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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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What is the woman's responsibility towards low TFR?

Low TFR is the new hot topic. I'll use this post to continue the discussion started by @ffrreerree2 (Only 1 comment, if not an alt, welcome to the Motte.) on his post. Because the last week's thread is about to die off.

Also assumes fuck rate is tied to birth rate

I'll focus on the Iranian video discussed in the previous post. I think it's a good enough approximation of a conservative call to marriage/family building. It does well to highlight the individual failure mode of not having worked towards building a family, obviously "crippling" loneliness, lack of purpose, shitty QOL, yada yada.

That video still bugs me. For one, the right side of the video was entirely redundant. Everyone knows that if you have that wonderful magical trad-wife who other than wearing a hijab at home; gets up in the morning before you without an alarm clock, cooks labor-intensive dishes for not only breakfast but also for your packed lunch, combs your hair for you, and presumably organizes a surprise birthday party for you, then fucks it's it up by spraying foam all over the cake., life is all gravy. Does the modal (regardless of Nationality) man need to be reminded of that dream? Doesn't the very next video by Taiwan hint at the notion that that very dream itself is 'problematic' because women are not only for the kitchen? I'm from the East and its an extremely common discussion trope/meme among young females that there exists no worse reality than being sentenced to the kitchen after marriage, and there are more than enough heuristics (how good-looking the guy is) to figure out if a potential suitor would be the kind to do that. Men around my parts go to extreme lengths to hide any and all desire for such a thing, some even convincing themselves that, that isn't actually a great deal for them all things considered.

Now moving on to the left side. What was particularly wrong about the guy in the video if you look past the "this dude totally sucks" aesthetics? He woke up on time, has an apartment, has a job, has a car, looks the same as his alternate reality married version (despite the pizza coke and takeout), and isn't carrying any obvious grooming defects that a visit to the barbershop can't fix. He also has a pet tortoise. I guess him being rude to the girl selling flowers sealed his fate. Or that he turns his apartment lights off, totally can't fix that by.. turning the lights on.

How does the guy on the left become the guy on the right? The video presents an alternate reality side by side, and it's presupposed that left did something wrong along the way. But he is clearly not happy, I am sure he did not turn down the magical trad wife in the past to further progress his presumble software engineering (casual clothes at the workplace) career. He knows his life kinda sucks. Is the world really suffering from a lack of mediocre-looking software engineering men turning women from marriage? Does not literally 5 minutes on the internet or speaking to a man under the age of 25 reveal to you that it's quite literally the opposite?

So let's imagine an alternative video but this time the female is the protagonist.

On the left we have; Our female protagonist waking up to an alarm. She replies to the 58 notifications on her Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram, she eventually musters up the courage to wake up and makes her way to the shower, brushes her teeth and then proceeds to spend 30 minutes putting on makeup because society demanded so, and because it makes her feel better. Having left her house ready to take on The World, but! only after she got her corporation-made coffee, no she doesn't have the time to make coffee at home. Finally, at work, she gets in her pre-email gossip at the breakroom for 25 minutes talking to her female coworker about the latest episode of that totally amazing new Netflix show. Midway through sending the emails the 'cutest guy at the office who is not particularly attractive' asks her how her weekend was, she tells him about how she went to an escape room and was so scared like it was a horror movie! The guy eventually wipes the sweat off his eyebrows during a strategic bathroom break during the conversation and asks her to go with him to this new escape room that he's heard all about next weekend. She declines the offer despite letting him know how that would be so totally amazing and sounds like a really fun plan. The guy contemplates changing jobs and then wonders did he remember to feed his pet turtle. After a hard day of work, she rushes home and reaches for the Beauty by Earth Makeup Remover - with Organic Aloe Vera & Witch Hazel, Use with Eye Makeup Remover Wipes or Cotton Pads, Gentle Non-Greasy Makeup Remover for Dry, Oily and Sensitive Skin Types(also vegan and cruelty free) makeup remover so she can apply it and then reapply another layer of makeup for her upcoming Tinder date, because society said so. She goes on the date talks about her ex, her cat, her totally crazy coworker who is insane enough to go on 10 tinder dates a month as opposed to the usual 5. After an exciting evening out, the couple to be arrives home and engage in unprotected sex because condoms feel like shit, after some pillow talk she says her goodbyes and makes sure to not forget to take the pill because pullout game only gets you so far. She unwinds by watching that totally amazing show on Netflix with the lights off and goes to bed.

