the man’s sperm and his child support. His wishes don’t matter, in the eyes of these women and in the eyes of the law.
Even if men were not incensed by the exploitative family courts that look at them solely as wallets, offended at the double-standard process of theft known as alimony, and outraged by the laws which otherwise are used to separate men from both their property and desire to be good fathers — even if all that was not enough to get them to be suspicious of motherhood — they should seriously consider the ecological angle. For men to continue to unthinkingly support women in their selfish desire to have children contributes to the degradation of the earth. Men must be the word of reason used to overcome gender role traditions, to overcome the instinctual drive to procreate, and to overcome the procreative “fulfillment” fantasies of women.
It is time that men stepped up and said “no” to the women who would use their sperm to bring yet more hungry and consuming human beings into the world. Men also need to say “no” to women who want to live the rich-and-famous lifestyle. It is these high consumption lifestyles that are also ruining the planet. If men do both of these things, they can free-up a great deal of their own personal time, which in turn can be used to pursue their own goals and aspirations. Men need to stop putting their own goals and aspirations aside; they must stop supporting women in the latter’s desire to have children and raise families. They can, for example, work more intensively on the men’s movement. Besides, when men really honestly and diligently look at what’s happening to the world’s ecology, and what kind of a future their prospective children will have, many will be reluctant to bring any further humans into the world.
It is time that men en masse got vasectomies, it is time that men more consistently used condoms, and it is time that men regularly used other birth control methods like spermicidal foam. It is time for men to invent, manufacture, and then use, on a widespread basis, new and different male methods of birth control. Far too much procreative decision-making power has been placed in the hands of women, and this must also stop. The pendulum of procreative power has swung way too far in the direction of women, and in many cases, they have shown us that they used this power in ignorant, selfish, exploitative, and myopic ways.
Men need to stop giving their sperm to sperm banks so that people who are otherwise unfit to procreate (because they are sterile) can then have children. This not only weakens the gene pool, but this further aggravates the overpopulation problem. Men in America need to start a widespread conversation to restrict couples to one child only, a conversation similar to the one that the Chinese have already enacted into law.
Married men need to be willing to say “no” to their wives when their wives want to have children, or want to have more children. Men need to change the laws so that women do not have financial incentives to have more children because payments for welfare are larger if you have more children, and because payments for child support are larger if you have more children. Men must likewise criticize and abandon the feminist notion that women have any special rights to decide what to do with their bodies if these same decisions mean increasing the population. Men must also gain the right to jointly decide whether a conception will be carried forward to birth (via the day-after pill, abortion, putting babies up for adoption at birth, etc.).
Tax breaks need to be given to people who have no children, or who have only one child. No matter what your religion says about it, a much larger conversation about how to reduce our numbers must be initiated, and maintained, and we must then follow through with efforts to reduce population. We must also dispense with all vestiges of our belief that there is anything special or sacred about motherhood. It is just a biological function. And it must be constrained if we humans are not going to ruin what remains of the planet.
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Stumble It!
Perhaps we should let the marketplace decide..you know supply and demand?
That’s the mantra we rely on in just about all our actions.
This is the one taboo subject and you got it right the first few paragraphs in the article.
Look a Haiti right now and that’s the future.
How would OUR COUNTRY USA function with out IMPORTING all the resources and products from around the world!?
Oh, we are a NET IMPORTER of FOOD… yes it’s true.
We have plenty of space here, let THEM ALL IN!
No worries. When we run out of food, we’ll eat all the feminist.
This joke has been reused with the express consent of Jabberwocky Inc. by its affiliate Jabberwocky Corp. All rights reserved. TM
@dart
You seem to be one of the few women who ‘get it’. I hope you are influential amongst your peers – for the future of both men’s and women’s sake.
“No matter what your religion says about it, a much larger conversation about how to reduce our numbers must be initiated, and maintained, and we must then follow through with efforts to reduce population.”
That’s just it, isn’t it? You blithely ask us to disregard our religious proclivities for the worldwide pogrom proposed by your religion: Environmentalism. To this I say, thank God for 1st amendment liberties.
My religion says marriage is to be revered, as well as God’s ordained structure of the family and community.
If all you truly wish to question is wanton, intentional, or serial SINGLE motherhood, then I am on board.
Questioning God’s ordained and sacred family structure ought to remain taboo, in my opinion. However, I do agree that evidence of its practice is scarce.
But questioning the societal decline in morality or the unpleasant consequences of the culmination of the feminist movement does not require one to be an adherent to the religion of environmentalism.
