One of my good female friends is currently struggling with the inner conflict of being both an independent, educated, feminist, career oriented, self love and self care fixated, fun seeking, cosmopolitan woman and... a new mother of a 1 year old. She loves her kid but her resentment of her *situation* burns red hot.
She has an involved partner who makes high six figures and tries his best to share the burden of child care. They spend thousands a month and spare no expense on supplementary help, nannies etc, and she still laments and mourns the death of her freedom; the loss of her formerly independent self. Coming to terms with how motherhood has narrowed and constrained the possibilities of her life has been very disturbing to her, and she copes by seeking out examples of women in the media who seem to have managed to keep their personal dreams and goals alive (artistically, educationally, professionally) despite having kids.
The complaints about the unfairness of it all is the connecting thread - contempt for the biological and social role that has forced her to subsume her own interests, in what she still feels is the prime of her life.
In fairness to her, the pregnancy was unplanned and she never had a strong desire to have kids and be a mom as a core identity. It's something she wanted in the abstract, but she also didn't realize how much of her former self/life, which she liked a lot, she'd have to sacrifice.
I think women like her feel this sense of injustice more because of the optionality of their former lives. Materially and culturally, she had an incredible amount of youthful personal freedom for about 15 years, which suddenly plummeted to almost zero. Of course such a drastic change would be a shock. This in contrast to women who for cultural and economic reasons have long internalized expectations of motherhood, and actually desire that social role as the defining aspect of their identity.
For women like my friend, Motherhood is not only a huge burden and responsibility, but also a huge sacrifice - one for which they think they deserve all manner of compensation and privileges from their spouse and society under the rubric of equity and egalitarianism. Views
like "motherhood is it's own reward" or "it's nature, suck it up", have obvious non-egalitarian premises and implications that crash head first into core liberal progressive ideology.
You ever read We Need To Talk About Kevin? It's a really great insight into a woman who's just not meant to be a mother. It's much better than the movie because the novel gets into her head.
No I haven't. Interesting you say "not meant to be a mother". I think all mothers would admit that child rearing comes with plenty of hardship, aggravation and sacrifice. Most would also say that the rewards and "good parts" outweigh the negative (otherwise, why have children?) and it's not possible to weigh the love you feel for your child against opportunity costs in some dispassionate cost/benefit analysis.
There is a very strong stigma though (and disincentive), especially for new mothers, against admitting that the negatives outweigh the positives, at least for a time. It runs the risk of people thinking you might be an unfit parent, and all the subsequent implications.
I do think there are some people who are just fundamentally ill-suited to become parents and do more harm than good by becoming ones. A lot of people these days exaggerate their own unsuitability because they'd rather not admit that they just prefer a lifestyle without children. But genuinely shouldn't-be-a-parent people do exist, and that novel is a fascinating look at such a person.
Reading this, I wonder if this is essentially the crux of western feminism; the feelings of injustice and unfairness at having been born with a uterus, desiring emotional connection more than sex, and seemingly wanting kids more than men.
I think a lot about how much resentment white women have toward men, and my feeling has always been that white women desire to become white men. And white women feel "oppressed" because they cant escape their bodies.
I actually wonder if wealthy women who want children simply wont make use of poor surrogates. Or if motherhood wont be pushed onto poorer women so wealthy women can be mothers without the burden of motherhood.
I also think of women who wanted to get themselves sterilized or tubes tied but faced opposition from doctors out of concern they might want kids one day. Even though they decidedly did not, hence the desire to remove childbearing capabilities.
I wonder a lot about what will happen. I read a post on Free Press' substack today about how men are opting out of dating because the criteria of what women want from men is too high and most men cant measure up.
I definitely think that things like egg-freezing, sperm donation, and surrogate pregnancy are going to skyrocket soon once technology and affordability improve. We're not going to change cultural values anytime soon, so it's more realistic that radical technologies will address these problems. It's going to be very interesting to see the social rifts that will be caused by these developments. You mentioned the usage of poor surrogates, which will incite further class wars. With sperm donation, all sorts of uncomfortable eugenics-like questions will be raised (I think it's a barely-kept secret that among sperm donors, the most sought-after sperm is white, no matter the race of the requestor).
Speaking of dating and men not measuring up, there's a new piece up at The Atlantic about the "mating gap." Curious to get your thoughts on it!
