"Although women have made some progress in the workplace in Japan, cultural expectations for their family duties are much as they have always been. 'The lifestyle of not getting married or having children is still rejected in society,' Ms. Sakai said. 'Is it natural to have children for the sake of the country?' she asked. 'Are women who do not give birth to children themselves unnecessary for society?'... Kazane Kajiya, 27, testified last week that her desire not to have children was 'a part of my innate values.' 'It is precisely because these feelings cannot be changed that I just want to live, easing as much of the discomfort and psychological distress I feel about my body as possible,' she said.... At one point, Ms. Kajiya, who is married, considered whether she was actually a transgender man. But she decided that she was 'totally fine with being a woman, and I love it. I just don’t like having the fertility that enables me to have babies with men.'"
From
"In Japan, These Women Want to Opt Out of Motherhood More Easily/A lawsuit challenges the onerous requirements for getting sterilized, calling the regulations paternalistic and a violation of women’s constitutional rights" (NYT).
I wonder how common it is for a young woman to mistake her desire not to have a baby for transgenderism. Imagine going to the extreme of transitioning when all you really wanted was sterilization.
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Huh. I didn't know voluntary sterilization was hard to come by in Japan.
I actually don't know if there's any consultation requirement in the US, for that matter. I kind of think such a thing - consultation first, and I would also add physical and emotional maturity as determined by an independent physician whose fee is not dependent on the answer - would be in the interest of the patient, or client, or whatever.
Pregnancy is 10 months long in Japan, an additional burden.
I can't believe even Japan is falling for the bullshit.
Visit now while there is still a culture worth visiting...
Progress is one step forward, two steps backward. That said, the issue at hand is obviously microaggression by expectant mother and father, grandma and grandpa, friends, society at large, and Darwinian evolution theory. That said, personal responsibility should be normalized as a compelling interest to mitigate progress and sustain the viability of civilized society.
I read it's hard for young women to be sterilized in the US too, if they haven't had kids yet. Doctors just don't want to do it and think they have other options. Maybe it's a regional thing.
Anyway, I did a lot of nontraditional things in my youth too, but never thought I was transgender.
To think, the world was so much more open-minded 50 years ago than in these modern times.
Just don't fuck is one choice. Just don't fuck your [male] boyfriend without a barrier device is another viable choice. Would a trans/neo-masculine female be liable for the birth of her child? The splooge of her trans/neo-feminine male friend? The artificially inseminated child of her trans/homosexual partner?
Japan is transitioning out of the future. Slo-mo demographic suicide.
It's not uncommon for a woman in her 20s to think she doesn't want children. She has no way of knowing how a pregnancy and new motherhood will radically change her. How could she? All of those feelings are now described as being transgender. It's just the latest shorthand. The only new aspect is that a doctor won't pfft at you and send you away for a decade if you ask for surgical intervention.
hard for young women to be sterilized in the US too, if they haven't had kids yet. Doctors just don't want to do it
Do no harm. There would have to be an imminent threat to her life in order to justify the corruption of a healthy body. Levines and Mengeles are few and far between, but, unfortunately, there has been progress.
The birthrates in Japan, Korea, and China fell off a cliff after WW2. Wealth and rising standards of living tends to do that worldwide.
Those attracted to sociology are often painfully self-conscious leftists who want to save the world and who would have been religious zealots a hundred years ago. I'm curious how many people like her would be transformed by simply getting into a (once common) arranged marriage and having a baby. Some have observed that women may not be mentally or emotionally settled until they have children. Before birth control, fertile women were either pregnant or nursing 95% of the time...and this lasted for 20 or 30 years...
We may be slamming the environment with carbon dioxide, but we are slamming human thinking with radical and immediate cultural changes too.
It's another one of those studies in perverted sadness the NYT seems to specialize in. But you get more of what you incentivize. With Japan's societal reproduction rate in the death spiral, they're going to have to decide whether they wish to survive. Incentives aren't that hard to put in place and support, if extinction is the alternative.