Ofcourse the story above other than being terribly written is an exaggeration. The modal young woman isn't this vapid. She maybe goes on 1 date a month, might entertain the guys offer to go for the escape room, and sometimes reads novels instead of watching Netflix, and only uses a 5$ makeup remover instead of a 23$ one. But it's just a difference in magnitude not kind. Both of them do not entertain the idea of procreating with that guy from the office. Both of them are the Pams waiting for their Jim Halperts. They just can't find a good enough guy! And until you do that for them through whatsoever means, no amount of PSA videos is going to help your cause. Start off by thinking towards aiming the video at the right audience maybe. Maybe.

Women's decisions are the big change but women's behavior is downstream of massive change to economic conditions. Gender norms that evolved in economic conditions where women were economically dependent on men, and where the opportunity cost of child raising was small aren't going to survive in a deindustrialized economy where nurses out earn factory workers.

Being the primary caretaker of children, as most wives end up doing, is a really bad career decision. You're committing to a part time job that doesn't build skills you can use in other careers, and you can't move easily between "employers"/husbands. Unlike other jobs where success increases your choice of employers, being a 10x mother probably isn't going to help you land the hot rich doctor if your husband turns out to be a wreck. Furthermore you're expected to make this long term choice at a young age with limited ability to predict the course of your partners future life.

Is signing a 20 year contract with a non-compete clause to do ~30 hours of unskilled work a week for a similarly aged peer in exchange for a share of their future earnings an advisable career choice? Only if you think their future income is much larger than yours would be if you pursued your own career.

Traditional cultures evolved in settings where men's superior strength at manual labor was really important and domestic labor was a time consuming full time job. Now it's not obvious that men always have higher earnings potential, domestic labor has been largely automated, and the nuclear family model means stay at home moms are often isolated. Travel and entertainment is cheap, healthcare education and housing are expensive. For educated people social status comes from career achievement, and available careers can be highly stimulating and meaningful rather than rote drudgery. The opportunity cost of motherhood gets larger and larger and so unsurprisingly fewer women are choosing it.

If the opportunity cost of marriage and motherhood relative to singledom keeps getting higher and higher is it unsurprising women have higher and higher standards for men? If cultural and gender norms evolved under conditions with massive disparities in economic power would we expect them to change if economic power equalized? Aren't men going to have to 'sweeten the pot' and offer a better deal in order to get women to sign that long term childcare contract?

My read on this is that economic power shapes relationships. We have millennia of human cultural evolution where men have had way more economic power and that has shaped the cultural models for relationships between men and women. Now that we have a few decades where economic power has been somewhat equalized those norms are going to start shifting slowly but surely. The question isn't why has women's behavior changed, that's obvious, it's how will men's behavior change to adapt.

This is a really good comment, mostly because I dislike it's conclusion (viscerally) and yet it is well argued enough that I had to re-examine my own view.

This part in particular was a solid analogy:

Is signing a 20 year contract with a non-compete clause to do ~30 hours of unskilled work a week for a similarly aged peer in exchange for a share of their future earnings an advisable career choice? Only if you think their future income is much larger than yours would be if you pursued your own career.

And yet, even after consideration, I think it misses the mark on it's own terms.

Because it views marriage as an employer-employee relationship when it is perhaps better to consider it a co-equal partnership in a joint venture. After all, that 20 year contract w/non-compete applies to the other party just as strongly.

So what you're getting in exchange isn't just their future income, but it's a promise of stability in terms of your own employment. The idea is that by you taking over some portion of the duties that might otherwise fall to the other, you're enhancing their earning potential, and thus the share which you can expect to collect. Under truly ideal circumstances (not assumed, just making a point) it also gets your retirement plan squared away well in advance, as you will have decades of accumulated savings and someone to share it with at the end.

If the opportunity cost of marriage and motherhood relative to singledom keeps getting higher and higher is it unsurprising women have higher and higher standards for men? If cultural and gender norms evolved under conditions with massive disparities in economic power would we expect them to change if economic power equalized? Aren't men going to have to 'sweeten the pot' and offer a better deal in order to get women to sign that long term childcare contract?

The way I view it, the economic case for marriage has always been based on the fact that you're intentionally splitting many costs and combining many expenses that would be larger if they were separate, so as to ease the burden on both parties. A marriage partner is a reliable 'roommate' who will (hopefully) never miss their rent payment. If you home cook meals regularly you're saving on eating takeout/delivery, you can get joint health insurance, you can share a vehicle, you can borrow the other person's belongings, their Netflix password, they are able to care for you if you're sick and otherwise complement your weaknesses. Basically it's incredibly valuable to have a life partner who pays a high cost for welching on any promises they make you. A guaranteed cooperative partner in the prisoner's dilemma to help you get to the better payoff.