I always few sperm donations as inherently eugenicist because you can literally pick who you have a baby with out of a catalogue. But I always assumed people wanted college educated men. It's interesting to see that everyone wants to have white male sperm!
I read the atlantic piece. I found this interesting because Black women have a long history of raising children alone (mentioned in the article) so now well off white (and asian) women might find themselves in a similar situation.
I had always been under the assumption that having a baby would plummet women into poverty since it removes you from the workforce and sucks up all your income. Americans kinda hate single mothers (and largely associate them with being poor), so I am curious if well to do white women will simply never have kids.
The article doesnt mention adoption, which feels like a good middle ground. But I think people have weird feelings about pregnancy and wanting their own biological kids. And babies are hard to come by, especially if you want white ones.
I would also love to actually hear from men because a part of me does feel like elite women want the sort of man that is vanishing, but absolutely wont change her standards. So she is alone. But then you have men who are redpilling themselves out of loneliness or feelings of inadequancy which makes them difficult to date. And culturally, people are adamant that men dont matter and any interest in men borders on misogyny.
Now I am wondering if we will have a world in which elites dont have children, only the poor or lower middle class. (Or very religious people). Now I am wondering if demand for international babies will go up.
[26] The fairies are not to be seized on, and brought to answer for the hurt they do. So also the ecclesiastics vanish away from the tribunals of civil justice.
[27] The ecclesiastics take from young men the use of reason, by certain charms compounded of metaphysics, and miracles, and traditions, and abused Scripture, whereby they are good for nothing else but to execute what they command them. The fairies likewise are said to take young children out of their cradles, and to change them into natural fools, which common people do therefore call elves, and are apt to mischief.
[28] In what shop or operatory the fairies make their enchantment, the old wives have not determined. But the operatories of the clergy are well enough known to be the universities, that received their discipline from authority pontifical.
[29] When the fairies are displeased with anybody, they are said to send their elves to pinch them. The ecclesiastics, when they are displeased with any civil state, make also their elves, that is, superstitious, enchanted subjects, to pinch their princes, by preaching sedition; or one prince, enchanted with promises, to pinch another.
[30] The fairies marry not; but there be amongst them incubi that have copulation with flesh and blood. The priests also marry not.
-
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan: with selected variants from the Latin edition of 1668. Ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994. Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness. Chap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness, and to Whom it Accrueth . . . https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/leviathan-part-iv-of-the-kingdom
Great article! I am consistently blown away by the hate child free women on social media (especially tiktok receive). It is absolutely mind blowing that some people believe a woman’s only purpose is to become a mother - I think it’s highly reflective of attitudes right now? It’s almost fascinating to watch a (most likely conservative man) absolutely lose his mind over a woman who has chosen to live her life without children. And is incredibly happy and at peace with her decision. They’re arguments are so often ‘who will look after you when you grow old’ which is incredibly telling of their true attitude towards having children - it’s for their future labour and servitude that a parent is ‘entitled’ to. A person who chooses to have a child specifically on the basis that they’ll ‘look after’ you is beyond wrong. And something you can’t even guarantee! I think capitalism in the west predominantly has really messed up society’s view on children & family. Which is why there is such a rise on women choosing not to had kids. (There is of course SO many more factors but I don’t want to make this comment an essay. I think climate change is an enormous factor too)
I'm going to bet a lot of those angry guys are the same types who giggle and titter when they hear about low birth rates in East Asian countries. American media's had a long-time fascination about this topic, and over many years, whenever those stories came up, I've read so many comments from these types of guys cracking jokes about dickless Asian men and sexually unsatisfied Asian women. So of course, when the same issue affects them, they become enraged, because they've long tied birth rate to that country's men's power and desirability.
Trans people would say the opposite. That the opposition by some women to the idea of trans women comes from cis-gendered women who wanted to view their own womanhood as compulsory, because it freed them to resent its constraints. But once they see that it's not only not compulsory, but is even desired by some people, some of the philosophical underpinnings of their attitudes about motherhood and a woman's role in society are unmoored. Trans people force women to think about their own complicity in something they would prefer to think of as being imposed upon them from outside.
(Of course in truth cisgendered women are statistically much more likely to have pro-trans attitudes than cis-gendered men, so in truth most of the opposition to trans people is just plain old misogyny)
Just so I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that anti-trans cis women dislike being women, and they don't like trans women because those cis women can't understand why anyone would choose to become a woman when they were a man before?
