On Pronatalism: Evolving Gender Roles & Family Planning for the Neo-Nuclear Family.

We need to talk about pronatalism.

So far, the entire online discourse surrounding pronatalism is dominated primarily by men, and it’s no mystery why. No, it’s not that women don’t want to engage in discourse about pronatalism and family planning. From time to time, I do see a woman say something during the conversations surrounding pronatalism. However, this is extremely rare. It’s extremely rare primarily because the men who are attracted to pronatalism comprise one of the most misogynistic, condescending, hateful, resentful, and hostile groups of people I’ve ever encountered on the internet, and that’s saying a lot! I’ve scoured the ugly and repulsive depths of 4chan; the disturbingly dark corners of dark web forums; the pitiful and tragic qualms on the now-banned redpill subreddit; and, a whole variety of the hate-filled anonymous forums that are scattered across the clearnet.

The pronatalist movement, as it currently exists today, primarily consists of screeching men who not only frequently publicly live-tweet their temper tantrums about declining relative birthrates in the West for the entire world to witness, but go even further to viciously attack, degrade, and maliciously manipulate women with career ambitions. Normally, and up until now, I’ve simply ignored, muted, and blocked these annoying crybabies and jackasses.

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Elon Musk’s Contributions to Amplifying Pronatalism Discourse on his Platform, X

However, now that the owner of the X (formerly known as Twitter) platform, Elon Musk has decided to take on pronatalism as one of the causes to add to his hobby of LARPing as a social justice warrior influencer, pronatalism content and discourse is now being promoted and propagated through the entire platform thanks to his engagement with it. Yes, you heard me right, Elon. You are indeed a social justice warrior. I understand your concerns about “the woke mind virus” and fighting the societally-destructive communist ideology that has infected the political leftwing is a noble and worthwhile cause. For this, I applaud you.

My Favorite Deepfake Photo of Elon Musk

However, you’ve gone so far in fighting leftwing politics and ideology that you’ve entirely wrapped around to the other extreme of the political spectrum; thus, actualizing the concept known in political theory as Horseshoe Theory; and, validating it through your very own lived experience, behaviors, and, I can only presume, your beliefs. That is, in your efforts to avoid falling victim to “the woke mind virus” (as you refer to it), or what polite society refers to as far-left extremism, which varies from social anarchism, democratic socialism, other more nuanced forms of socialism and communism, to all-out authoritarian communism, you ended up at the polar opposite end of the political spectrum, in the realms of far-right extremism.

Source: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/horseshoe-theory

So, while you (Elon) have publicly made claims implying that you’re closer to a political centrist on numerous occasions, the evidence that’s demonstrated by your behavior and the causes you choose to promote on your platform beg to differ. If cognitive dissonance is getting in the way of allowing you to see the way you now present yourself online, there’s a plethora of examples within your activity on X that demonstrates your political alignment resting firmly within far-right extremism. To be completely clear: in your fight against far-left extremism and “woke” ideology, you’ve wrapped entirely around to now habitually perpetuate and promote the ideology and propaganda of far-right extremism. Commonly, and presumably unknowingly (at least, I hope unknowingly), you even have gone as far as to promote and engage in FSB (The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) propaganda and disinformation campaigns, which now proliferates throughout your platform more so than ever over the course of the last few months; and frankly, my main concern for you is that I’m not sure there’s a single person in your life anymore who isn’t petrified of you with enough courage to tell you the truth and point out the propaganda you’ve fallen victim to now. In other words, you’ve lost your balance in your flight from one extreme only to end up with your beliefs captive to those at the other extreme; and, now the sycophants whom surround you have blinded you from seeing this, Elon.

As I see it, the pronatalist movement, as it exists in its present form today, unironically has approximately the same chance of succeeding as communism, and, putting the practical dysfunctions and failures of communism aside, the pronatalist movement will fail to even launch primarily for the exact same reason communism perpetually fails to launch in the United States. That reason is because, just like the supporters of the communist movement in the United States that we’ve come to know and despise, the vast majority of the supporters of the pronatalist movement in the United States are just as hostile, repulsive, barbaric, and idiotic as the communists that you’ve devoted so much time and resources to fighting their braindead and destructive ideological politics. The reason both communism and pronatalism will inevitably fail to launch is that the supporters of both of these ideology-based political movements perpetually alienate individuals, who may otherwise be allies in the fight, from participating in and contributing to these movements due to the unprompted abuse and hostility from the majority of the movement’s current group of supporters. Don’t get me wrong. I’m for pronatalism. I want to see a trillion human beings proliferate across the galaxy and realize humanity as an interplanetary species.

