Hi all,

As our community is still small and not overly active, I thought instead of trying to have a weekly or monthly chatter thread up as a sticky, we could try a perpetual one and see what happens.

So anything you feel doesn't warrant a post of its own, just put it here.

Cheers and take care!

cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/43472823

Childbirth and childrearing are shackles for women, and no you cannot change my mind.

Hear me out.

They made wheelchairs (robots to assist fertilization) for crooked sperm. Even if it will result in a problematic pregnancy for the woman.

The research, treatment and management on diseases affecting solely women, for example endometriosis and pmos almost nil as compared to those affecting solely men.

They didn't use blood to test period products till 2019. The toothpaste you use, it's formulated keeping a man's mouths ph. Seatbelts, too till a long time, again, tested on a man's physical build. CPR, again the same story. Birth control is a whole can of worms.

The list will go on and on. These are just a fraction of the examples.

Why does this happen?

Because it's a system made by men for men. There's an astounding lack of women involved in R&D, only recently it's gotten a bit better. And obviously the men don't care about women as much as they like to proclaim.

Why am I blaming childbirth and childrearing for all this?

Because pregnancy takes a lot from a woman's body. Sure, women are strong enough to manage the best of both worlds, but a lot of times those women have a strong village to have their backs or they're just superwomen, plain and simple.

But a lot of women don't have this liberty.

Pregnancy and recovery from it easily takes 2-5 years. Childrearing even more.

Men, even if they try their best, they simply cannot be as involved as a woman when it comes to this aspect of biology. Even the best husband or father wouldn't have sacrificed their bodies for their children in a literal sense.

Now all of this would've been okay if it was an informed choice.

Most of the times, heck, all of the times, is it really a choice? Or is it conditioning?

Women are brainwashed from childhood, that motherhood is the greatest thing they'll ever achieve. Even if it's not their parents,it's their teachers, if not teachers, it's relatives, if not any of them, sometimes even strangers are entitled to say crap like that to literal girl children. It's fucking disgusting. Ahem ahem, that governer aunty, who said women should be expert mothers before having their careers, should respectfully stfu. Hurt people hurt people and forcing women who don't want to be mothers will only lead to resentment of their children. Or forcing willing mothers in to giving up more things even after she gave up her body will lead to resentment. Not exactly a recipe for a happy family.

No one asks men to be better fathers, but when it comes to women, every tom dick and harry becomes an expert. Sarla aunty, whose own daughter is not on speaking terms with her, and who is her daughter in law's worst nightmare, despite being tortured by her own mother in law, has the most to say about this. Talk about women being the torch bearers for patriarchy. (Chicken defending kfc)

I'm sure the moms who say their children are their greatest achievement genuinely believe so. And there's nothing wrong about that, and I'm not arguing against the notion. You created a whole new life out of a single cell, at the expense of your body. It really is a wonderful thing.

But can we just stop sugarcoating it? It's not easy. It shouldn't be expected of all women. It should not be a shackle used to cage women.

There i said it, women are biologically weaker, just because of childbirth and pregnancy. Only because it's systematically facilitated by everyone. A man's sperm determines the quality of pregnancy the woman has to endure, but how often is he asked to shoulder the responsibility properly? How many men love their partner enough to change their lifestyle and be healthier so that their partner's pregnancy is slightly better?

Go to the places where education is scarce and poverty is rampant, you'll see how motherhood is not a choice. 22 years of age and the poor kid will have 3-4 children, many a times, she doesn't have a say in this. It's so heartbreaking. And then tell me that motherhood is god's gift. It's bullshit. Why do women have to shoulder this burden and break their backs?

Go look up the girl with the list. It is not sunshine and roses. It is painful both physically and emotionally. And if you don't have a support system, it's worse. Like a literally living nightmare. One may even lose all body autonomy, which, there's a chance, it might have already been lost, living as a woman.

I wish more women decide to be selfish and focus on themselves rather than this whole give birth and raise children and serve husband crap.

Because at the end of the day the other gender, as a whole, doesn't care as much as we do about them, they're selfish and satiate only their own needs.

If only more women were not biologically disadvantaged with giving birth, or maybe if men were the ones responsible for raising the child, maybe there would've been some semblance of equality where all the avenues where men are leading, from the funding given for research and development and being hands on with the reasearch and development itself, we all would've had a better quality of life.

But it's not.

It'll take time to truly achieve what is required to set feet in the world where women are valued and cherished and nurtured.

But do we really have time? The world is collapsing, with climate change hovering over our heads, economy being down and hatred everywhere.

It's a sad situation all in all.

I'm glad more and more people, both women and (thankfully) men, are refusing to bring innocent children into this shitstorm, anymore.

The community is called childfree, you'd think everyone here would be at least somewhat opposed to the concept of having children.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/62400821

As the current administration and pro-natalist groups continue to panic about women delaying motherhood, we must reject the “alarming fertility statistics.” If women choose to have children, that decision should be guided by their own goals, circumstances, and desires, not by pressures to solve a manufactured problem.

At the end of the day, supporting families means creating conditions in which people can make reproductive decisions freely. The solution to declining birth rates is not limiting women’s choices, but ensuring they have the resources and support needed to build the lives and families they want.

"The female body is optimized for pregnancy and childbirth/pregnancy and childbirth does not damage your body in the slightest. You're just scaremongering because you want to be irresponsible/be a slut/contribute to the extinction of the human race/be a rabid feminist lonely cat lady/"

Categorically false. In exchange for the ability to walk upright, evolution gave human female physiology only just enough capability to 3D print and deliver grossly underdeveloped offspring (mostly) alive, with little allowance for the toll it takes on the mother's body.

This is why human babies are born completely unable to fend for themselves, or walk, or eat solid food.

This is why human babies sometimes get stuck in the birth canal and require surgical intervention for successful delivery.

This is why pregnant women's bodies are often horribly weakened by the entire process of pregnancy and delivery and why so many women straight up die during childbirth.

If women don't want any part of that, that's no one's business but their own.

cross-posted from: https://leminal.space/post/35108932

Paywall removed: https://archive.is/x98FV

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/57695912

Fake videos show frustrated, unmarried, childless middle-aged women crying and venting in hospital hallways about their life choices.

What I didn’t expect to find in antinatalism was a complex and rich web of ideas, some contradictory and some complementary, but all based on compassion. Most antinatalists I’ve spoken to and whose work I’ve read share the underlying desire to reduce suffering. To minimise harm and hurt. All human life involves suffering, and all humans cause suffering. You may believe that suffering is outweighed by the joys and experiences of life. You may believe that humans are entitled to kill animals to eat or burn the Earth for profit. Those are normal beliefs. But they aren’t universal

Our society has come a long way in making space for things such as maternal ambivalence and the childfree movement, but those are still frameworks that ask whether or not we want to have children, not whether or not we should.

Yes