No i am saying that anti trans cis women console themselves by saying their femininity is compulsory. They are forced to beautify themselves, take care of kids, be passive in romance, etc, but the existence of trans people shows that it isn't compulsory at all, and is freely desired at least by a few people.
That's an argument some trans people make at least. I don't really think it's necessary in point of fact to pretend that cis women need a different reason for being anti trans than men do, esp since as I noted they are much less likely to be anti trans
I think we're on similar points then, that one of the issues raised by the trans movement is that femininity (whether in terms of social behavior or biological features) is not compulsory to women. This motivates some women to support the trans movement, and others to oppose it.
This explains how American parents ho-hummed two years of masking and other abuses directed at their children by the state. They just didn’t care that much.
Maybe the greatest propaganda triumph of the modern world (there are so many competitors!) is that a woman who stays home raising children is "oppressed" (or at least missing out on various forms of self-expression), but a woman who is VP of Marketing is free, independent, realized etc...
Everything within the market, nothing outside the market, nothing against the market!
Heinrich Himmler on How Bolshevik Christianity Spreads Homosexuality and Hatred of Women . . .
❝150 years ago someone at a Catholic university wrote a doctoral thesis with the title: “Does a woman have a soul?” From this the whole tendency of Christianity emerges: it is directed at the absolute destruction of women and at emphasizing the inferiority of women. The entire substance of the priesthood and of the whole of Christianity is, I am firmly convinced, an erotic union of men (Männerbund) for the erection and maintenance of this 2,000-year old Bolshevism.❞
One of my good female friends is currently struggling with the inner conflict of being both an independent, educated, feminist, career oriented, self love and self care fixated, fun seeking, cosmopolitan woman and... a new mother of a 1 year old. She loves her kid but her resentment of her *situation* burns red hot.
She has an involved partner who makes high six figures and tries his best to share the burden of child care. They spend thousands a month and spare no expense on supplementary help, nannies etc, and she still laments and mourns the death of her freedom; the loss of her formerly independent self. Coming to terms with how motherhood has narrowed and constrained the possibilities of her life has been very disturbing to her, and she copes by seeking out examples of women in the media who seem to have managed to keep their personal dreams and goals alive (artistically, educationally, professionally) despite having kids.
The complaints about the unfairness of it all is the connecting thread - contempt for the biological and social role that has forced her to subsume her own interests, in what she still feels is the prime of her life.
In fairness to her, the pregnancy was unplanned and she never had a strong desire to have kids and be a mom as a core identity. It's something she wanted in the abstract, but she also didn't realize how much of her former self/life, which she liked a lot, she'd have to sacrifice.
I think women like her feel this sense of injustice more because of the optionality of their former lives. Materially and culturally, she had an incredible amount of youthful personal freedom for about 15 years, which suddenly plummeted to almost zero. Of course such a drastic change would be a shock. This in contrast to women who for cultural and economic reasons have long internalized expectations of motherhood, and actually desire that social role as the defining aspect of their identity.
For women like my friend, Motherhood is not only a huge burden and responsibility, but also a huge sacrifice - one for which they think they deserve all manner of compensation and privileges from their spouse and society under the rubric of equity and egalitarianism. Views
like "motherhood is it's own reward" or "it's nature, suck it up", have obvious non-egalitarian premises and implications that crash head first into core liberal progressive ideology.
You ever read We Need To Talk About Kevin? It's a really great insight into a woman who's just not meant to be a mother. It's much better than the movie because the novel gets into her head.
No I haven't. Interesting you say "not meant to be a mother". I think all mothers would admit that child rearing comes with plenty of hardship, aggravation and sacrifice. Most would also say that the rewards and "good parts" outweigh the negative (otherwise, why have children?) and it's not possible to weigh the love you feel for your child against opportunity costs in some dispassionate cost/benefit analysis.
There is a very strong stigma though (and disincentive), especially for new mothers, against admitting that the negatives outweigh the positives, at least for a time. It runs the risk of people thinking you might be an unfit parent, and all the subsequent implications.
I do think there are some people who are just fundamentally ill-suited to become parents and do more harm than good by becoming ones. A lot of people these days exaggerate their own unsuitability because they'd rather not admit that they just prefer a lifestyle without children. But genuinely shouldn't-be-a-parent people do exist, and that novel is a fascinating look at such a person.