I see where you come from, but it is not just men’s problem. It’s women’s problem too – THEY are the enablers. And I say this as a woman myself.
WOMEN need to learn that motherhood is not the be-all end-all. There is more to life than children. Yes, children are good, and some people *should* have children, but it isn’t everything.
WOMEN need to learn more about what they can do to *not* have children. Many of the older women around me did not want children. But being born in the 40s, 50s and 60s, they never learned how to prevent it, and they never got over the culture of shame surrounding contraception. THAT NEEDS TO GO. Right now. There is no shame in saying ‘I do not want a child’, the same as there is no shame in saying ‘I would like a child’. Women should not have to hide when they go to an abortion clinic. Women should not have to feel ashamed that they do not want a child, nor should they feel ashamed that they have made a poor decision and have chosen their only way out. Women should not feel shame in going to a doctor and saying, ‘I need a morning-after pill’ or ‘I need a prescription for a contraceptive’.
Women also need to be given better access to permanent options. Waiting until 35 for surgical sterilisation is silly. Having a child already should not be a prerequisite. Women should not have to shell out thousands of dollars to fly to another country for a procedure that takes less than half an hour because their own can’t get over the fact that some women *don’t* want kids, or have a medical reason for not having them. Some women (myself included) prefer more permanent options, either because they know that hormonal contraceptives and condoms can fail, or because they would rather not have to use them – prescriptions and injections can be expensive. They should be given access to these permanent options, because it’s only fair to them. I would suggest, however, putting in place a system to prevent later lawsuits, perhaps some kind of a contract, and legal checks to ensure that it is done of a woman’s own free will.
(And on an unrelated note, men need to educate themselves on their options too. There are permanent ones, and they’re perfectly safe I’m told. And they hurt a lot less than a woman’s option!)
WOMEN need to stop being given incentives, particularly financial ones. Governments are not just at fault here. Men’s wishes need to be considered better in terms of child support. Sure, crippling mum because of her decision is bad, but so is crippling dad – and often, dad didn’t have any say in the matter. It is not *just* a father’s fault that a woman had his child – she’s to blame too. This isn’t the 1800s. There is such things as morning-after pills, safe abortions and adoption agencies. Women need to be reminded that they were under no obligation to have children, so they should stop thinking that they have more right to money than anyone else. They also need to remember that the father needs to live too, and he too has the right to sufficient food, water and shelter.
And last of all, women need to stop this culture of ‘men can’t have a say in anything to do with women’. It takes a man *and* a woman to make a baby. Granted, men can walk away sooner than women, but then there is shame attached to it. Men also need to learn that there is no shame in walking away; but equally that there is no shame in staying. Do not cripple half of the world for the sake of the others. Pregnancy involves two people; they should both be equally involved in decision-making. And what with all this talk of women’s rights – men have rights too. They are still humans.
BUT. At the same time, women need to learn to stop taking things laying down. Staying pregnant because ‘my boyfriend wants a kid’ is not love, it’s abuse. Women have the final say. Women make the final decision. And if you don’t want the child, then you need to a) consult with your other half (if that’s an option) and b) consider your options regarding the child. There is such a thing as reproductive abuse, and it needs to stop. I have heard of men deliberately sabotaging contraceptive pills and condoms, men forcing their wives or girlfriends to stay home or leave their jobs while they’re pregnant, and often abusing them further if they find a way to escape. Counsellors and government agencies need to realise it exists, and start doing something about it, before it becomes widespread.
But I agree; all of this for the sake of the planet. We only get one, and if it dies, we die with it. People don’t think of the future enough, the future after they die – they are too selfish to see beyond their own lives, and see who and what else will be ruined by their stupid, selfish decisions.
As for an elderly-heavy population, it is not such a permanent problem. Remember – people die eventually. Yes, we will have many decades with an ageing population, but, as mean as it sounds, they will not be here forever. Sure, we may have to put more infrastructure in place for them, but that isn’t so bad either – if we do it now, we don’t have to do it later. Economic problems are not permanent; though not an easy job, governments can prepare for it. It will happen whether we like it or not – women nowadays are having less children and later, so there will be more elderly no matter what we do.
A mans birth control pill would be a great start, if a man had veto power over a woman in the area of reproduction, God knows how many problems would be prevented from happening in the first place. A lot of men would not be trapped into either marriage or “economic slavery” of the out of control child support system.
Women have children because it is biologically driven, women love babies. Men usually have a lot more common sense and planning.
