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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   35312 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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Yeah, things like "40 years old childless women are viewed as empowered role models" always make me ask... by whom? Certainly not by the droves of guys posting about empty egg cartons on the social media? But somehow those guys never seem to make it into the assumed group of viewers indicated by the passive tense, as if they - and countless other people who might not post those things but still think that way - are somehow not a part of the society.

You have number of adcovates for childlesness: Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Aniston, Helen Mirren and many more. You have people promoting DINK lifestyle, there is large number of feminist journals and magazines promoting childlessness.

This doesn't sound like a an advocate for childlessness:

In a 2022 interview with Allure, Jennifer Aniston explained why she did not have kids and how it wasn't entirely by choice.

“I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,” she said. “All the years and years and years of speculation... It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it. I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favor.’ You just don’t think about it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed.”

At what age did Aniston start trying to get pregnant? From what I recall, she was already in her late 30s, early 40s when she started. I get why she chose to put it off, but it speaks to the broader issue here where women are told (whether implicitly or explicitly) that motherhood can wait.

This speech from Michelle Williams represents a not-so-small percentage of the modern Western woman, and, as someone who's always been begrudgingly pro-choice, I have a visceral reaction to it every time I see it. I get that it's the Hollywood bubble who is applauding here, but for a lot of people these are the role models for young women in our society. Also, take a quick guess at who's applauding in that video at the 1:59 mark.

To be fair, the current incentive structure makes childlessness materially more rewarding. You have fewer responsibilities, more freedom, and more status. That being said, there is just something so disgusting to me about the unapologetic self-worship that comes after the willing sacrifice of their own flesh and blood. The celebratory nature of it, how what happened to her body "wasn't a choice", and how her child was effectively nothing more than a stepping stone to success. It's not so much the facts of her story, but the philosophy behind it, that seems to resonate with millions of women, that is just vile.

Agreed. Actually the first link about Oprah contains another 22 celebrities promoting childless lifestyle. This push definitely exists.

Or this:

In addition to being one of the top celebs confronting age with confidence, Oprah Winfrey made the personal decision to not have or adopt children, but has still expressed her admiration for those who choose to become parents. "Throughout my years, I have had the highest regard for women who choose to be at home [with] their kids, because I don't know how you do that all day long," she told People.

All of these are precisely framed in the sense of being a reaction to a society that generally expects women to have children at some point. I don't get why this would be much of an argument.

Except that every single number you can think of related to marriage or motherhood is going to shit. Just name it: divorce rate, support of abortions, childlessness rate, age at marriage/first child, rate of single mothers and everything else. I can even grant you that "society expects" something from women - except they don't listen and do their own thing apparently. No role models involved, women just adopted these changes from ether.

The dynamic is that someone (like JD Vance) attacks the childless cat women as destroyers of society, then others defend them, and that defence appears to some as if the childless cat women are being elevated into heroes. I think this is maybe sometimes a genuine mistake but probably more often a wilful misunderstanding done in order to deliver the minor vindication of being able to say, 'See how unfair it is? 40 year old women are portrayed as valuable empowered role models but us 40 year old men are once again seen as worthless.'

The dynamic is that someone (like JD Vance) attacks the childless cat women as destroyers of society, then others defend them, and that defence appears to some as if the childless cat women are being elevated into heroes.

This is weird - are we not arguing that childless cat women by choice are destroyers of society? This was argued since time immemorial, the only difference is that nowadays the defense of this lifestyle has more success.

You could be arguing that, yes. I personally don't agree. My point in the above though is just that defending them against charges of being destroyers of society is very different to celebrating them as role models.

I think this depends on what you view as "role model". Would you for instance say that Andrew Tate is a role model? Even if I disagree with his prescriptions, I would definitely agree that he is a role model for large number of young men, even though he is incessantly criticized from left and right, often more from especially socially conservative right. But in my eyes he is still a role model influencing millions of young men toward his vision of society, manhood and masculinity. It is the same here with what the OP talks about. A carefree hermit surfer/pineapple gatherer is in this case a role model for sizeable chunk of population despite the fact that people like you criticize it.

The key issue here is that it is hard to criticize any of this from the standpoint of prevailing culture that puts individual rights, personal and body autonomy on the pedestal. It is almost impossible to mount effective counteroffensive against these alternative lifestyles. What if somebody wants to work part time and pour his attention toward his hobbies and enjoying his life? He is just living his life and he can leverage the modern live and let live ehtos in the same way this ethos is used to defend all sorts of now normalized alternative lifestyles such as childlessness or DINK life.

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