Editor’s Note: This is a part of YourTango’s Opinion section where individual authors can provide varying perspectives for wide-ranging political, social, and personal commentary on issues.
Growing up in a conservative town meant that it was generally assumed that I would have kids. Or rather, I’d have kids “whether I like it or not, because that’s what you do,” according to those around me.
I’m far from alone in that situation. Most young women were told it was a matter of “when, not if” kids came into the situation. Sure, we had Roe v. Wade protecting us back then, but our rights were, for the most part, just on paper.
In practice, women were expected to just be nice, be a wife, dress just the way that everyone else dressed, and do all the things women were supposed to do. Being a career woman was fine as long as you aimed to “have it all,” with “all” meaning kids, a husband, and a pristine home.
Despite feminist politics making strides in the past, the stigma of child-free women remained stable. If you don’t have kids and you were born female, you’re going to deal with a lot of hate. People will question you, assume you don’t know what you want, or just try to get you pregnant without your consent. It’s sick. And it’s scarily common in society.
A 2021 Pew Research Center Survey found that 44% of non-parents ages 18 to 49 will most likely remain child-free. Among that percentage of people, 56% state their decision to remain child-free is because they just don’t want to have children.
A good example of this can be found in doctors’ offices. It’s still hard to find doctors willing to sterilize young women. Women are treated as birthing vessels who “simply don’t know better” if they want to get the snip. The first question doctors ask is, “What if you meet a man who wants kids?”
Well, the answer: is tough. He ain’t for me. But you can’t tell doctors that. They don’t believe you because you just haven’t met the right guy yet — the guy who will talk you out of living your dreams to fulfill his. Doctors don’t see how sick this is.
Let’s say you try to be taken seriously by the mainstream church. The clergy will treat you like a defective toy if you say that you have hopes and dreams outside of being a caregiver. They’ll tell you that you’re “Biblically wrong” and that you should get pregnant immediately.
It’s not just a doctor’s office thing or even a church thing. Women who don’t have kids are seen as immature, icy, hateful, or otherwise defective in the eyes of mainstream society.
For decades, women were bullied, pressured, cowed, and duped into the Big Lie of Parenting.
KoolShooters | Pexels
Let’s make one thing clear: parenting is not for everyone. Birth is horrific and brutal. Being a mom to a child means your dreams can often get shoved on the back burner and that you won’t be seen as a full person in society. Rather, you’re (child)’s mom.
Our society is not only viciously judgmental of moms, it’s also insanely unsupportive. And it also makes it hard for women to get ahead in life. No one cares about mothers until mothers are no longer there to act as caretakers. It’s the sad, cold, hard truth.
That brings me to the Big Lie of Parenting. The Big Lie of Parenting is as follows:
Birth isn’t that bad, and you’ll snap back in no time.Every woman loves her child because it’s different when it’s yours.Every woman should be a mom because it’s so wonderful.You will be supported by everyone around you.No man wants a woman who doesn’t want kids!
In other words, it was a mix of lies and turning women into pariahs. And a lot of women fell in line because everyone else would pressure them into it — until recently.
Women are beginning to reject the roles of mother and caretaker.
Women have grown up watching their moms act as caretakers, maids, and babysitters for everyone around them. They have watched as many of those moms were left high and dry for other women. They have watched their moms get abused by the men they cared for.
And they’ve watched as women found meaning and made an impact in their careers. They’ve started to internalize the idea of putting themselves first — and for the first time, modern women are starting to prioritize their own life goals.
While many women still find meaning in being a wife and mother (myself included), it’s impossible to ignore how many ladies are just saying no to being a caretaker, a mother, or a long-suffering wife.
Before the 2010s, society’s messaging said that women who put themselves first were at fault for the failures in their love life. The internet had a way of getting women to discuss their situations — and that’s when it became inescapably clear how much women suffered at the hands of men who allegedly “love” them.
