- cross-posted to:
- feminism@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- feminism@beehaw.org
In the hours following former President Donald Trump’s election victory, Google searches related to 4B — a fringe South Korean feminist movement that made a name for itself in the mid to late 2010s — surged in the United States.
I understand the sentiment, but this is intrinsically self-defeating if at most one half of the female population participates while the other half if quickly drifting towards the trad-wife high birth rate shit.
It is just math.
Did you actually think half of the female pop wants to be a trad wife? Only 37% of young adult women voted for Trump for instance. 76% of 25-54 year old women work. 88% of women believe abortion should be legal. Trad wives are an internet meme that has single digit support among young women.
https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm
https://news.gallup.com/poll/245618/abortion-trends-gender.aspx
Think about it long term though. If trad wives have lots of children and all other women don’t, the next generation will be over-represented by the children of trad wives. Over a long enough time scale I think trad wife like subcultures will take over.
Think about it in evolutionary terms. If a mutation shows up that dramatically lowers fertility rate it will be heavily selected against unless it somehow confers an even greater fitness advantage in other areas.
Here we’re dealing with cultural changes associated with the invention of birth control and a massive liberalization of society. These have caused fertility to plummet but don’t really confer much of a fitness advantage (most of the advantage is due to modern medicine which trad wives also have access to). Since culture is pretty strongly heritable (sometimes even more strongly than individual genes, which might only be passed down 50% of the time if only one parent has the gene) we could see a societal takeover by trad wives over the next few centuries.
You are assuming that the children of trad wives born into a culture that offers a far better deal choose on average to become tradwives. You are also ignoring how small a group it is and all the other larger groups are that also have big families. Lastly you are ignoring how short fads are and how long generations are.
If you start with 3% tradwives and grow 33% per generation you are going to be very disappointed in 60 years when its only 7% even more so if expected losses to other cultural options keep it at 4% or even extict.
I used the term “trad wife like” for a reason. Trad wives are a bit of a meme right now but they’re not the only group where women focus on household chores and raising lots of children. Amish and old order Mennonites, traditional Muslim families (my experience is with Somali families), Hasidic Jews, Mormons as well as lots of traditional Christian groups too.
“Far better deal” is debatable. Amish are pretty famous for offering their children the opportunity to leave and live a modern life among “the English” (their term for non-Amish). Very rarely do they actually follow through on it, as they have everything they need.
I volunteer at an after school homework club run by the local Somali community. I help Somali kids with their homework and have made friends with several people in their community. Their family structures are quite traditional and all of the kids have numerous siblings. They don’t avoid modern technology but their community is so close-knit that they strongly maintain their beliefs and practices.
We gave up a lot to have a culture that “offers a far better deal”: a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, a connection between the work we do and greater meaning (unlike so many bullshit jobs, when you grow your own food it feels immensely satisfying), large families with close kinship bonds to form a support network, even the help of older siblings helping to raise younger children. Many modern parents struggle tremendously just to raise 1-2 children simply because they’re on their own, with no support network.
Amish, Mennonite, and Mormon women face horrible levels of abuse, including stunning levels of incest. So do trad wives. Why are you ignoring the intrinsic trauma that comes with being enslaved? Women are not immune to this. You can see videos of them hanging themselves from ceiling fans after being sold in marriages.
Many of these communities don’t believe spousal rape is real. Rape is torture, which is why it is used extensively in war. It’s also why victims of rape automatically develop the same brain/PTSD patterns as victims of war.
You are profoundly ignorant of women or even the human condition. Recommend the documentary trio Half the Sky and also the book The Body Keeps the Score.
These people can’t leave their cult communities because they literally lack the life knowledge to do so. That’s actually exactly why cults deprive their members of knowledge. They aren’t staying because they are happier, they stay because otherwise they will lose their family and community due to cult shunning and be alone in a strange world.
And further up, re: “trad wife takeover,” um it’s actually their fascist husbands taking over. Blame the men doing it, not their stupid enslaved wives.
You’re assuming children follow the ideology of their parents. I have yet to meet an irl leftist who wasn’t raised by conservatives.
How many children with Christian parents grow up Muslim? How about vice versa? How many children of vegan parents grow up to be meat eaters? How about vice versa? How many children of Chinese parents grow up to stop celebrating Chinese new year or stop eating Chinese food?
Children are never guaranteed to follow their parents’ beliefs and cultural practices but they’re far more likely to follow them than they are to choose any other belief or practice to follow. This phenomenon is also heavily reinforced by region. How many leftist children of conservative parents choose to stay in their hometown in some rural area deep in a red state?
Moving far from home to go live in a big city due to educational and ideological differences is extremely common. However, raising children in an expensive city without the support of the grandparents and other extended family is much more difficult. I think this reinforces the birth rate trends among conservatives, even for those who do not claim to follow the trad wife movement.
It’s probably uncommon to go from Christian to Muslim or vice versa, but I’ve seen many going from religious to atheist.
I don’t hear much about vegan children, so I can’t speak on that.
Celebrating Chinese New years? I think when it comes to culture specific celebrations, it feels inappropriate to partake in those of other cultures, especially when you don’t know much of them. But when you have some of your own where that doesn’t apply, then you take it, because a celebration of any kind of a celebration. An excuse for getting together and doing something special.
I think this shift you speak of is more likely when the world around you is visibly doing better than your immediate surroundings. Right now, I’m not convinced that’s the case anymore, so sticking to what you know and grew up with feels much safer, even if it’s still shitty.