Antinatalism has a point but it upsets me

[sakura184]

So I've been involved in feminism for many years.
I got involved in quite a radical group and as time went on I learned about antinatalism.

These radical women very much despise mothers and it didn't feel any different to the run of the mill patriarchal undermining and despising of mothers.

But they do have a point. They say we shouldn't have had babies at late stage patriarchy because we can't protect our children, the environment is polluted beyond all repair, that women have lost their access to clean and plentiful food and water. We have given birth under inhumane conditions and for this we should experience a deep guilt. One said "I can't imagine being able to live with myself after doing something so heinous".

Anyway i find it upsetting and was just hoping for maybe some sort of support thread or something. I've given birth twice and only now I do see that the antinatalist feminists have a point but obviously it's too late for me to change what I've done. They think women who gave birth are either stupid or evil beyond compare

How to carry on, in regard to what kind of future our children have. I wish we didn't live under patriarchy, and could raise our children safely and happily.

The antinatalsits would probably say this is a horrible, self indulgent thread. That mothers just should suck it up and live with the guilt, but I can honestly say I had no idea how bad things were when I decided to have children and I think most mothers are like me.

The writer of the blog linked to hates everyone. She is clearly having a terrible time because of her illness but every article is a torrent of bilious invective against everyone she meets.

She comes across as an Incel's more disgruntled big sister than a feminist.

Coyoacan

Basically yes. Because now the animals are suffering terribly too because of us. I've unfollowed anything animal related on my Facebook because I just can't deal

Again, antinatalism is not coming only from “one view”. It is not a new idea only promoted by incels. So many of these posts demonstrate a very narrow view of antinatalism, kind of like judging all vegans and vegetarians by the loudest activists amongst them. It also reminds me of when people see the word “radical” in radical feminism and think it means “extreme” without understanding the etymology behind the term.

Not all antinatalists promote extinction, it is just they assign a negative value to birth (compared to natalists or pronatalists who assign a positive value). Anti here does not mean “hate”.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism

is a philosophical position that assigns a negative value to birth. Antinatalists argue that people should abstain from procreation because it is morally bad (some also recognize the procreation of other sentient beings as morally bad). In scholarly and in literary writings, various ethical foundations have been adduced for antinatalism.[1] Some of the earliest surviving formulations of the idea that it would be better not to have been born come from ancient Greece.[2] The term antinatalism is in opposition to the term natalism or pro-natalism, and was used probably for the first time as the name of the position by Théophile de Giraud (born 1968) in his book L'art de guillotiner les procréateurs: Manifeste anti-nataliste.[3]

It can have religious or social background. The Shakers were for example antinatalists. For some it is a negative utilitarianism. For others it is environmental. I myself come
to antinatalism from an environmental standpoint mostly because of the harm I believe we as humans have caused and so cause:

www.independent.co.uk/environment/mass-extinction-humans-causing-earth-deaths-end-times-warning-a7765856.html

sciencenordic.com/humans-have-always-caused-plant-and-animal-extinctions

I don’t think that human beings are a great positive influence on the planet. I don’t believe humans are more “special” than the other sentient beings that inhabit this planet or the ones we have pushed into extinction.

I don’t believe adding to the 7.4 billion we have (the world population has grown by 3 billion in my own lifetime!) is a “good thing” ie a positive value. Indeed, I think it harms not just other sentient beings or life forms, but other humans. Not just in the competition of resources like food and shelter (ie look at real estate prices in densely populated areas even, or the have/have not situations in places like San Francisco), but also in terms of financial well being, health (ie more people in more densely populated areas increases exposure to disease), etc.

I am a radical feminist. I am also an antinatalist. I don’t hate women. I don’t hate children. I love my nieces and nephews. I volunteer in organizations that promote the well being of children and their families. I am not telling others absolutely not to have children even if I chose not to.

I just think that as humans we have consciousness and that biology does not have to determine our choices even if it influences them. This is also where my feminism crosses with my antinatalism - I think that in the world as if is now, having children can and often does harm women including from achieving freedom from patriarchal oppression. Still their choice but I encourage women, all women, to consciously think about whether having children will be a positive value in their life versus a negative value on an individual basis rather than blaming biological determinism.

Feministcat, if you think there are too many people, why are you still alive?

One of the thing that feminist writer talks about is the terrible relationship she has with her mother. I too have a terrible relationship with my mother.
I thought this was down to individual factors, it's what were taught. That we had narcissistic parents etc
But what if the bad relationship we experienced is because our mothers were in no position to comfortably raise kids because they really didn't have the resources they needed -- and then to replicate that ourselves in the hope we can do better than our mothers... when the world increasingly has fewer resources , idk there's a lot to think about

@sakura184

At the end of the day, I mean this gently, you have your children. You made your choice. Is this endless ruminating making your life, theirs, or the well-being of the planet any better?

If I were you, I really would try to stop yourself mulling this point over and over, and find a positive action you can take to improve the world you brought your children into.

