This is especially interesting on the heels of this: Russia is giving people a day off of work to have sex. And if you give birth exactly nine months later, you get a prize, which might be anything from money to a refrigerator to a car. It’s being called National Conception Day — which isn’t quite as catchy as my term for it, which is National Russians Fuck Like Cold, Pale Rabbits In Furry Hats Day.
It’s being held in the Volga River region, which I also initially read as “Volva River region.”
But the humor of people doin’ it in an effort to win a refrigerator aside, this is one aspect of what I was alluding to in my previous post — the politics of population control are fraught with racism, and white people world-wide are terrified that brown people are “out-breeding” them. Russia is a good example:
Last year, President Vladimir Putin called the demographic crisis the country’s most acute problem and announced a broad effort to boost the birthrate, including cash subsidies for couples giving birth to more than one child. Women who give birth to their second or third child receive $10,000 vouchers to pay for education or home repairs.
When our world is already over-populated and population growing, why in God’s name would a declining population be a “country’s mos acute problem”? Only if the wrong kinds of people are the ones doing the populating.
And then there’s this:
Russia wants to reverse a trend in which the population is shrinking by about 700,000 people a year as births fail to outpace a death rate fueled by AIDS, alcoholism and suicide.
I’d say you have some problems that are more pressing than your birth rate.
Amanda has some interesting thoughts on the issue, and I think at the end of the day, most of us agree: It would be good to reduce the population. It would be good to make having no children, or only one child, a socially acceptable choice. The problem, though, comes with balancing idealism and reality. Amanda is clear that her post represents an ideal, and that there are lots of social ills standing in the way. The fact is, we have a really, really ugly, racist history when it comes to population control. The ideas that underlie that history are still alive and scoring votes — see Reagan’s “welfare queen” for a blatant example. It’s middle and upper-class white women who are encouraged to have more kids in order to stem the tide of brown babies coming from immigrants, Muslims, poor people, and other “unfit” “breeders.” And the U.S. certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on natalism; see how negative birthrates have been viewed from Italy to Japan.
At the heart of all of these conversations is a need to shame women. Shame them if they don’t produce enough of the right kind of children for their country. If they’re the wrong kind of women, shame them for having the nerve to reproduce in the first place. Shame them for using birth control or having abortions. Shame them for not. Shame them for being a drain on our financial resources. Shame them for harming the environment. Shame them for being selfish and anti-child. It’s not always intentional, but it’s what’s happening.
So while I can get behind conversations about how our childbearing choices affect the environment, I can’t get behind social policy that encourages women to do one thing or another. And while I can get behind social policy that helps women (including women with children), I can’t get behind policy that promotes childbearing in order to score a new fridge.
Although I would certainly a support a National Doin’ It Day.
Thanks to Fauzia for the links.
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I realize this is a little different here, but this day off for sex reminds me a little bit of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel We. The characters are named with numbers and they live a rigidly structured life in which their daily activities are regulated by a schedule that is enforced by the state. The citizens have sex on a designated Sex Day, and they give their intended partners coupons (if I remember correctly) before having sex.
?????????????
I think the problem with Amanda’s take is that you can’t say “stop having so many babies” without also saying “stop having sex the way you want to.” And we just really shouldn’t be regulating bedrooms.
Do they really think this is going to work? I mean, seriously. Whoever came up with this idea needs to drink a better brand of vodka.
Well, the population decline in Russia really is catastrophic. They are looking at a workforce crisis of huge proportions within the next 20 years or so. If you google around, you’ll find some stats that are really pretty eye-opening – the collapse of the Soviet Union did what Stalin and Hitler combined couldn’t accomplish. I remember looking at a Russian feminist website (I think it was even in English) and they were presenting some really shocking numbers.
Of course, they way they decided to go about doing something to avert the crisis is ridiculous and the discourse is disgustingly woman-blaming. They are making it sound as if it’s a) women’s fault because they all have careers now and don’t want to breed as nature intended and b) the population crisis is about the falling birth rate, when the falling birth rate is really just one of the results of everything else that is going on that’s being conveniently ignored.
The main reason for working-age population decline is alcoholism among men. On top of that, Russian men, given widespread alcoholism and their miniscule average life expectancy aren’t exactly good candidates to have children with. And on top of that, Russia, despite being one of the few countries where gender discrimination is unconstitutional, has a huge problem with workplace discrimination against women with children and women of childbearing age. A woman can be fired there not just for getting pregnant, but for getting married (because, clearly, getting married = will have child and quit or even worse, make Demands!For!Special!Treatment!). And then these same employers will bleat about how there’s no one to hire.
And this is the policy they choose to stop population decline? Not addressing the alcoholism? Not ensuring that constitutional provisions against gender discrimination are reflected in specific workplace anti-discrimination policies? Not ensuring adequate childcare? Doing that might actually encourage people to have children. A car, or $5K, which was another policy solution bandied about – how is that supposed to help?
Of course, what really would solve Russia’s working-age population crisis is encouraging immigration. But, no. They are stuck on the good old nationalist refrain of “we’ll accept people from the former Soviet Union” (as long as they are Slavic and not from the Caucausus, natch). I read somewhere that some are freaking out over the 250,000 or so Chinese workers that are there now. Predictably, those doing the most screaming there (just as here) aren’d exactly lining up to take the low-paying jobs that these folks get forced into. Free migration of labor is really the solution to all populations problems – both falling birth rates in some countries and overpopulation in others. But, as the case of Russia demonstrates, nationalism will always stand in the way of sound policies.