Reading this, I wonder if this is essentially the crux of western feminism; the feelings of injustice and unfairness at having been born with a uterus, desiring emotional connection more than sex, and seemingly wanting kids more than men.
I think a lot about how much resentment white women have toward men, and my feeling has always been that white women desire to become white men. And white women feel "oppressed" because they cant escape their bodies.
I actually wonder if wealthy women who want children simply wont make use of poor surrogates. Or if motherhood wont be pushed onto poorer women so wealthy women can be mothers without the burden of motherhood.
I also think of women who wanted to get themselves sterilized or tubes tied but faced opposition from doctors out of concern they might want kids one day. Even though they decidedly did not, hence the desire to remove childbearing capabilities.
I wonder a lot about what will happen. I read a post on Free Press' substack today about how men are opting out of dating because the criteria of what women want from men is too high and most men cant measure up.
I definitely think that things like egg-freezing, sperm donation, and surrogate pregnancy are going to skyrocket soon once technology and affordability improve. We're not going to change cultural values anytime soon, so it's more realistic that radical technologies will address these problems. It's going to be very interesting to see the social rifts that will be caused by these developments. You mentioned the usage of poor surrogates, which will incite further class wars. With sperm donation, all sorts of uncomfortable eugenics-like questions will be raised (I think it's a barely-kept secret that among sperm donors, the most sought-after sperm is white, no matter the race of the requestor).
Speaking of dating and men not measuring up, there's a new piece up at The Atlantic about the "mating gap." Curious to get your thoughts on it!
I always few sperm donations as inherently eugenicist because you can literally pick who you have a baby with out of a catalogue. But I always assumed people wanted college educated men. It's interesting to see that everyone wants to have white male sperm!
I read the atlantic piece. I found this interesting because Black women have a long history of raising children alone (mentioned in the article) so now well off white (and asian) women might find themselves in a similar situation.
I had always been under the assumption that having a baby would plummet women into poverty since it removes you from the workforce and sucks up all your income. Americans kinda hate single mothers (and largely associate them with being poor), so I am curious if well to do white women will simply never have kids.
The article doesnt mention adoption, which feels like a good middle ground. But I think people have weird feelings about pregnancy and wanting their own biological kids. And babies are hard to come by, especially if you want white ones.
I would also love to actually hear from men because a part of me does feel like elite women want the sort of man that is vanishing, but absolutely wont change her standards. So she is alone. But then you have men who are redpilling themselves out of loneliness or feelings of inadequancy which makes them difficult to date. And culturally, people are adamant that men dont matter and any interest in men borders on misogyny.
Now I am wondering if we will have a world in which elites dont have children, only the poor or lower middle class. (Or very religious people). Now I am wondering if demand for international babies will go up.
So much food for thought!
"Except maybe if they become mommy bloggers, which in the attention economy, is the only social currency that having children can provide."
I thought that a Stunning And Brave trans child was the ultimate accessory these days?
[26] The fairies are not to be seized on, and brought to answer for the hurt they do. So also the ecclesiastics vanish away from the tribunals of civil justice.
[27] The ecclesiastics take from young men the use of reason, by certain charms compounded of metaphysics, and miracles, and traditions, and abused Scripture, whereby they are good for nothing else but to execute what they command them. The fairies likewise are said to take young children out of their cradles, and to change them into natural fools, which common people do therefore call elves, and are apt to mischief.
[28] In what shop or operatory the fairies make their enchantment, the old wives have not determined. But the operatories of the clergy are well enough known to be the universities, that received their discipline from authority pontifical.
[29] When the fairies are displeased with anybody, they are said to send their elves to pinch them. The ecclesiastics, when they are displeased with any civil state, make also their elves, that is, superstitious, enchanted subjects, to pinch their princes, by preaching sedition; or one prince, enchanted with promises, to pinch another.
[30] The fairies marry not; but there be amongst them incubi that have copulation with flesh and blood. The priests also marry not.