If they are supposed to be feminists then they should have an awareness that a lot of mothers did not choose to become mothers of their own free choice. But I mean there must be a huge amount of women who are coerced at some level into having children. When I say coerced I mean everything ranging from social or family pressure up to rape. My own mother didn't want children after she lost her first baby and I was the product of rape, but am also thinking of my dh's family who put huge pressure on us to have a baby. We did have one, when we felt ready. We now get pressured to give our child a sibling, and it's been made very clear that we are selfish people for saying that we don't want another.

Also I'm obviously not educated in biology or anthropology and I am thinking out loud and also going away from the point of the op... But presumably at some point in time we didn't know that sex made babies. Now we do know. Perhaps it's the drive to have sex which is more of the natural instinct than the drive to become parents? Maybe the drive to have babies is an entirely man-made one?

@TheSheepofWallSt

Yes thank you, you're right of course

Jellylegsni

Well these feminists are anti PIV so they don't think intercourse is a natural drive, at least not in women, I'm not sure about men- it might be in men. They do rape a lot, I don't know if that's natural or not.
I think the instinct to have a baby is different to the instinct to have sex. Both might be socially constructed

From what I have seen around me, having children appears to be one of the most risky things a woman can do and can have a detrimental impact on her life.

From all the problems and complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth - the physical body is permanently affected in so many ways. Some women suffer from PTSD and post natal depression.

Once children are involved, a woman becomes especially vulnerable in many areas of life. She is now dependent on her partner for financial support and stability. Some women decide to give up their careers entirely to look after the children. That means she is dependent on the man's income, his future pension etc. In some countries, she is also dependent on his medical insurance.
It also means if he becomes abusive or decides to abandon the family, she has nowhere else to go or no financial leverage. This disempowered state puts her in a perilous state.

Some women continue to work, but usually have to give up their careers and find part time jobs that are unrelated to their professional qualifications. Understandably they want to fit any employment around the rearing of children.
They are more likely to be passed over for promotions and find themselves at the lower end of the pay scale. These lower / part time wages impact on pension contributions so she is also more likely to be living with inadequate funding even in retirement.

Where state funding can help, in terms of child benefits or housing support, it's still a paltry handout and the process can be stressful.

It seems like a lot to risk, but clearly the drive to reproduce is strong and many women find fulfillment in rearing children.
It is still a big taboo for people to admit any regret about parenthood and say that they wouldn't have had children if they could do it all over again. So I don't know how much truth is in the constant mantra that having children is the best thing ever.

I think it's important for young girls and women to understand the realities of motherhood in a patriarchal world and just how much risk they are taking on by having children and only proceed if they are comfortable with what they are signing up for.

It certainly brings a lot of joy, but at quite a high cost, so hats off to those who go ahead with it anyway.

I'd never heard of these people until today but they do seem to be nothing more than complete and utter fucking morons.

Seriously insane. The kindest thing you could say is that they are mentally ill and need help.

They're Nazis, hateful, ignorant fools who have nothing to offer. Vile.

Certainly not feminists.

If the instinct to have sex is constructed we'd not exist. You can't really separate the instinct for sex from the instinct to procreate either. Some people only experience one, but the desire for sex exists because it makes us procreate. You don't see amoebas going around all horny, because they don't reproduce sexually.

This group you have stumbled upon don't seem to have a grasp of basic biology, and they seem very alienated from their physical existence. THat's probably the real reason they are unhappy, not some sort of half-baked ideas about patriarchy. The world and human society are imperfect, but people alienated from their physicality are always going to feel out of place and out of sorts.

I feel like there's something not quite right about saying having children is a choice. Of course, it is, but at the same time, it isn't. It's not as if all women could stop having babies tomorrow. That has never happened in any society afaik. There's always a fairly steady rate if about 80 percent of women having children at some point in their lives. So even if individual women go this way or that way, overall most women are or will become mothers.

I don't think antinatalists ever propose releasing viruses to make everyone infertile or strategies like that. They don't seem seriously committed to the end of human existence. Rather, it's like they're claiming the moral higher ground for the childless. By claiming it, they're releasing the childless from any responsibility towards those people who are taking on the burdens of reproduction. And the rhetoric of choice does the same thing.

They shouldn't be guilting anyone but I do believe pro choice and to have a life first and foremost before deciding to have children and settle down. This info or teaching whatever should be readily available to young women.

Not everyone should have children. I agree to that extent.

TBH I think there is a lot of untruth in the idea that having kids is a choice too. It doesn't quite grasp the thing. I suspect its because we naturally think of it as something we can control through technological intervention, but that is a tiny moment in history that could end at ant time, and I don't think you can understand something so basic about human beings without looking at the thing in itself, not how we've managed to intervene.

It's true that human beings are intelligent enough to understand the link between sexual intercourse and pregnancy, so in theory we can abstain. But even disregarding rape and weird cases where someone gets pregnant without intercourse, even many people who don't want to get pregnant still want to have sex enough that they get pregnant anyway.