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A Personal Experience Demonstrating the Problem Within Pronatalism’s Cultural Problem

With that being said, let me share with you the experience that prompted me to write this article. It started with a well-intended man, normie macdonald, posting a screenshot on X (post linked here) of the attention-grabbing aspects of an article published by The Economist with the title “How motherhood hurts careers” and an image of a rather useless graph that only a journalist is capable of designing for public consumption.

When I noticed this screenshot of this clearly clickbait article, I was extremely doubtful the journalist of the article was able to do any justice in writing about this important topic. So, I took it upon myself to add to the discourse with what I hoped would bring clarity to the conversation that I identified as missing due to the tragic state of journalism today. I did this by bringing the attention of other X users to the 2023 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, which was created at a later date than the original Alfred Nobel Prize to award excellence in research for the field of economics and is instead decided by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, but that’s besides the point. So, taking into consideration the audience of the individuals that primarily compose the pronatalist movement, which has a tendency to attract a lot of resentment, lonely, spiteful, childless, and aging single men of low educational attainment belonging to middle and lower socioeconomic classes, I accommodated for their reading comprehension levels by sharing a summary brief of the prize-winning research paper that outlined the main findings and takeaways from the paper rather than the paper itself.

Now, before you make any judgments about this description I presumed about these men, it turns out I was overwhelmingly wrong in my presumptions. In fact, the situation is so much worse than I had even imagined. I recieved countless replies, some of which I’ve included some of my favorites below for your viewing pleasure:

• Entirely unprovoked malicious and manipulative attacks:

• Man who doesn’t understand anything about childcare (e.g., formula nor pumping breast milk for bottle feeding):

• Man claiming “we live in a society” AKA deal with it; unwilling to help to solve the problem they complain about while expecting women to fix it for them. Did someone say mommy issues?

• Man assuming I’m a liberal and taking joy in his mistaken assumption that I’m committing to be childless ???

• Man telling me to enjoy the cats and that they will eat me eventually (tbh I’m more of a dog person)

If you’d like to read more of the reactions I received in response to my reply, you can find them on X here.

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Claudia Goldin’s Contributions to Economics Research

Moving forward, I decided to share this research because the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Novel was awarded to Claudia Goldin in 2023 for her work in labor economics, economic history, and specifically her focus on investigating the causes underlying the gender pay gap, demonstrating “how and why gender differences in earnings and employment rates have changed over time”¹.

To quote the National Bureau of Economics Research (NBER)’s statement on their research associate Claudia Goldin:

“Research associate Claudia Goldin has been awarded the 2023 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for having advanced our understanding of women's labor market outcomes." The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences explained that Goldin "provided the first comprehensive account of women's earnings and labor market participation through the centuries. Her research reveals the causes of change, as well as the main sources of the remaining gender gap.”

To quote from the Nobel Prize Press Release:

“Goldin showed that female participation in the labour market did not have an upward trend over this entire period, but instead forms a U-shaped curve. The participation of married women decreased with the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society in the early nineteenth century, but then started to increase with the growth of the service sector in the early twentieth century. Goldin explained this pattern as the result of structural change and evolving social norms regarding women’s responsibilities for home and family.

During the twentieth century, women’s education levels continuously increased, and in most high-income countries they are now substantially higher than for men. Goldin demonstrated that access to the contraceptive pill played an important role in accelerating this revolutionary change by offering new opportunities for career planning.

Despite modernisation, economic growth and rising proportions of employed women in the twentieth century, for a long period of time the earnings gap between women and men hardly closed. According to Goldin, part of the explanation is that educational decisions, which impact a lifetime of career opportunities, are made at a relatively young age. If the expectations of young women are formed by the experiences of previous generations – for instance, their mothers, who did not go back to work until the children had grown up – then development will be slow.

Historically, much of the gender gap in earnings could be explained by differences in education and occupational choices. However, Goldin has shown that the bulk of this earnings difference is now between men and women in the same occupation, and that it largely arises with the birth of the first child.”