I feel sorry for any woman that wants to sterilize herself out of a lack of interest, and even more sorry for a society that would block this for any reason. It's a failure to inspire and lead, a failure to be endoresable. There are enough medical reasons to want a hysterectomy - hereditary cancers to name one - that it should be solely between the health practitioner and the subject patient.
No problem - just import more Filipinos.
If women have decided not to have babies, potentially they can't do anything as well as men. I say "potentially" because there is clearly discrimination against men in educational institutions and elsewhere. I'm an old guy, but I hope to see younger men put an end to feminist bullshit.
Certainly, there are many capable women. So what! Will they prevent us from being enslaved by the Communist Chinese or the Islamists? I don't think so. I'm fairly sure how our feminized state will react to the threats without the hillbillies and bitter clingers coming to the rescue and it ain't pretty.
Umm if she has no interest in sex, why does she need to be sterilized?
The birthrates in Japan, Korea, and China fell off a cliff after WW2. Wealth and rising standards of living tends to do that worldwide.
Don't forget the loss of life, with resultant loss of new births, that WW2 brought about. It is estimated that Japan, for example, lost 3-5% of its population (more than 2 million military, almost entirely men, and perhaps as many as 3.1 million total people). China lost 3-4 million to combat and about 20 million in total, which excludes the further deaths of 40-80 million due to starvation and mass executions. That is a major loss of potential babies, compounded over the years. Plus, there was China's 1-child policy that further restricted population growth.
The Blogger spouse and I had no interest in children for the first 12 years of our marriage. We were brainwashed to the idea that the world was going to be over-populated. However, as we matured, our priorities changed. 6 kids later we have no regrets and wish we could have managed more. As usual, young people do not know what they don't know. However, I don't think the government should prevent a fully grown adult from making such choices.
As Health Minister Yanagisawa famously said back in 2007, "Women are machines for making babies." Why would the authorities allow the machines to be taken offline prematurely?
(NB Yanagisawa did have to apologise afterwards)
Wonder how "onerous" the requirements are for getting sterilized.
Is this different from getting ones tubes tied?
Feminism is one of the western cultural traits Japan should not import.
Why would a woman who has no interest in having sex be worried about sterilization?
"In Japan, These Women Want to Opt Out of Motherhood More Easily"
Can other people's children opt out of paying for and taking care of them in their old age?
" Do no harm " Hmmm, if only that applied to the butchers who mutilate the genitalia of children and young people in order to make a $. The definition of evil. And all of the elderly slaughtered during the covid fraud.
"Imagine going to the extreme of transitioning when all you really wanted was sterilization."
Or just being left to hell alone by the government...
A graduate student in sociology. I think I've found the problem here. Stick to actual science, kids.
A graduate student in sociology.
This peculiar, particular evidence is material to establishing her credibility and authority that most women and men lack in the recurring post-enlightenment period.
Can we get Rebecca Traister’s take on Ms. Sakai and gendered conventions?
Are women who do not give birth to children themselves unnecessary for society
They're worse than that. People who don't have children are a drag on society, free-riders who will eventually be kept alive by other people's children.
It is normal for societies to rise and fall based on demographics. It has happened throughout the course of history. One significant reason for the fall of the Western Roman Empire was the toll that constant war took on young men such that the Roman military turned to men from other countries who then took over the reins of control. Greece had similar problems after the Peloponnesian War. We have a strange expectation of no change in our culture. Change will happen. The only question is whether the change is positive and building or negative and breaking down. We know the usual suspects behind the latter.
"Umm if she has no interest in sex, why does she need to be sterilized?"
She might get off on it. I’ve had more than an average amount of sex in Japan (...bad sex in Japan), and if you have too you'll completely understand me when I say that most sex acts known to the Japanese are incapable of fertilizing an egg. Pregnancy is not a fetish that they have. Feet? They have that...too much in fact. Fascination with body fluids that borders on the obsessive? Check. Fetishization of various articles of clothing? Check.
All I'm saying is that Japanese sex and eroticism is somewhere between holy-shit and what-the-fuck, and wanting to be sterilized doesn't shock me.
They're worse than that. People who don't have children are a drag on society, free-riders who will eventually be kept alive by other people's children.