It may seem like an odd comparison, but it's a lot like trying to diet. I know I shouldn't eat a whole bag of chips in two days, I don't want to really, except I do it anyway. It's not so much a choice as a lack of will.

This makes me angry. Women are blamed and judged for whatever choices they make and even if they do not make choices at all!
I've fallen pregnant twice despite using two types of contraception. Both times I kept the babies.
Pregnancy is a biological reality for many women and not the clear cut choice its represented as... it's often something that happens to us rather than something we actively chose.
I agree with the OP saying that if these people are so concerned with over population then why havent they killed themselves? Because that is the only life they have a right to take and the only body they have any jurisdiction over. It does not empower women to pretend we are not women and sometimes as women we fall pregnant... women often are mothers or desire motherhood and even if they dont they will at some point have to think deeply about it... it's intrinsically part of being a woman.. I agree that these anti naturalists are sounding very much like misogynists to me. To me it's the assumption that masculinity is the normal state and womanhood is some kind of sick deviation. Those horrid women having their kids! It's all their fault!

I mean above all the other things everyone could be doing... why should it be women making this sacrifice, altering their biological impulses?
Just sounds massively misogynistic. Like eve was punished with painful bearing of children for eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge and now shes going to be punished by being asked to make herself infertile on purpose to save the planet...
I mean get away from womens bodies cant you! Just piss off on to something else...anything else.

As crass as it sounds, I find it ridiculous to tell others to not have children because you think it’s wrong when actually, ending your own life isn’t even a thought. If their whole argument is letting the human race die out then why not think of suicide as that will lower numbers if everyone that believes in this ends their own life.

I mean get away from womens bodies cant you! Just piss off on to something else...anything else

I know.
But I suppose it ties in with handmaidenry. To what extent are we women responsible for patriarchy , I don't know

And it's not understanding the difference 8n other womens experiences... and not listening to other women. If motherhood is not important to them.. of they dont feel any desire to have children that's fine, good for them. But to deny that for some women it's an incredibly powerful natural instinct and to others who fall pregnant unexpectedly, they can still feel this hormonal and psychological bond to the child developing inside them.. and an incredibly responsibility to that child and it's well being... to deny that is ridiculous.. to suggest that because they arent into it or doht feel these things, that women who do should choose to not have children or kill the child growing inside of them when that is incredibly distressing to them... it's just disgusting and deeply misogynistic. These women really arent feminists. Nor do they care about the greater good. They are self indulgent egoists.

Yes well it did stand out to me that they didn't want children anyway. Never wanted them.
It's so different from a woman who perhaps did want them but chose not to for the greater good

And I think anyone who chose not to have kids for the greater good didnt REALLY want them anyway.. they probably just briefly thought about it and thought 'nah it's not a good idea right now'... some women try for years and years and go through complete misery because they want children so badly and struggle to conceive... it's a very real thing that just because some women dont really get it because they've never felt it themselves, doesnt mean it's not real. I've never felt that myself, both my children were unplanned! But I can see its areal thing just like the desire to have sex is a very real thing. I mean if you just said no one should have sex so that we can save the planet people would laugh at you because it's so ridiculous that men (and women but its thought of as real instinct because it's something men feel) would go against their desires and instincts..... but when it's a womans desire for a child it's fair game (or a mans desire for a child which people rarely even acknowledge exists ever to even negate it)

It's pretty shite to think you can be the gatekeeper of when it's acceptable for people to have kids and then decide at some arbitrary point in time that it's not.

I for one am hopeful and truly believe the next generation will be the ones to turn things around. I believe they are more switched on and socially aware than we ever were at that age, and they won't shy away from social and political conflict and from fighting for what is right.

If they don't want kids that's fine. But if others do that's also fine. Being a feminist means fighting for a woman's right to choose her own path in life, even if it's different from yours.

Telling women what they should or should not be doing under the guise of feminism is like pretending to want to dismantle the patriarchy, but in reality just re-branding it and presenting it to us as something 'new'. But it's the same shit, different smell. It's an absolute load of bollocks.

Then again working class lesbians have always existed and managed to navigate the world childless

Actually my impression is that a lot of working class lesbians are persuaded into a relationship with a man and into motherhood in their early adult life and break out of this when older.

Where do antinatalists stand on adoption?
I see a lot of dreamy eyed environmentalists saying "I am only going to adopt to stop bringing children into the world to consume stuff".
And while, in the UK, it is true that some families who have multiple children removed then have another baby (one presumes, like any woman who has lost a baby, to fill the space), by and large children who are adopted are "instead of" a birth child rather than "as well as".

Our children would probably have had a lower carbon footprint if not adopted than with us (mainly due to less plane travel). But I hope that I can bring up my DD to be her own woman, and my DS to respect women, in a way that unfortunately was not possible for the women/men in their birth families.