With the rollback of Roe v. Wade and the rise of incel violence, it’s easy to see why women are increasingly uninterested in dating. While it’s not all men, it’s enough men that women no longer feel safe taking a chance. The risk to reward isn’t high enough to make it a good gamble.
New Africa | Shutterstock
The demands put on a typical woman are no longer reasonable or feasible.
The demands have gone through the roof in the past 30 years, no matter how you look at it. It’s in every part of a woman’s life: beauty, caretaking, parenting, and even how much women make.
Speaking as a model, I can tell you that the beauty standards of today are out of control. Botox, hair extensions, and lip flips cost a fortune. If you want to get rid of stretch marks (which now seems the norm), that’s at least a thousand on lasers or tattooing. Oh, and hair and makeup? Don’t get me started. I spend about $90 a month on hair dye, and I do my own hair!
But, it’s not just about the looks. Women were once just the caretakers of the home. Today, they also have to bring in a paycheck. The demands of childcare have also skyrocketed, with the average amount of mother-child time doubling since 1961.
Oh, and speaking of childcare, let’s talk about the cost of raising kids and how stigmatized women are for asking for help. Or, let’s talk about how moms are increasingly pressured to forgo pain medications during childbirth — a brutally painful experience.
The childbirth standard, in particular, is most telling to me. It’s almost as if society is trying to see how much women can suffer before they break.
Examples of how many spikes in standards hit women can be found everywhere. Today, you’re not enough if you’re a career woman or a mom. Society wants you to be both, to be constantly happy, and to look like an Instagram model while you do it.
It’s a rigged game that forces women to fail — all while dehumanizing them in the process.
Women who are stay-at-home moms are often called leeches, lazy, or otherwise useless. Women who have careers while they have kids are told they’re hurting their kids. Women are not only expected to take on most of the nurturing, but they’re now more likely to be breadwinners than their male partners.
What’s wild about this is that women have been stepping up to the plate, only to be rewarded with more criticism and moving goalposts. It’s never enough, a game they can’t win. Women are now the safety net of a society that doesn’t even pretend to like them anymore.
This led to a lot of women asking themselves why they are constantly put in caretaking roles when they’re not even appreciated by those around them. Society doesn’t show its gratitude. It ignores women’s complaints about burnout. Is it any shock, then, that women are backing away from caretaking roles? No. It’s a rational decision women are making to avoid becoming third-class citizens.
The Female Atlas is shrugging, and it’s starting to make everyone panic.
Women have been the ones to give birth to the future generation, nurture them, educate them, and to also provide care for their family members. They have also, historically, held jobs while doing it. Women have held the world on their shoulders.
And now, those shoulders are shrugging. It’s been slow to start, but it’s starting to reach a boiling point. Here’s what I’ve personally noticed:
Women are saying no to childbirth. This is causing populations to dip below the 2.1 replacement rate. Many countries, including Japan, the US, and South Korea, are seeing declining birth rates as a result of women being disinterested in family life.Single fathers are one of the fastest-growing demographics in America. Women are saying no to dating. No, it’s not just your struggling guy friends. Women are less likely to want to date now than ever before. I’ve written about this before, but it’s still worth noting. I mean, Bumble is freaking out because they can’t get women to sign up for the app.Women are saying no to living with men. Sanni Lark wrote a good article on why this is happening. In a nutshell, it’s because women’s work increases dramatically when a man moves into their place.Women are also more likely to cut ties with their parents. This is particularly true when it comes to fathers and daughters. For the sake of full disclosure, it’s worth pointing out that adult children are equally likely to be estranged from their mothers.And while they once were the head parishioners in most churches, women are the ones who are backing away from religion in record numbers. I mean, this should not be a shock to anyone. Many, if not most, organized religions seem to hammer down the caretaker role for women. Some are just outright hateful toward women.
In other words, women are done being everyone’s backbone. They are getting their jobs, and running their businesses, and when they get paid, that money goes to them — and only them. They are no longer doing labor for others because they feel like they’re getting a raw deal. Truth be told, they have been getting duped.