Abolish social security and medicare and have people raise productive adults. There will be real incentive not to screw them up so that you can rely on them to help you in your dotage.
Get rid of the social safety net for the elderly.
Then the fertility issues are resolved.
The government should not discriminate against women who identify as eunuchs through behavior or castration. What compelling cause does society have to enable her choice? To deny her choice? Is offering incentives to couples a microaggression? To couplets and splooge stooges or rent-a-wombs?
Get rid of the social safety net for the elderly
Government as faux-child in lieu of children.
What’s with all the wacky articles in the NYT about weird sex practices and gender confusion lately.
Is it the readership or the reporters that are so obsessed with all this?
@tim maguire: People who don't have children are a drag on society, free-riders who will eventually be kept alive by other people's children.
Nope. Nope. Nope. History is full of all sorts of rich uncles, godfathers, aunties, etc. who had assets, spent money, employed the less wealthy, and provided for the young. See the Italian Medici dynasty and its funding/patronage of Florence and artists. See the UK landed gentry / castle economy prior to the Industrial Revolution and WW1 -- everyone was either titled royalty or a servant who worked in or for a huge royal house.
Women live longer than men on average. One evolutionary explanation is that they have more economic value than men, as they can be elderly caregivers to small children as the mothers work.
Extended families. Adopted families. Tribes. Mafias. This was once common...and I guess forgotten with the rise of anonymous government social welfare programs.
'The lifestyle of not getting married or having children is still rejected in society,'
as it is, by EVERY SOCIETY.. Well, EVERY SOCIETY that survives (ask a Shaker)
Ms. Sakai said. 'Is it natural to have children for the sake of the country?'
well, YEAH. People (male or female) that don't have kids aren't contributing.
But YOU'LL SAY: "she's contributing in 'other ways'"..
And I'LL SAY: "WHAT 'other ways'? She just wants
'to live, easing as much of the discomfort and psychological distress I feel about my body as possible'
Her SOLE reason for existing is to pleasure and comfort HERSELF
in the future.. When aliens finally come and visit, they will ask themselves:
"What killed off this race?"
Hopefully one of our last remnants will have spray painted on a wall:
"Oral Contraceptives and Irrational Fears"
Any society in which this sentiment takes hold of even a modest fraction of women is sure to dwindle and collapse.
The parallels to the decline and fall of the late Roman empire are unmistakable. In both cases we see women who are uninterested in family and hearth, and given unprecedented freedom to pursue their own hedonistic desires, as well as men who are demoralized by a dearth of suitable wives, distracted by entertainment and vices, and enabled to shirk work and military service by a servile underclass and a generous government dole. In our day they are distracted by video games, weed, meaningless Tinder hookups, and porn, while in the days of antiquity in Rome they were given over to chariot races, orgies with slave girls, cheap wine and cheaper prostitutes. In both times and places, they were also allowed free rein to engage in any latent homosexual proclivities, removing a certain number of men from the marriageable pool who might otherwise have been fathers.
Most people have no desire to go back to the times when women were chattels of their fathers and husbands, and gays were vilified and persecuted, but there's no question that the long term growth and prosperity of a civilization will be adversely affected by the change. We should be having a discussion of how society can promote marriage and make motherhood enticing and rewarding, without dragging us back to the bad old days.
Enigma say..
Women.. can be elderly caregivers to small children as the mothers work.
huh?
WHAT small children?
WHAT mothers?
You're going to have 50 million elderly Japanese women trying to take care of ninety six* children
ninety six* an arbitrary number that i just made up.. NONE THE LESS.. When MOST of your population is over the age of 60.. What is going to happen? I guess THAT is the Enigma
You know, these sort of people have existed all through history. It's just that our ancestors were smart enough to realize that we have to live in a community, because we all get old or sick or infirm and need someone to take care of us.
That's why they came up with Vestal Virgins, convents, monasteries (of both the Christian and Buddhist variety), etc.
There are too many people out there who are alone. It's time to push for a resurgence of these sorts of communities.