In announcing the prize, the Academy released both a high-level summary of Goldin's contributions “History helps us understand gender differences in the labour market”² and a longer account of her work in “Scientific Background to the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2023”³, both of which are referenced in the footnotes.

Additionally, Goldin delivered her prize lecture⁴ on December 8, 2023:

Goldin’s full research and relevant data sources can be found in the references provided at the end of this article.

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So What Can We Learn From Her Work?

To summarize, the insights provided by Goldin’s work suggest that the modern gender pay gap resulting in lower earnings for women is, on average, due to women taking time off to participate to childrearing and childcare. While many women are happy to take this time off to participate in motherhood (and they absolutely should if that’s what brings them joy, meaning, and value in life). However, this is not the case for every woman. It has become increasingly evident that a growing number of women prefer to prioritize their career ambitions over motherhood as economic mobility becomes more accessible for women. Furthermore, these circumstances pose a substantial, tragic double bind for women who desire both the opportunity to explore their career aspirations and value motherhood. The main takeaway from Goldin’s research is that currently, our society is still designed such that women are forced to make a trade off between career and motherhood.

When a woman with both career and motherhood aspirations is forced by circumstance to choose between these limited options, the results are tragic not just for the woman, but also for the family dynamic and society as a whole. These woman are faced with essentially three options, all of which are at a high risk of resulting in tragic outcomes:

1. This woman prioritizes her career ambitions over motherhood at the cost of sacrificing her opportunity to raise children, resulting in resentment and regret as she will likely feel unfulfilled and face many challenges with isolation later on in life. Not only is this tragic for her, but this also contributes to the declining birthrate that concern pronatalists. This is not a viable solution.

2. This woman prioritizes motherhood over career at the cost of sacrificing her career ambitions. This woman will grow to become resentful of her husband and children, and it some cases may even blame them for it. This option often results in unfair treatment and cruelty towards the family she sacrificed her dreams to make possible. This can contribute to postpartum depression, dysfunctional and abusive family dynamics, and in some cases, even divorce. This is not a viable solution.

3. This woman attempts to balance her career ambitions and her desire to be a mother. Few women (varying on the intensity of demand for her time and energy from her career and the temperance of her children) are able to manage this balance reasonably well. It’s much more common that this woman is forced to make trade offs between the two that result in neglecting her career, her children, and her marriage. This too is not a viable solution.

So what is a viable solution? This is precisely why I chose to engage in this pronatalist discourse, perhaps naively hoping for a mature, constructive, and solution-oriented brainstorming session to explore alternatives to the status quo that may result in effective changes that allow women to have more options for navigating this dilemma that don’t result in tragedy. However, I’m not convinced that changing labor market dynamics, public and corporate policy, nor employment norms alone make an effective solution for this predicament.

While I’m sure there are changes that can be made through public policy, such as substantially increasing child tax credits or prohibiting hiring practices that discriminate against mothers; and, while I’m sure changes can be made through corporate policy to adjust working conditions as to mitigate discrimination against pregnant women and mothers, or enabling more opportunities for men to participate in childcare with policies such as paternal leave or delegating a number of days with paid time off (similar to vacation days) for parents so they may both engage in childcare to alleviate some of the constraints contributing to this career-parenthood trade off; however, these government and employment policy decisions may not be effective nor enough.

There is, however, another avenue for navigating this predicament in which everyone wins — family planning, but it requires both genders work together to support each other and both split their labor between employment, childcare labor, and household labor. Additionally, policies can be designed in order to make surrogates, nannies, and childcare more affordable and accessible to families below the higher brackets of socioeconomic classes may also prove to be a potentially viable remedy. One possible avenue for making these services more affordable and accessible could be to offer large tax credits to individuals who earn their income through childcare employment, and surrogates could have taxes waved for any income earned from surrogate work.

I don’t know which of these potential approaches would be the right way to move forward. Frankly, I don’t know if any of these suggestions are the best, most appropriate approaches for moving forward to a better future for all. But, I’ve shared them here to open up a conversation so that we may hopefully start some sort of productive conversation to discover solutions of compromise that works for everyone together that respect individuals’ rights to self-determination; eliminates the career-motherhood double bind; reestablishes birthrates to meet the replacement rate in the West; and, doesn’t result in tragedy.

