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Bargaining power is obvious: unless women are being enslaved or raped (not the norm in the first world), they control who gets to procreate. Wombs are a limited

Bargaining power is obvious: unless women are being enslaved or raped (not the norm in the first world), they control who gets to procreate. Wombs are a limited resource, sperm is not. So that gives women bargaining power (limited resources have a price). The first (option to spend time with children): maybe that just follows from the bargaining power. But if you have been present at the birth of your kids, maybe you can agree that it seems ridiculous to take children away from their mother shortly after birth, after all they have been through. The importance of breast feeding is another aspect, although obviously children can also grow up without that. It's only feminism that needs to frame mothering as a form of suppression, because otherwise their narrative would fall apart. The reality is that it is usually a privilege (a fair privilege, but still) that women gladly accept. (Yes, women who don't enjoy spending time with their children exist, ask your local feminist for a bunch of anecdotes. They are still a minority).

mklim 11y ago
I mostly agree with the idea that women in modern society are given general priority/encouraged to spend time with their children vs their male partners. What I disagree with is that this fact of modern society is biologically inherent to the ability to give birth itself. (Maybe related to biology in other ways, I could see an argument for hormone-based brain differences, but that wasn't what I was nitpicking in your first post.) The multiplicity of options that women currently have (stay at home mom without shame and/or a career), is a result of how our society reacts to the biological fact of childbirth (among other things), not an innate result inherent to the fact itself. You suggest this yourself by saying "unless women are being enslaved or raped (not the norm in the first world), they control who gets to procreate." In other societies, the ability to give birth could result in widely different outcomes for women. Additional edit: Even accepting your premise that women have more "bargaining power" than men in interpersonal relationships, that would again be a function of society's reaction to biology rather than biology itself. It's true that bearing a child to term takes several orders of magnitude more time and resources than the act of impregnating someone. But the idea that "limited resources have a price" and so the people who can become pregnant have leverage against the ones who don't isn't biological. Limited resources could just as well be seized and then redistributed by the government to the general population for free. The fact of childbirth is biological, but the reaction is societal.
- facepalm 11y ago
  I don't understand what you mean by "biologically inherent" - I never claimed that biology forces us to react in such and such a way to mothers. The only thing you need to assume to understand the modern situation of men vs women is that women can give birth and men can't. That is a purely functional thing, no "biological programming" necessary. I am not making any claims about biological programming. Are you saying plausibly women could be seized by the government and distributed to men to create children? I think this actually happens in some societies/cults, or it even was the norm in the past (and in the third world, where arranged marriages are the norm). But we are talking about western society here. Still, it might not be that easy to distribute wombs - women can perhaps secretly abort pregnancies or use contraceptives, or make themselves infertile. Again, if you have witnessed your wife giving birth, I think the idea to take the children away from her becomes quite absurd. There is a reason it is usually not randomly determined who gets to stay home to look after the offspring. (Historically presumably other factors, too, such as pregnant women and women after birth not being able to do hard manual work which was necessary for survival - so the division of work was a no-brainer).
tomp 11y ago
This argument would hold more water if there was less single mothers with children by multiple men. Eggs might be less abundant than sperm, but there is still plenty for everyone.
- facepalm 11y ago
  Really? Numbers please. Btw I read an interesting thought on that from Nassim Taleb: that this was one of the greatest achievement of the church to give almost everybody access to a womb (by enforcing monogamy), thereby eliminating a lot of cause for conflict. In some societies rich/powerful men can have several women, and accordingly the poorer men get none. Genetics apparently also show that historically it was twice as likely for women to procreate as for men (meaning most of the time a lot of men never had kids, but most women had kids).
Mz 11y ago
My experience: Most men hoping to get their dick in me are not thinking "Woo! Children!" If I withhold, it mostly isn't about "You aren't allowed to father kids on me." It's about "You are a pig and you deserve to keep self serving. I sure as hell won't be servicing you." So I have a lot of trouble understanding your point about the scarcity of the womb. It is usually the vagina that men are after, not the womb. Also, if having a womb were such a precious and rare resource, poverty in America shouldn't be overwhelmingly women and their children. (Edit: It should have said "overwhelmingly." Statistically, in America, poverty skews strongly along demographic lines and the largest cohort is single moms and their kids.)
- facepalm 11y ago
  Uh, men want to "put their dick in you" because they want children, even if they might not be aware of it - that's nature's trick. So maybe your vagina has bargaining power, but that's only because there is a womb behind it. I guess men pay for fake plastic vaginas, but not a lot (I don't know, but probably < 100$? That wouldn't be enough for a women to live on for an extended period of time) - that is an indicator of the worth of vaginas vs wombs... Does poverty overwhelm single women, or married women? You have to trade well... Can't really comment on the poverty issue of women and children in the US. In my country, technically child support goes to the children, not the mother, which leads to technically (on paper) some mothers having not a lot money. I think they can use their children's money to pay for housing, food and other things, so I am not sure how poor they really are. -- Edit: HN doesn't let me write more comments, so here is my reply to Mz's comment below: -- Your observations about male desires and behavior only support my point: if men would call the shots, would you expect many long term relationships and marriages? My claim is women control procreation and get to make demands in exchange. That claim is consistent with your observation of male behavior. The story is of course oversimplified (this is just an internet comments forum): of course men have some value, sometimes. As your poverty example shows, men are helpful in providing for women and children via their work power. There are some "markets" where the power dynamics are reversed. For example I remember an article about places in the US where most black men are in jail, so the few eligible non-jailed men are in high demand. And as expected, they are not very willing to settle down. There also was that recent story in Vanity fair about men on Tinder in New York, with the same power dynamics, but I thought that article was rather low quality. Women have their own desires - they would like to not put all eggs into one basket and have kids with multiple men (genetic diversity, better chances). That is why supposedly one in five children are cuckoo children (which I myself find very hard to believe, but I have read that several times). It's also why women don't signal strongly when they can get pregnant and get impregnated inside of the body, so that men can't be sure who is the father of the kids - and that's also why we want sex all the time, not just during periods of fertility. As for the poverty, how exactly does it work, where do the men go? Either they are poor as well, or they are dead, or left the country? In my country fathers have to give everything they earn except for a minimum to their kids if they are liable for child support. Maybe it demotivates some of them so they stop earning money, that might be a possibility.
kaitai 11y ago
I don't see the bargaining power. Many women in the US don't want to procreate constantly, as it's quite expensive, and birth rates (esp among teens) fluctuate according to availability of birth control. Perhaps it's news to you that tons of ladies want to have sex without having a kid. They don't want your "bargaining power," they just want to have some enjoyment.
- facepalm 11y ago
  Just procreating once or twice is enough to already cost you several years of your career. And as you say it's expensive - for two children, you can already get a house, a car, nice clothes and regular yoga sessions. Also yes you can bargain away your sexual attractiveness, but sexual attractiveness of women only exists because of wombs. Think a bit more general.
  - kaitai 11y ago
    Tell that to my hysterectomied friends....
    - facepalm 11y ago
      Well, how are they doing?

