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.

I wonder whether antinatalists consider the fact that the great increase in women working over the past few decades has also likely had a negative effect on the environment - more cars on the road etc.

BjornAgain81

Well women have always worked haven't they. The idea they've only worked recently is extremely misogynistic and blatantly untrue.

What I think is true is that women have been sold a lie that supporting men's systems was beneficial to us somehow.

What we should've been doing is organizing to preserve our water and land so we could cultivate food on our own terms instead of losing absolutely everything to men.

drspouse

Yeah that's why I added the caveat about lesbians ending up in het marriages

I wonder whether antinatalists consider the fact that the great increase in women working over the past few decades has also likely had a negative effect on the environment - more cars on the road etc.

In fact while the answer given is inevitably up living standards and women will have fewer children, realistically what we see is people raised in small families with a high living standard - which is to say most western families - are extremely high consumers all around.

We don't have fewer kids so we can use fewer resources. We have fewer kids so we can all have more. Our expectations are far beyond what people would have considered necessary or good two generations ago, much less two hundred years ago. Many of us, myself included, would truly struggle to bring our living standards down much, we are so used to this we see it as the bar for "normal".

We've essentially created a society of greedy entitled people who don't realise how far gone we are and can't really change that perspective, and we use far more resources than the poor overpopulated parts of the world.We think the answer is to figure out how to have our cake and eat it, which is live at the same level without the environmental impact. Somehow we expect technology to accomplish this for us. This is what has kept us from doing anything and probably will continue to do so until it is too late.

Really, if we are going to get rid of people, it should be us westerner. Keep the people from the places who know how to live with less.

Really, if we are going to get rid of people, it should be us westerner.

I just take this as a given. For my masters I studied the international supply chain of food I.e how food comes from developing countries and ends up on our supermarket shelves. Men control the food chain every step along the way exploiting women every step along the way, but especially exploiting women in developing countries. Westerners are a scourge

Well women have always worked haven't they. The idea they've only worked recently is extremely misogynistic and blatantly untrue.

I'd put money on the fact (without even knowing the exact figures) that there are a lot more women in paid employment today than in the 1600s (or even early 1900s) and that the type of jobs performed nowadays feature more corporate air travel and client visits etc.

I'm not saying that equality is a bad thing at all, but from an environmental perspective an increased workforce probably isn't good.

What we should've been doing is organizing to preserve our water and land so we could cultivate food on our own terms instead of losing absolutely everything to men.

What would this look like in practice? Societies with no men? Fencing off our own land and putting our sons out over the fence? I honestly don’t understand what you mean.

Just keep the men in labs, I'd say, and harvest their sperm. If you have a son, castrate him at birth or give him over to the sperm bank. Women who are unwilling to do that are handmaidens and must be reeducated.

Nothing worrying in all that.

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

Oh dear. Not the right kind of feminists now?

What would this look like in practice? Societies with no men? Fencing off our own land and putting our sons out over the fence? I honestly don’t understand what you mean.

It’s the kind of dumb idea that makes most people think ‘Fuck the environment if that’s the alternative; I’ll go to work in scuba gear if I have to.’

No, not feminists at all.

Just idiots who don't want kids and feel the need to dress it up in some self-important, bollox philosophy.

Just don't have kids, nobody cares!

BjornAgain81

Yeah the old "paid employment" chestnut. What use is bits of paper to women when we've lost all our clean water and land, our access to herbs and medicines etc

I had to look up what antinatalism meant.

I'm a feminist and I definitely have sympathy with women who choose not to have children for their unborn child's sake and the sake of the planet and the rest of humanity.

There will be unpleasant, insulting antinatalsits, just like there are unpleasant, insulting women on this board. But there are also many of them feminists who deeply care about women's future and have made their heart wrenching decision to not have children for intelligent and compassionate reasons.

The posters on here who are generalising and hurling obscene insults are just as bad as any hard line antinatalsits imo.

A hard line antinatalist would be in favour of human rights abuses to wipe out the human race.

A moderate antinatalist believes having children is morally wrong, and that their life is of more value than someone else’s.

The OP directed us to an essay on a blog by a feminist antinatlalist writer whom she admires. It contained this.

From where I’m sitting, it is self-evident that most if not all mothers are only mothers in the first place because they are just too stupid to realize how evil it is to create life under late stage capitalism and patriarchy (or they realize it too late) or they are actual sadists and users who only had children in the first place because of what those children would presumably do for them. Someone to dominate and control, someone to take care of her when she’s old

The tone and content of this brief excerpt catches the general tone. If this the feminist version of antinatalism, heaven help us from the ones who really don't like women.

Why this is being presented as being feminist (as opposed to the demented ramblings of someone who clearly has a very unhappy life ) entirely escapes me- but possibly I'm just too addled by the capitalist , patriarchal system to see the merit in this tirade.

barelove

Yes I get antinatalism as a sound feminist choice, which may be heart wrenching.

the feminist in question didn't make a heart wrenching decision not to have kids, she just thought birth was gross and didn't want kids anyway

I think the author in question is a bit of a nutter tbh. Likely highly intelligent without any perspective or possibly a bit of a misanthrope.

If by the "feminist" in question you mean the writer of that blog in what way is she a feminist?

There was a thread about misandry, which I think you said isn't a thing. Do the all the misandrist and misanthropic statements made by that writer somehow make her misogyny acceptable?

In my experience, it's usually those with misandrist tendencies that deny it's existence. Quelle surprise!

Not wanting children is a sound feminist choice.

Thinking that other people shouldn't have them, makes you a nazi.

@sakura184
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
I think you need to remember that nothing will ever be so perfect that a mother will get ALL the support and/or ressources they need.
Even in relative terms, children born now in a western society are so much better than it was 100 years ago. Even 50 years ago. We have PLENTY on a material POV. And on an emotional POV, do you think it’s realistic to expect that one will get all the support they need? Humans have flaws, that’s how we are. That also means there is no way we can always support everyone the way they need to be. We can strive to offer help as much as we can. We can’t make it perfect iyswim.

The other thing that I’m unconfortable about the fact that they seem to think there is no scope for human to get better. Yes human race hasn’t done very well, I agree. But I find the idea that it’s NEVER going to get better quite sad.

I wonder whether antinatalists consider the fact that the great increase in women working over the past few decades has also likely had a negative effect on the environment - more cars on the road etc.

Why is it all because of women though?
The issue with travel for work is because work isn’t next door anymore, it’s often 1 hour away by car. It has nothing to do with women.
If women don’t work, then someone has to do the work that they are currently doing. Who will that be? Some other men so we need an increase in population to be able to do all of it?

And why assuming that if women are at home, then they will obviously be staying at home and not travel etc.... When I had my dcs and I was at home, I was using my car MORE going to places with them p, taking them to activities Etc.... much more than I do now (as I have the chance of having my job just 15 mins away - a trip to the swimming pool was 20~25 mins away....)

That sort if idea seems to be based in more mysoginistic ideas than anything else tbh.

All these nihilistic misanthropes are welcome to shuffle off voluntarily, at their earliest convenience, and take their profound psychological issues with them.

The rest of us ‘Western scourge’ can crack on with reducing our consumption and not exploiting our fellow humans.

If we fail to save ourselves, the world will keep turning and it’ll be as if we were never here. The universe doesn’t give a shit and the planet’s healed worse. Life, literally, goes on.