Woman’s Reproductive Work and Male Privilege

As more women make choices about whether or not they’ll reproduce, is it just a coincidence that privileged males are trying to take away their rights to make that choice?

In my comment on Nicole Froio’s article on the Kellogg’s strike, I implored women to take much more ownership of and pride in their reproductive ability and work — ability and work which our species relies upon, which our governments depend upon for cannon fodder (yes, read Paul Morland’s book, The Human Tide — How Population Shaped the World), which industry and commerce rely upon for workers.

I further implore women to put a high price on their reproductive abilities, because its very clear that privileged white males are beginning to get upset about our freedom, today, to choose, since increasingly our choice is not to reproduce. So, why are women increasingly choosing to remain childless?

The Netflix series “Maid” provides some insight into this reasoning: single mother, Alex, turns to cleaning to make ends meet after escaping an abusive relationship, suffering homelessness and other setbacks as she strives to build a better life for herself (as a writer) and her daughter. The Will Smith movie, “The Secret of Happyness”, although about a single father, provides further insight into the plight of single parents, especially in The Land of Opportunity, the USA, where the atrocious pay and benefits cause many to have to work at two or more jobs to make ends meet.

Unfortunately, relationships break down all too often, and usually mothers take on parental responsibility for the children. Far too often, women are forced to flee abusive partners, sometimes sleeping in their cars with their children before obtaining refuge accommodation and governmental assistance in Australia. In the USA, it’s a much more gruesome situation (see “the Kindness of Strangers”, 2017) and too many women today are just not prepared to take that risk. Where women were once dependent upon having a husband to provide for them, today women achieve higher education, aspire for highly paid positions and financial security. Taking the chance on becoming a mother, with all the inherent risks regarding pregnancy, childbirth and relationships is simply not a risk they are prepared to take.

At age 70, I’m old enough to remember when men and women could do exactly the same job, but the men were paid more, simply because they were men who probably had a wife and children to support. Never mind if a woman was widowed with children to support, or had an invalid husband! I remember when it was legal to fire women when they married, or when they became pregnant. I also remember when parents, usually, didn’t provide tertiary education for their daughters because, usually, after they married they had children and didn’t return to the workplace. I remember when single women could not get a home loan and when a wife’s income was not taken into consideration in the couple’s ability to repay their loan because “what if you get pregnant?”

Back then it was, literally, “a man’s world”. But things have changed. With reliable contraception, equal opportunities, access to higher education and, despite the glass ceiling, access to better paid jobs, women are far more likely to look at what motherhood has to offer them and decide that it’s just not enough, given the risks involved. And this should be seen in a positive light: contributing to a reduction in the population; but it seems that certain interests are greatly threatened by this new womanly independence and refusal to be incubators and child nurturers. Because in many parts of the USA, women’s rights to CHOOSE are being purposefully undermined and eroded.

Despite the crucial need to massively reduce the world’s population to prevent destruction of habitats and pollution of our air and waterways, the only country in the world to take their own overpopulation seriously — China — was condemned around the world, perhaps rightly so, given some of its methods. Although far less publicised, perhaps because India’s government was not communist, their methods of enforced sterilisation were even more heavy handed.

The notion of ZPG — Zero Population Growth — took off in the late 60’s, early 70’s, when concern was first expressed about air pollution — two children per family was the unspoken ideal. But today, despite the catastrophic results of climate change due to pollution and deforestation, many families are having more than two children and nobody hears a whisper about ZPG.

Why?

Could it be that, despite the amount of pollution and destruction of habitats that we see today as a result of rampant consumerism and planned obsolescence, there are those whose immediate best interests are not served by reducing the number of consumers and subsequently consumerism?

Addressing just the aspect of the workforce, and considering the USA’s appalling working conditions re pay and benefits, what will happen if there is a significant reduction in the pool of available workers? The law of supply and demand provides the answer: there will be increased competition for the available human resources and employers will be forced to be more competitive: in other words, improve pay and benefits. And that, of course, would reduce the profits to the owners of the means of production.

Further, if the population is significantly reduced, so is consumption, with the resultant decrease in profits.

But could this be the reason why the evangelicals are so determined to reduce women’s rights to control their reproductive work? I don’t think so.