Respecting your partner’s right to self-determination by enabling them to follow their dreams and ambitions in life without needing to sacrifice parenthood is possible. I’ve witnessed it in my own parents during my entire life. As a result of supporting each other’s career ambitions while balancing the responsibilities of childcare, not only did my parents raise two incredibly badass kids, but my mother also was able to work her way up to become the executive director of a non-profit that she turned into one of the most successfully funded non-profits in the state while my farther was able to grow his career & companies to a great deal of success worthy of praise and admiration too. So, while my experience may only be one data point, the alternative path I’ve shared here, the one in which I was raised to believe was the norm for most of my life, just might be a better path that could result in better outcomes for individuals, couples, and their families. It’s certainly better than the 1950s nuclear family model of family planning that resulted in Prozac Princesses forced to be SAHMs, which frequently resulted in suicide, severe depression, and sometimes even involuntarily hospitalized by their husbands once they no longer found value in their wives . We cannot return this tragic period of family planning.

I will regurgitate this point again here to avoid any confusion: Women, if your highest desire in life is to be a good mother and have children, I get that and I completely support your right to make that lifestyle choice! I too once felt that way before I realized that this path alone wouldn’t be fulfilling for me personally. Personally, I would probably blow my brains out from the lack of intellectual simulation living a life of PTA meetings, soccer mom duties, household maintenance, and braindead pop culture book clubs alone. Of course, that’s just my personal preference and we have every right to have different preferences!! I’m certain there are many women in the world that would find joy in that lifestyle, but it is foolish to assume that we all want that lifestyle.

I don’t judge you for having preferences different than my own. I’ve never said you shouldn’t be a full-time mother, given that’s what you value and brings you meaning in life! I’m simply saying that it’s not for everyone, and I know from experience that I don’t have to settle for a mediocre man who will try to force that lifestyle on me and coercively manipulate me into accepting that lifestyle at the abandonment of my desire to do something else that I value and find meaning in with my life.

The only thing I’ve ever advocated throughout this entire cesspool of discourse is that we, men and women, not only should, but NEED to brainstorm and problem-solve potential solutions for improving opportunities that liberate women from the double bind of feeling conflicted, and sometimes forced, to choose between sacrificing either motherhood or career.

Yes, you CAN have both. You CAN have it all! I’ve seen it with my own damn eyes growing up with parents who valued, supported, respected, and loved each other enough to do both! Ignore the bitter, resentful, abusive, and manipulative incels that try to convince you otherwise. They will tell you that you’ll end up childless and alone. They will tell you this not because it’s true, but because ending up old, childless, and alone is their greatest fear. The reason they’re alone and childless is because they’re weak, abusive, and repulsive men, whom women don’t want anything to do with, especially now that women have the opportunity to survive and thrive without suffering the unhealthy codependency that accompanies being with these men like the women before us in a world where women had less agency and less autonomy. These men are bitter because women no longer need to be dependent on them to survive. The oppressive constraints on women’s autonomy and agency in the past no longer exists, but these conditions of the past linger within these men, whom are convinced that they’re inherently entitled to a wife and children. They are not.

Ladies, you won’t die childless and alone, but if these men don’t change and become more decent human beings, they will and their bloodline will deservingly die with them.

There are unfortunately even more malicious methods that these men may attempt in order to oppress women back into the ways of the past, such as banning abortion, and perhaps even rape and forced labor. To those men who may consider attempting this path, I will grant you this one and only warning: I will transform every woman who wants to resist you into fearsome militants capable of ending your entire bloodline, so that these women may protect their god-given and constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is not the way to a better future.

The key takeaway here is that we need to work together to find compromises and solutions that support and respect each other’s rights to self-determination and a life worth living. The only reasonably effective solution to remedy declining birthrates is for these men to change their ways to support a family dynamic and a society where men and women are treated with equal respect and dignity, and where self-determination is an inherent god-given right granted to all.

If you want to participate in society, it’s time to learn your place in it alongside everyone else in humanity. So, to all of these specific variant of men, you have to make a choice about which path you will take when it comes to populating future generations: Will you adapt or will you perish?

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References

Goldin’s Contributions in Economics Research:

Goldin, Claudia. 1977. “Female Labor Force Participation: The Origin of Black and White Differences, 1870 and 1880.” Journal of Economic History, 37(1): 87–108.

Goldin, Claudia. 1984. “The Historical Evolution of Female Earnings Functions and Occupations.” Explorations in Economic History, 21(1): 1–27.