Krakenimages.com | Shutterstock
With women increasingly unwilling to act as servants, childbearers, and providers, people are starting to grapple with the implications.
Right now, a lot of the men I talk to have serious anguish about the trajectory of their dating life. Some of these guys are good, decent men. They just can’t find a woman, any woman, willing to take a chance on them.
What’s wild is that I don’t think this is a passing trend. I think this is going to be the new norm. For many Millennial men (and even some Gen Z fellas), getting a wife was given. They just assumed a woman would drop into their laps.
Economists and politicians assumed that birth rates would go back up after COVID lockdowns ended. They didn’t. Birth rates have been openly struggling for the past 20-odd years. Things have been trending this way for decades — married, childless households increased by 140% from 1960 to 2022 according to Census Bureau statistics, and recently we’ve seen how this is starting to play out: Birth rates are plummeting worldwide, with the US’s the lowest it’s been in a century.
Today, young men around the world are beginning to realize that the wife they expected might never materialize. Global communities are also starting to realize that families are just not happening. What does this mean?
On a microcosmic scale, men who expected to have a wife who acted as a home caretaker are in for a major disappointment. The idea of regular intimacy, a maid, and a mother to their children just went out the window. They’re not taking it well, hence the incel movement.Economically, the major drop in birth rates is a huge issue with labor. When birth rates drop, the number of eligible workers drops, too. When a society has way too little labor to handle all of its needs, economies collapse.Economically, decreasing birth rates also means a decreased demand for most goods and services. A mom that has two mouths to feed will almost always spend more than a single woman. Industries like children’s education, family-friendly vacations, private schools, toys, and childcare will also take a serious hit.Politically, a rise in upset, rejected men is often linked to civil unrest. A common belief (that has recently been debunked) suggests that single men are more likely to be violent radicals than their married counterparts. The truth is that it’s more about rejection — both sexual and social.Political studies also note that a high rate of single people tends to be linked with political polarization. As we’ve started to see in South Korea and America, men who remain single as a result of rejections tend to vote against women’s rights or even just become outright hateful.Theologically, a drop in female church attendees tends to mean the church won’t last much longer. Women are the backbones of most churches, even when the church leadership is male. Graphs about Religion explained that most church attendees are female — a trend that may not last much longer.Medically, the safety net that women traditionally provide had life-saving implications. Economic stability and familial stability are both factors that are famous for decreasing suicides and deaths of despair.
What I’m saying is that societies don’t do very well when women outright refuse to participate in them. The 1975 Icelandic Women’s Strike lasted one day but was so devastating to Icelandic society that it permanently changed the country’s policies.
olia danilevich | Pexels
What can fix this epidemic?
I’ll give you a quick tip: not what we are doing right now. Many people grossly underestimate the unpaid labor that women do. They also overestimate how much society can coerce women into doing that labor against their will. In other words, making laws more restrictive toward women will not fix this — contrary to regressive beliefs.
What will work is giving women a break, offering better state-sponsored childcare, coming down hard on domestic violence, destigmatizing child-free women, and treating women like people.
In other words, Atlas is shrugging because Atlas is tired. Atlas needs help in the form of a society that lends a helping hand to the caretaking, the community, and the partnership that makes it work.
It’s not just a global political fix. It’s a macro and microcosmic solution that this solution needs. In other words, it’s time to drop the misogyny if we want our societies to continue to function. Countries need to protect women’s rights and subsidize childcare. Women need a living wage and so do men. Men need to pick up after themselves and stop playing dumb when it comes to loading a dishwasher.
Schools need to teach all genders how to do home economics stuff and basic chores. Society needs to start planning for a world with a shrinking (and sustainable) population. And perhaps most importantly, society needs to stop valuing women by what they provide and start recognizing the human behind those eyes.
Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer whose work has been featured in Yahoo, BRIDES, Your Daily Dish, Newtheory Magazine, and others.
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