Men vs Women when it comes to biological children

submitted by TalkToTheVoid from self.GenderCritical

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]squintypreyeyes 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Well this isn't going to win me any friends but: I am antinatalist so I don't think anyone should breed.

The desire from men to breed is especially gross because it means they are okay with using their partner, who they ostensibly love, as a vessel to propagate their own genes. As a consequence the mother will almost certainly have pain and discomfort for roughly a year of her life (pregnancy and childbirth recovery) and risk some kind of long term health issue, whether that is lack of pelvic floor control or something more severe- even death. I don't know how these men live with themselves even when the woman is a willing participant, let alone if she is reluctant.

That said, if a man doesn't want to breed, it is extremely wrong to try to push it on him. He will have to support his pregnant partner and live with the knowledge that it is his fault that a new life has entered the world. I would not fault a man for leaving a relationship because he wanted to adopt but his partner wanted to breed. In fact, I would admire it, precisely because it would be so easy to capitulate in that scenario.

[–]TalkToTheVoid[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You know, I kind of understand what you mean about men's attitudes about this. I don't think they're gross, but I do think there's a lot of entitlement on the male side of the equation. Men can't birth. No matter what, a man will need a female body to go through a difficult process, if he wants biological children. Why is this something all men feel like they're entitled to have, instead of something they hope to be lucky enough to have? Isn't this exactly what patriarchy is? That men feel they're entitled equally to have biological children? That's sort of where I've been hovering in my thinking over this topic.

[–]jelliknight 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No one is ever entitled to children. If we can't produce our own gametes and find someone willing to mix theirs with ours, we don't get to have kids. It's not a right. I do think both men and women have been taught to expect certain things from their partner, especially sexual reproduction, without ever making it explicit. It's just a more offensive when it comes in the form of "you must carry a child for me" rather than "you must allow me to create a child with your genetic material". Both expectations are wrong, but one has more weight in it. It's always going to be a negotiation, even if you've agreed to have kids, how many? What if you agree the have three kids, but after having two he doesn't want more because he feels he wont be able to invest enough in them, but she wants another as agreed. It's always going to be difficult.