Goldin, Claudia. 1986. “The Economic Status of Women in the Early Republic: Quantitative Evidence”. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 16(3): 375–404

Goldin, Claudia. 1990. Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Goldin, Claudia. 1988. “Marriage Bars: Discrimination against Married Women Workers from the 1920s to the 1950s.” NBER Working Paper No. w2747.

Goldin, Claudia. 1995. “The U-shaped Female Labor Force Function in Economic Development and Economic History. In: T.P. Schultz (ed), Investment in Women’s Human Capital and Economic Development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Goldin, Claudia. 1998. “America's Graduation from High School: The Evolution and Spread of Secondary Schooling in the Twentieth Century.” Journal of Economic History, 58(2): 345–374.

Goldin, Claudia. 2005. “From the Valley to the Summit. A Brief History of the Quiet Revolution that Transformed Women’s Work.” Regional Review, 14(3): 5–12.

Goldin, Claudia. 2006. “The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women's Employment, Education, and Family.” American Economic Review, 96(2): 1–21.

Goldin, Claudia. 2014. “A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter.” American Economic Review, 104(4): 1091–1119.

Goldin, Claudia, and Lawrence F. Katz. 2000. “Career and Marriage in the Age of the Pill.” American Economic Review, 90(2): 461–465.

Goldin Claudia, Lawrence F. Katz. 2002. “The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women's Career and Marriage Decisions.” Journal of Political Economy, 110(4): 730–770.

Goldin, Claudia and Lawrence F Katz. 2008. The Race between Education and Technology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Goldin, Claudia, and Lawrence F. Katz. 2011. “The Cost of Workplace Flexibility for High- Powered Professionals.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 638: 45–67.

Goldin, Claudia, and Lawrence F. Katz. 2016. “The Most Egalitarian of All Professions: Pharmacy and the Evolution of a Family-Friendly Occupation.” Journal of Labor Economics, 34(3): 705–746.

Goldin, Claudia, Lawrence F. Katz, and Ilyana Kuziemko. 2006. “The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(4): 133–156.

Goldin, Claudia and Robert A. Margo. 1992. “The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid-century.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107(1): 1–34.

Goldin, Claudia and Joshua Mitchell. 2017. “The New Life Cycle of Women’s Employment: Disappearing Humps, Sagging Middles, Expanding Tops.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(1): 161–182.

Goldin, Claudia and Claudia Olivetti. 2013. “Shocking Labor Supply: A Reassessment of the Role of World War II on Women's Labor Supply.” American Economic Review, 103(3): 257–262.

Goldin, Claudia and Cecilia E. Rouse. 2000. “Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians.” American Economic Review, 90(4): 715–741.

Goldin, Claudia and Kenneth Sokoloff. 1982. “Women, Children, and Industrialization in the Early Republic: Evidence from the Manufacturing Censuses.” Journal of Economic History, 42: 741–774.

Goldin, Claudia and Kenneth Sokoloff. 1984. “The Relative Productivity Hypothesis of Industrialization: The American Case, 1820 to 1850.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 99(3): 461–487.

Data Sources in Goldin’s Contributions in Economics Research:

International Labour Organization. 2023. Data retrieved from World Bank Gender Data Portal, https://genderdata.worldbank.org/data-stories/flfp-data-story/.

OECD. 2023. Gender wage gap (indicator). doi: 10.1787/7cee77aa-en (Accessed 2023). https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/gender-wage-gap.htm.

World Bank. 2023. Labor force participation rate for women ages 15–64 in 2018 and log of GDP per capita in 2018 (constant 2017 USD). Data retrieved from World Bank Open Data Portal. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.FE.ZS.

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1. “Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2023 - Press Release." NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB, October 9, 2023. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2023/press-release/.

2. Nobel Prize Outreach. 2023. "Popular Science Background: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2023." October. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/popular-economicsciencesprize2023.pdf.

3. Nobel Prize Committee. 2023. "Advanced Information on the 2023 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel." October. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/advanced-economicsciencesprize2023.pdf.

4. Goldin, Claudia. "Prize Lecture in Economic Sciences 2023." Filmed December 8, 2023. YouTube video, 33:30. Posted December 8, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/live/RBkLI5i-OC8?si=3gbDEtDekyX2fUPi.