History provides the answer. Around the world, throughout history, birth control has been sought by men and women for numerous reasons. However, generally, abortion has been disapproved of, if not forbidden and illegal. Why? It’s as simple as male privilege, male entitlement. Research into the history of abortion will tell you that usually it was because men didn’t want women to have the right to abort “their seed”.

Privileged white males have been heard to pontificate: “money should never be a reason for abortion”. Really? Since money is necessary to feed, clothe, house, transport, educate, protect, provide medical attention, just how can we justify bringing children into sub-optimal conditions?

The Evangelists don’t care. They just don’t want women to have abortions.

They’d prefer that every conception conclude in a live birth. What happens after the birth is of little import to them: adopt them, foster them, live in a cardboard box under a bridge with them, sell their bodies to perverts to support a drug or alcohol habit, just don’t have an abortion.

Anti-abortionists state their conviction that abortion is equivalent to murdering a human being, an act repugnant to them! Really? They don’t seem to be terribly concerned about sending thousands of young people into foreign countries to die in wars in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

There is no doubt that enforced reproductive labour has been the lot of women for centuries. Why enforced? Because, generally, there wasn’t a damned thing women could do about it.

Then we have that little gem of a saying about women being “barefoot and pregnant”. How did that little treasure come about? According to Wikipedia, it is “a figure of speech most commonly associated with the idea that women should not work outside the home and should have many children during their reproductive years. “The phrase seems to have been introduced in the early twentieth century by the American doctor Arthur E Hertzler from Kansas who said ‘When the wife is kept barefooted and pregnant there are no divorces.’ By the mid-1900s, the phrase had passed into common parlance …” Read that again!

Simone de Beauvoir stated, so very well: The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed. No surprise then that the wives of privileged white Evangelical males appear to support their “men” wholeheartedly, smilingly, whilst bringing up their children in the ways of privileged males and obedient females. Instead of fighting for the rights which they may not need, but some women DO, they turn their backs on their sisters in need, as they put their noses in the air at the perceived malodour of these sisters who, for whatever reason, wish to terminate a pregnancy. As Madeline Albright stated: There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.

Forced to leave an abusive marriage myself, with two pre-school children, I struggled to work, study, pay off a mortgage, pay for child care and provide the best I could for my children. For three years, I worked two jobs, six days a week. Deeply in love in a new relationship, I happily became pregnant again, only to find that he now regarded me as “trapped” (his word) by the pregnancy, and began his own form of controlling abuse.

But I had learned a bitter lesson: unwilling to start over yet again with one more child to support, I chose abortion. I was not living in grinding poverty, I did not have substance dependency. I had skills with which to support my children. I was, however, completely alone, with almost no support and I had previously suffered deep depression with suicidal ideation. In my desire to role model what I believe was a productive and responsible lifestyle to my children, I worked hard, and I knew that my children missed out on quality times that other children enjoyed because of the pressures on me.

I also knew that those pressures impacted my parenting at times, making me tired, grumpy and reactive: I would not bring another child into the situation, making it even harder on all of us. I was broken hearted, fearful for the future and completely disillusioned.

I make no apology for my decision, rather, I steadfastly defend it. Nor do I regret my decision, and I tell my story because I refuse to be ashamed — no woman should be ashamed — of making a responsible, reasoned decision to ensure that she and her children have quality of life.

My feeling now is ANGER toward the privileged white male attitude that forced me to make that decision. The privileged white male attitude that saw me as “trapped” by pregnancy with his child, dependent upon him to support me and my children, for at least some time, with no longer any say in how our lives would proceed, and no consideration for what I wanted for the children I already had.

It apparently hadn’t occurred to him that I would not accept his control and domination, that with my past I would choose abortion rather than again be a vulnerable, dependent woman, fearful for the future of the children she brought into the world. I am convinced that this is why privileged white males are afraid: reliable contraception and abortion take away the control over women that pregnancy and motherhood previously gave them.

I believe that many, if not most, abortions are about fear, even dread, of the future with vulnerable infants and other children to support, where there are just not enough safeguards and supports if we accept enforced reproductive labour.

If privileged white males want to be fathers, if society and governments want women to do reproductive labour, then ensure the changes that will make it safe, provide appropriate supports and benefits. Because now, we have the power to refuse to do reproductive labour, and we will. We’ve left the Dark Ages behind, and we’re not going back!

For more of the good stuff, follow Fourth Wave, where we’re changing the world for the better, one story at a time. Got one of your own? Submit to the Wave!