Yes, political action by men is necessary, we need to restore the legal balance. Make it the law , just Roe V Wade that men don’t have to be forced into parenthood.
The first step, before we get into all the other stuff, is that men need to learn the law. Like for example most judgments, ie child support are not even legal and the Supreme Court has already held that a man has a right to make a private arrangement with any women who has his child. WE kick out the state and its ” money grubbing hands” and take away the incentive for women to act “socially,legally and morally irresponsible” then want men to pay for “their choice” When men have the choice and and can veto a women’s usually unwise and unwanted desire to have children, we control the population that way and pretty soon we don’t have a problem with over population.
How billant…1 + 1 = 0
Zamboni,
You mofo!
…Is one of the worst insults ever. People fight over it. “Don’t you be talkin about my mamma” is a phrase we all get. Mom and apple pie leads to “sons” looking at the camera “Hi mom” when on camera for sporrts, while it was dad that coached the boy for years.
Young, very young fathers stayed on the Titanic while women who MAY have been moms once, but have been dried up for 3O years ended up on life boats. Men in American, moms too, in Isreals too, have said that when it comes to war “I don’t want our women to come back in body bags.” We protect women and you are treating women as equals.
You are three steps ahead of those who protest your article. Women, mothers, feminists, have been castrating men philosophically for generations. (a woman teaching women’s history taught me this) Boys are taught to protect women when they are men. Those men who attack you for protesting “mothers” are mamma’s boys and now they will attack me in anger, if they read my support of you, because they frickin Know it. You are cutting edge dude, keep writing.
This “article” is as bad as the worst feminist tripe out there.. I can’t believe its on here..What ARE you people thinking putting this on here???
Haha, I guess you got a response you weren’t expecting, Mr. Zamboni. No worries, I understood you 100%. I don’t know why so many MRA’s think that climate change is a feminist conspiracy.
The question is, what can we actually DO politically to change these child support laws? Should we begin MRA chapters throughout the country? Hold meetings once a month? It’s getting to be a downer simply reading online MRA journals and blogs and doing absolutely ZILCH.
quote..”it really pisses me off that men allowed that to happen”…..Men have allowed all kinds of bad things to happen for decades.A person thats obsessed with “professional” sports, car races, and similar bs will usually accomplish very little of significance and I rarely come across another “man” that isn’t.
More doomsday panic. Sigh. Same-o Same-o.
My suggestion for those who think we need to sharply reduce population is YOU set the example, but please do not aim the pistol you use in the direction of anyone.
And, for those who advocate “draconian” means, you are going to learn something very fast about the Second Amendment and its consequences.
Hitler Redux.
Well, I for one certainly got your point. It is an irony that with feminism, demystification of the female sex must necessarily follow, and I don’t think women like that part. Women do themselves a disservice by not entering the hard sciences. Didn’t Newton say that what goes up, must come down? For every action there is an equal opposing reaction?
I don’t think the courts should order and enforce child support payments. Women would hate this and oppose it every step of the way, but it would certainly reduce the amount of single mothers there are today. What does that say anyway when the state intervenes on a private matter? I am 40 and a bachelor, but it really pisses me off that men allowed that to happen.
This article was about the need to question and challenge our notions of motherhood.
Then why did you go off on a leftist/progressive tangent about environmentalism? In fact, you went so far left you come across as a total plant, like you just came from DK or DU and can’t help yourself.
And just for your info, motherhood and feminists have little to do with each other. The women you’re railing about are low-class dirtbags, and yes, are anathema to the MRM. But that doesn’t lead directly to “overpopulation is killing the planet”. Only a wild-eyed leftist with an agenda would go there.
You are most certainly not helping the men’s rights movement with a “progressive” screed like this.
Joe-Didn’t you read my post just below yours???
I’m genuinely sorry to have to say what I’ve said, but this article is about as misinformed and misguided as it gets…Its 99% conjecture.
Mr J – Perhaps you have a little resistance to questioning motherhood? Perhaps you aren’t a mister…
I don’t have a problem with “questioning motherhood” but this article just trails off into mountains of misinformed, unrelated drivel.
The FACT is, the world would still have all the problems we have now if the poulation were HALF of what it is because the greedy would still exist, doing as greedy people do…It is not sheer numbers of people that are the problem, its the GREEDY/IGNORANT GREEDY that are the problem….Wouldn’t it be something to go to all that trouble of “reducing the population” by half only to find out that it made NONE of the problems go away?