“Kazane Kajiya, 27, testified last week that her desire not to have children was 'a part of my innate values.' 'It is precisely because these feelings cannot be changed that I just want to live,…”
It is not uncommon for teens and twenties to think that their feelings will never change. These feelings may not change quickly, but they often do change as life goes on. It’s a tragedy that we believe we know what the future will bring.
Not to worry. There will be no more Japanese people, by blood, in a few more generations. They're going to soon have to import Mexicans, Africans, and Muslims, like we have, just to fill in the missing people slots. I'm not saying this to be racist. The reality is, these are the people swarming over our border. Those and a couple hundred thousand Chinese. But the Chinese are also not having babies so they'll have no more to lend out.
Mexicans, African, and Muslims still have babies. The future Japan will either be Catholic, Muslim, or a rare mix of both called Chrislam. Your sushi in Tokyo will look a bit different in the not too distant future. Pass the ofada rice, please.
"I wonder how common it is for a young woman to mistake her desire not to have a baby for transgenderism."
I wonder how common it is for a young woman to be so thoroughly gas-lighted by Left Fascists that she supposes having children will make her less happy.
Apparently, they are training dogs to help out. Maybe because of a dwindling population? I don't know.
BTW, commenting on that subreddit "If it’s Japan, they are going to need more of these dogs." triggered a bot to "permanently banned" me from the sub.
I can only be unbanned if I delete the comment.
The bot probably doesn't "know" what I'm talking about.
A graduate student in Sociology.
The internet says: Sociology is the scientific and systematic study of human society, focusing on social behavior, relationships, interaction, and cultural aspects associated with everyday life,
Interesting as fuck. (did I just run into a double entendre? see my previous post)
m maguire said...
Are women who do not give birth to children themselves unnecessary for society
They're worse than that. People who don't have children are a drag on society, free-riders who will eventually be kept alive by other people's children.
**********************
Go tell that to Condoleezza Rice. Oprah Winfrey, Diane Keaton, and Helen Mirren.
So, the moral of the story is that Japan does not have an established Pro-Choice ethical religion. Does it have progressive religious sects? Sanctuary jurisdictions where a professional can, without judgment or labels, aid and abet corruption of a healthy body for profit and social justice?
subreddit "If it’s Japan, they are going to need more of these dogs." triggered a bot to "permanently banned" me from the sub.
The AI reasons that you intend to spay or neuter the dogs in order to control the population, which is transhumane and wicked in a human context. HI may reach a different conclusion.
Enigma said…History is full of all sorts of rich uncles, godfathers, aunties, etc. who had assets, spent money, employed the less wealthy, and provided for the young.
Think it through, Enigma. Will that rich uncle’s money change his bedpan when he’s old? Will it work the assembly line at the company where he owns stock? Will it fix his broken radiator so he doesn’t freeze next winter?
Money is irrelevant if there is not a next generation to keep things running.
Are they running Virginia Slims commercials in Japan?
Is it natural to have children for the sake of the country?
Not only is it natural, it's essential. At least here in the United States, where we tax workers (i.e. children) to fund the social safety net for retirees (i.e. parents).
All attempts to modify that arrangement have failed. Most recently (2017) Paul Ryan proposed reforms that would have only partially resolved the problem. He was driven from office, by his own party.
Now not even Trump the iconoclast will touch entitlement reform. I guess we're going to need someone even more histrionic.
Oh, and by the way, interest payments on the federal debt have now passed all other budget items except Social Security. They've passed Medicare payments and now defense spending.
Were comments taken from young women who were not graduate students in sociology? It might be important to get opinions that aren't in that rather small coterie on such a subject.
And if the comments/testimony are all from volunteers then there is the problem that such of an axe to grind and their reasons may not be representative.
"I just don’t like having the fertility that enables me to have babies with men."
If only it worked woman to woman.
I mean, even sperm donors have the taint of toxic masculinity.
Two very adult nieces on my brother's side.
One had 5 kids via hetero, then married very Butch gal. The other has claimed "asexual" status. Is that female for INCEL?
at the risk of sounding like a stuck record...
The Future BELONGS To Those Who Show Up
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