-
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan: with selected variants from the Latin edition of 1668. Ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994. Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness. Chap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness, and to Whom it Accrueth . . . https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/leviathan-part-iv-of-the-kingdom
Great article! I am consistently blown away by the hate child free women on social media (especially tiktok receive). It is absolutely mind blowing that some people believe a woman’s only purpose is to become a mother - I think it’s highly reflective of attitudes right now? It’s almost fascinating to watch a (most likely conservative man) absolutely lose his mind over a woman who has chosen to live her life without children. And is incredibly happy and at peace with her decision. They’re arguments are so often ‘who will look after you when you grow old’ which is incredibly telling of their true attitude towards having children - it’s for their future labour and servitude that a parent is ‘entitled’ to. A person who chooses to have a child specifically on the basis that they’ll ‘look after’ you is beyond wrong. And something you can’t even guarantee! I think capitalism in the west predominantly has really messed up society’s view on children & family. Which is why there is such a rise on women choosing not to had kids. (There is of course SO many more factors but I don’t want to make this comment an essay. I think climate change is an enormous factor too)
I'm going to bet a lot of those angry guys are the same types who giggle and titter when they hear about low birth rates in East Asian countries. American media's had a long-time fascination about this topic, and over many years, whenever those stories came up, I've read so many comments from these types of guys cracking jokes about dickless Asian men and sexually unsatisfied Asian women. So of course, when the same issue affects them, they become enraged, because they've long tied birth rate to that country's men's power and desirability.
1000% - what a great point. It’s so terribly ironic that their racist hateful rhetoric is coming full circle to make themselves feel insecure.
We can't afford healthcare for American children because we need to keep bombing everyone else's for the love of Jesus and Israel . . .
https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/satanism-is-a-jewish-cult
Trans people would say the opposite. That the opposition by some women to the idea of trans women comes from cis-gendered women who wanted to view their own womanhood as compulsory, because it freed them to resent its constraints. But once they see that it's not only not compulsory, but is even desired by some people, some of the philosophical underpinnings of their attitudes about motherhood and a woman's role in society are unmoored. Trans people force women to think about their own complicity in something they would prefer to think of as being imposed upon them from outside.
(Of course in truth cisgendered women are statistically much more likely to have pro-trans attitudes than cis-gendered men, so in truth most of the opposition to trans people is just plain old misogyny)
Just so I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that anti-trans cis women dislike being women, and they don't like trans women because those cis women can't understand why anyone would choose to become a woman when they were a man before?
No i am saying that anti trans cis women console themselves by saying their femininity is compulsory. They are forced to beautify themselves, take care of kids, be passive in romance, etc, but the existence of trans people shows that it isn't compulsory at all, and is freely desired at least by a few people.
That's an argument some trans people make at least. I don't really think it's necessary in point of fact to pretend that cis women need a different reason for being anti trans than men do, esp since as I noted they are much less likely to be anti trans
I think we're on similar points then, that one of the issues raised by the trans movement is that femininity (whether in terms of social behavior or biological features) is not compulsory to women. This motivates some women to support the trans movement, and others to oppose it.
Although I would say most women support trans rights because it's just the right thing to do
Evolution is heterosexual.
Fuck you and your Jewish god.
Yeah I think actually you're right. They are just inversions of each other
That's interesting and can be the case. Thanks for sharing.
This is a great article to read when you're dating for the first time in your thirties.
Be sure to sign up for my Always Be Alphaing classes, soon to begin in mid-fall. Only $1000 a session.
As tongue-in-cheek as this post is (I hope), I won't lie and say I'm not a little bit tempted.
This explains how American parents ho-hummed two years of masking and other abuses directed at their children by the state. They just didn’t care that much.
Maybe the greatest propaganda triumph of the modern world (there are so many competitors!) is that a woman who stays home raising children is "oppressed" (or at least missing out on various forms of self-expression), but a woman who is VP of Marketing is free, independent, realized etc...
Everything within the market, nothing outside the market, nothing against the market!
Heinrich Himmler on How Bolshevik Christianity Spreads Homosexuality and Hatred of Women . . .
❝150 years ago someone at a Catholic university wrote a doctoral thesis with the title: “Does a woman have a soul?” From this the whole tendency of Christianity emerges: it is directed at the absolute destruction of women and at emphasizing the inferiority of women. The entire substance of the priesthood and of the whole of Christianity is, I am firmly convinced, an erotic union of men (Männerbund) for the erection and maintenance of this 2,000-year old Bolshevism.❞
https://cwspangle.substack.com/i/138320669/heinrich-himmler-on-how-bolshevik-christianity-spreads-homosexuality-and-hatred-of-women