mklim 11y ago

I mostly agree with the idea that women in modern society are given general priority/encouraged to spend time with their children vs their male partners. What I disagree with is that this fact of modern society is biologically inherent to the ability to give birth itself. (Maybe related to biology in other ways, I could see an argument for hormone-based brain differences, but that wasn't what I was nitpicking in your first post.) The multiplicity of options that women currently have (stay at home mom without shame and/or a career), is a result of how our society reacts to the biological fact of childbirth (among other things), not an innate result inherent to the fact itself. You suggest this yourself by saying "unless women are being enslaved or raped (not the norm in the first world), they control who gets to procreate." In other societies, the ability to give birth could result in widely different outcomes for women. Additional edit: Even accepting your premise that women have more "bargaining power" than men in interpersonal relationships, that would again be a function of society's reaction to biology rather than biology itself. It's true that bearing a child to term takes several orders of magnitude more time and resources than the act of impregnating someone. But the idea that "limited resources have a price" and so the people who can become pregnant have leverage against the ones who don't isn't biological. Limited resources could just as well be seized and then redistributed by the government to the general population for free. The fact of childbirth is biological, but the reaction is societal.

facepalm 11y ago
I don't understand what you mean by "biologically inherent" - I never claimed that biology forces us to react in such and such a way to mothers. The only thing you need to assume to understand the modern situation of men vs women is that women can give birth and men can't. That is a purely functional thing, no "biological programming" necessary. I am not making any claims about biological programming. Are you saying plausibly women could be seized by the government and distributed to men to create children? I think this actually happens in some societies/cults, or it even was the norm in the past (and in the third world, where arranged marriages are the norm). But we are talking about western society here. Still, it might not be that easy to distribute wombs - women can perhaps secretly abort pregnancies or use contraceptives, or make themselves infertile. Again, if you have witnessed your wife giving birth, I think the idea to take the children away from her becomes quite absurd. There is a reason it is usually not randomly determined who gets to stay home to look after the offspring. (Historically presumably other factors, too, such as pregnant women and women after birth not being able to do hard manual work which was necessary for survival - so the division of work was a no-brainer).

