“What If We Say No To Reproduction?”

13 Jan, 2009 by John Hawkins

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Is the ultimate expression of feminism to live life without children? It may sound a little wacky to you, but to freethinkr over at Feministing, it seems to make perfect sense,

But what if there were no families? What if we say no to reproduction?

My understanding of reproduction is that it is the basis of the institutions of marriage and family, and those two provide the moorings to the structure of gender and sexual oppression. Family is the social institution that ensures unpaid reproductive and domestic labour, and is concerned with initiating a new generation into the gendered (as I analyzed here) and classed social set-up. Not only that, families prevent money the flow of money from the rich to the poor: wealth accumulates in a few hands to be squandered on and bequeathed to the next generation, and that makes families as economic units selfishly pursue their own interests and become especially prone to consumerism.

So it makes sense to say that if the world has to change, reproduction has to go. Of course there is an ecological responsibility to reduce the human population, or even end it , and a lot was said about that on the blogosphere recently (here, and here), but an ecological consciousness is not how I came to my decision to remain child-free.

Because reproduction is seen as a psychological need, even a biological impulse, that would supposedly override any rational concerns arising out of a sense of responsibility, ecological or otherwise, I would like to propose emotional conditioning to counter such a need or impulse to reproduce.

So, popping out puppies is just one more way “the man” keeps a sister down? Oh, that patriarchy — they’ve got a million ways to get ya!

But, in all seriousness, if she’s going to get so elemental that she claims that reproduction is at the root of gender oppression, why not just go all the way and claim that food, clothing, and shelter are “tools of the patriarchy” as well?

“Because we have food, clothing, and shelter, our basic needs are met and we feel free to reproduce. Reproduction is the basis of marriage and family, which leads to gender and social oppression! Therefore, we all need to forego food, clothing, and shelter in order to kill the patriarchy!”

Pshaw!

PS: Far be it from me to try to convince some unwilling feminist to breed, but the liberal impulse to try to override human nature with “conditioning” is always scary to behold. The Left has killed millions across the world in their failed attempts to bed humanity’s nature to their wacky Utopian schemes and in the end, it never really works. Human nature can be channeled, worked with, and harnessed, but it can’t be conditioned out of existence and the fact that leftists always seem so keen to do it is more than a little creepy and fascistic.

Hat tip to Ace of Spades HQ for the story.