This article is so pathetically misguided its hard to know even where to begin criticizing it….This is truly pathetic.
It is most interesting that almost all of the comments received so far deal with a variety of side issues, such as the political position of this web site, and just how many natural resources we still have available, the strategy of governments to increase population, etc. The taboo of questioning motherhood is alive and well, and is revealed right here. This article was about the need to question and challenge our notions of motherhood. We need to be clear that we must do that, or else suffer dire circumstances.
We are already answering this in Western Scoiety, birthrates are way down and below replacement levels. We do need to maintain enough for society to persist though.
The issue isn’t developed countries it is the developing ones that right now have huge population issues.
As said already that too will address as these societies develop.
It will take care of itself, in the meantime we need to work on our space program and start populating this big old universe of ours.
Sooner or later we have to address the issue of overpopulation in one way or another. There will be an unavoidable temporarily and relative excess of older people, unless we take draconian measures. In fact this relative excess is already happening in certain parts of the world. The question is not if but when we will deal with the question and how. It’s rather useless to foster the idea, or maybe better the illusion, of relative power over other people somewhere else on this earth. In an Internet area, which means all the actors know about each others strategy to attain this relative power this idea will at most postpone the unavoidable, worst case leads to a military struggle about scarce resources and will only temporarily delay answering the question.
Ironically enough, at the moment feminism was about to establish it’s most remarkable victory based upon the unique features of women that distinguishes them from men, mother nature herself addresses us stating that this unique feature is no longer needed as the most important factor to drive our evolution. It’s no wonder they fight with every available means to keep their power positions. Using the idea that suddenly the personal can be used as the central principle to restructure the whole society. As though nothing had happened in our society in the last couple of centuries and we actually still live in the stone age. Welcome to the 21st Century.
Not just to pay back the debt, Bruno.
Governments encourage the production of excess children via huge tax breaks and special employment protections for parents of minor children, as well as mandated family leaves.
They don’t this just to pay back the debt, but to encourage the expasion of a large, relatively undereducated, perpetually underemployed class of desperately poor workers that Capitalists can exploit for cheap labor.
For this reason, government will NEVER support cutting tax subsidies and welfare payments for parents, and it will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into providing healthcare that is not linked to employment.
The government’s role is to ensure that the rich get richer, at the expense of the middle and working classes. Until we change how political campagains are funded, this is the status quo, and no amount of vasectomies will ever change that.
Her Body
Her Choice
Her Re$pon$ibility
When we adopt that cold hard line with women, then they will start to make better choices. Nothing short of that will work. And it would go a long way towards restoring the respect and position of men in their relationships with women.
I find it odd that a site dedicated to railing against environmentalists and typically defines abortion as synonymous with evil would publish an article about reducing the human population out of ecological concerns and advocate that women shouldn’t have the right to choose not to have an abortion.
I agree that world population appears to be stabilizing but what about now. I agree with everything the author had to say and, think this is one of the best pieces I’ve read in the MRM. Something we for, not against….Environmentalism. That’s something I beleive in because I love my son. and, hopefully grandchildren. They will have to live in the Earth we leave them.
And I had my vasectomy in 2002.
I got a vasectomy back in 1997. I have no children. Getting the vasectomy was the best decision that I ever made.
“We must voluntarily reduce population, and do so immediately, or we will soon be forced to do so by the scarcity of resources.”
This is not true. It is a mistake that has been repeated many times in the last couple centuries, notably by Malthus (200 years ago), and Ehrlich in 1968.
The real danger is depopulation and the economic disaster of having an elderly-heavy demographic profile, full of retirees who can’t work, while the economy suffers from contracting demand.
Most of the places we think of as “civilized” are now shrinking in population (Europe, Japan, Russia), while America is neither growing nor shrinking, but only because of it’s relatively more fertile immigrants.
And make no mistake: as the third world develops and becomes more like us in technology and lifestyle, the same thing is happening to them. Many places have plummeting growth rates, currently still above replacement level but heading alarmingly down.
Some estimates say the earth’s population will max out at about 10 billion and then begin to shrink, sometime in the next century.
I firmly believe that all advocates of reducing the human population need to lead the way by example. There are too many people that see the problem, prattle on about it, but lack the courage to act.
I’d recommend calling a news conference where the cause is vigorously espoused, followed by a creative termination of an excess human life. The video will be a great encouragement to the timid in search of leadership.
Save the earths precious resources NOW.
Governments will always stimulate the production of children, for the same reason they want to attract immigrants: we need them to pay back the debt.