And these benefits will compound over the course of the marriage assuming neither party goes off the deep end and does anything fiscally irresponsible. Which can absolutely happen!

But a consistent partnership over the course of decades can reap exponential benefits for the parties involved, which is the whole point.

Now, the point here:

Now that we have a few decades where economic power has been somewhat equalized those norms are going to start shifting slowly but surely. The question isn't why has women's behavior changed, that's obvious, it's how will men's behavior change to adapt.

Absolutely still stands. I just wanted to draw the analysis out a little further.

I appreciate the comment.

I agree a long term childcare contract is a very different thing from a loving marriage, which has a variety of financial, psychological, and spiritual benefits. But the cost splitting benefits you bring up don't require having children and sacrificing careers. Specializing in childcare and domestic labor to support someone else's career only confers stability and "retirement benefits" if you correctly identify someone with high earning potential & stability. That means delaying marriage until a similarly aged man is credentialed, or marrying an older man which many women are uncomfortable with.

But even if the benefits of marriage are larger than the contract analogy portrays I think the key point is that the change over time in the "opportunity cost" women pay up front is increasing and the benefits are constant (if not falling due to the Baumol making everything needed for children expensive and living single and traveling the world cheap).

I think the key point is that the change over time in the "opportunity cost" women pay up front is increasing and the benefits are constant (if not falling due to the Baumol making everything needed for children expensive and living single and traveling the world cheap).

I don't think I agree with this, ultimately. Or, at least, I think what has happened is that women have been able to acquire an outsized amount of financial support/security at nearly every level of society, so there is almost, almost ZERO chance that any given woman will be left destitute and homeless if she doesn't get married.

That is, women have almost zero downside risk exposure from being single. Putting it bluntly (without adopting the point) the risk of being left broke and without prospects was a MASSIVE incentive for women to achieve stability by finding a reliable provider. Stability with a partner, even if they're not necessarily wealthy, still beats out living on the streets.

That incentive has been removed, while their upside opportunities have also increased.

So I think that the benefits have increased in many ways. The synergistic effects of getting and staying married are probably stronger than before. But the "penalties" for being unmarried are no longer so severe.

Specializing in childcare and domestic labor to support someone else's career only confers stability and "retirement benefits" if you correctly identify someone with high earning potential & stability.

Yeah, and it's easier to identify such person if you have

A) Good examples in your own life to use as reference, and

B) are willing and able to have your parents, who are also very invested in the decision, have some input.

So many people growing up in broken families are probably less able to identify those high-value mates, which likely exacerbates the issue.

The issue is that there's no guarantee that the partnership will continue. Imagine a 23 year old woman who pairs with a similarly situated man and agrees with the traditional breakdown of labor. 10 years later, the man will be in a much more powerful position than her: if he reneges on the deal, he'll be better situated than she was and can take the large majority of the extra human capital that accrued due to the agreement to continue his job and find a new (younger, hotter, more in line with his ideal) partner. Alimony/child support/splitting of assets doesn't help the wife much there. And the woman will be older, have kids, and will have basically nuked her position in the job market; any future jobs or partners will be much worse than if she had not chosen to enter the initial agreement.

And that's a real risk. It's entirely rational for her to want to hedge her bets by building her career at the expense of fertility.

Most divorce courts will take account of the relative financial/wealth positions of the parties in parceling up assets and determining alimony. The goal is explicitly to keep the disadvantaged spouse at the standard of living they have become accustomed to.

But yes, the ability of the man to scurry off (maybe after the kids have left) with a new, younger lady is indeed a risk.

And that imposes a cost on younger single men as well by taking an otherwise eligible woman off the market for a time.

If we don't have strong social taboos on either adultery or men dating substantially younger, that would be a hard 'problem' to solve legislatively.

Personally, the way I'm looking at marriage now is something like "I am making an almost irrevocable 25-year commitment, I will accept heavy penalties for for breaching this commitment if you will do the same, and then at the 25 year mark, after the kids have been raised, we will discuss whether the partnership will continue." Perhaps both sides agree that some portion of the man's income should go into a trust which will be inaccessible to either party (except in dire emergencies) until the relationship hits the 25 year mark.

I honestly doubt that pure financial or emotional incentives suffice to replace the role that religion previously filled. It is a hard problem.