tomp 11y ago

This argument would hold more water if there was less single mothers with children by multiple men. Eggs might be less abundant than sperm, but there is still plenty for everyone.

facepalm 11y ago
Really? Numbers please. Btw I read an interesting thought on that from Nassim Taleb: that this was one of the greatest achievement of the church to give almost everybody access to a womb (by enforcing monogamy), thereby eliminating a lot of cause for conflict. In some societies rich/powerful men can have several women, and accordingly the poorer men get none. Genetics apparently also show that historically it was twice as likely for women to procreate as for men (meaning most of the time a lot of men never had kids, but most women had kids).

Mz 11y ago

My experience: Most men hoping to get their dick in me are not thinking "Woo! Children!" If I withhold, it mostly isn't about "You aren't allowed to father kids on me." It's about "You are a pig and you deserve to keep self serving. I sure as hell won't be servicing you." So I have a lot of trouble understanding your point about the scarcity of the womb. It is usually the vagina that men are after, not the womb. Also, if having a womb were such a precious and rare resource, poverty in America shouldn't be overwhelmingly women and their children. (Edit: It should have said "overwhelmingly." Statistically, in America, poverty skews strongly along demographic lines and the largest cohort is single moms and their kids.)

facepalm 11y ago
Uh, men want to "put their dick in you" because they want children, even if they might not be aware of it - that's nature's trick. So maybe your vagina has bargaining power, but that's only because there is a womb behind it. I guess men pay for fake plastic vaginas, but not a lot (I don't know, but probably < 100$? That wouldn't be enough for a women to live on for an extended period of time) - that is an indicator of the worth of vaginas vs wombs... Does poverty overwhelm single women, or married women? You have to trade well... Can't really comment on the poverty issue of women and children in the US. In my country, technically child support goes to the children, not the mother, which leads to technically (on paper) some mothers having not a lot money. I think they can use their children's money to pay for housing, food and other things, so I am not sure how poor they really are. -- Edit: HN doesn't let me write more comments, so here is my reply to Mz's comment below: -- Your observations about male desires and behavior only support my point: if men would call the shots, would you expect many long term relationships and marriages? My claim is women control procreation and get to make demands in exchange. That claim is consistent with your observation of male behavior. The story is of course oversimplified (this is just an internet comments forum): of course men have some value, sometimes. As your poverty example shows, men are helpful in providing for women and children via their work power. There are some "markets" where the power dynamics are reversed. For example I remember an article about places in the US where most black men are in jail, so the few eligible non-jailed men are in high demand. And as expected, they are not very willing to settle down. There also was that recent story in Vanity fair about men on Tinder in New York, with the same power dynamics, but I thought that article was rather low quality. Women have their own desires - they would like to not put all eggs into one basket and have kids with multiple men (genetic diversity, better chances). That is why supposedly one in five children are cuckoo children (which I myself find very hard to believe, but I have read that several times). It's also why women don't signal strongly when they can get pregnant and get impregnated inside of the body, so that men can't be sure who is the father of the kids - and that's also why we want sex all the time, not just during periods of fertility. As for the poverty, how exactly does it work, where do the men go? Either they are poor as well, or they are dead, or left the country? In my country fathers have to give everything they earn except for a minimum to their kids if they are liable for child support. Maybe it demotivates some of them so they stop earning money, that might be a possibility.

kaitai 11y ago

I don't see the bargaining power. Many women in the US don't want to procreate constantly, as it's quite expensive, and birth rates (esp among teens) fluctuate according to availability of birth control. Perhaps it's news to you that tons of ladies want to have sex without having a kid. They don't want your "bargaining power," they just want to have some enjoyment.

facepalm 11y ago
Just procreating once or twice is enough to already cost you several years of your career. And as you say it's expensive - for two children, you can already get a house, a car, nice clothes and regular yoga sessions. Also yes you can bargain away your sexual attractiveness, but sexual attractiveness of women only exists because of wombs. Think a bit more general.
- kaitai 11y ago
  Tell that to my hysterectomied friends....
  - facepalm 11y ago
    Well, how are they doing?