*obviously* having more children is the solution to AIDS, alcoholism, and suicide.
and I’m certainly no expert, but isn’t it pretty rare to have a child exactly nine months after conception? I mean, really, to pin it to an exact day. And what if a woman isn’t lucky enough to be ovulating at the time? aside from the sheer absurdity, there’s a lot of problems involved with this proposal.
sheesh.
Elaine, I think it’s a huuuuuuuuuge stretch to suggest that I’m telling people not to have sex the way they want. I’m aware a handful of people get off on running the risk of conceiving every time they do it, but I don’t think it’s statistically significant. My point that the world is way overpopulated has no bearing on if you like it frontways sideways or from behind.
I mean, there’s pretty nifty contraceptive technologies out there that make it pretty easy to have sex any way you want without conceiving. As for the idea that pressuring people to use protection is out of line, do you think the government is out of line if they encourage condom use to stop disease? That’s sticking your nose in the bedroom, and changing the actual sex in a way that’s more dramatic than if someone is using the pill as contraception.
In France, there exists the médaille de la Famille Française, a medal that can be awarded to women who have four or more children, and which was created after WWI, in order to repopulate the country. (In fact, four kids only make you eligible for the bronze medal; if you want gold, you need to have 8+ kids. This is for real; I’m not making it up. Now, if the Duggars ever relocate to France and become citizens, I’m guessing they’ll get a specially made platinum one, and if all the Quiverfulls follow suit, they’ll bankrupt the State.) Back in the heady days of European warfare, a woman could obtain the scrap of metal for only three kids if her husband died at war, and provided that she raised them alone — but if she was a bad woman and remarried, she could forget about her pin. Basically, people had to suffer in one or way or another for the Nation. In any case, less than three children makes you an undeserving slacker.
To be fair, the process was “modernized” — to the extent that a “spurt them kiddos!” incentive can ever be modernized; in other words, not fucking much — in 1982, by making fathers eligible for the medal, and by taking into account families where one parent is non-French — in that case, however, the medal is given to the parent who’s a French citizen, not to the dirty foreigner. Also, in judging whether parents can receive such an honor, “morals” and the like are now considered to be less important criteria than the parents’ devotion to raising their children in the best possible conditions. Another fantastic update to the decree allows you to receive the bauble even if one or more of your kids is dead. In short, before the socialists came to power in ‘82 and turned us into perverts, you had to have at least 4 children who were alive simultaneously. Since 1982, the State counts all the children you raised, regardless of how many kids were in the household at any given time. So, women of France, if you want a shot at gold but still want a relatively small and manageable household, shoot one of your kids every time a new one’s on the way.
Finally, although men are eligible, the medal is given out on Mother’s Day, so it’s still heavily gendered. (By the way, Mother’s Day was officially instituted in France by the Vichy regime.)
Amanda,
Encouraging is one thing, shaming is another.
Who are you to say what’s a more dramatic infringement upon someone else’s body?
Just because condom use doesn’t seem like a big deal to you doesn’t mean it isn’t a big deal to others. Some people are allergic, some think condoms are immoral, some just plain don’t like them.
Don’t get me wrong, I think overall that birth control and abortions are great. But when we’re talking about rights and freedoms, we can’t lean on things like “statistically significant.” We have to make sure each and every individual matters.
A pregnancy is 40 weeks long, plus or minus a couple weeks or so. 40 weeks is about 9.2 months. They have their dating wrong, on top of everything else.
Wait, that’s 40 weeks from LMP. Approx 38 weeks from conception, which is just short of nine months.
Yeah, I’m with the “aren’t there other problems you need to address first?” crowd. It’s nice of the mayor to give everybody a day off and all, but I’m not sure I think people who have a kid solely to win a car are going to be very good parents.
I didn’t comment on the other population thread because I hadn’t gotten my thoughts together, but I think all versions of the population crisis are wildly overblown. World population growth is slowing sharply in every region on Earth, and in every country except a couple in sub-Saharan Africa, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. (Seriously, even Iran has a below-replacement birthrate. With the Mullahs in charge.) For that reason, I don’t waste a lot of time worrying about a Soylent Green future. I don’t worry about being outbred by the Evil Brown Hordes either, but I’m certain no other Feministe readers have that particular nightmare either so I’m not going to address it.
See, the desire to procreate is as innate as the desire to eat. An essential corrolary to that innate drive is the desire to see one’s children grow to adulthood with relative ease and be able to form families themselves. There is no need for governments to encourage this or to do too much to discourage it. I think, generally, the US has been pretty good in this regard. (I know there are problems with certain government policies, but I’m including social attitudes as well, which have been quite remarkably flexible.) It’s expected for middle class girls and boys to get an education before they have babies and to take good care of those children. We expect men to be involved fathers and to help with the housework, and if we haven’t done everything in this regard, we’ve done a truly astonishing amount. Few other countries even discuss this. (There’s an interesting history of adultery that talks about Russian and Japanese men’s attitudes to domesticity, which Mr. Mayor of Ulanovsk might consider reading. Let’s just say that Russian men have Senator Vitter’s commitment to marriage and childrearing.) I’m no libertarian, but I can say from experience that when left alone, people usually make remarkably intelligent decisions in this area. Certainly better than the average bureaucrat.
Damn, more crazy news. This reminds me of the time Stalin banned abortion to increase the population. The state always seeks to control women’s bodies. That’s why I hate nationalism since it can be racist.
A Japanese official once said that he regarded women as “breeding machines”. He later retracted his statement.
What’s “natalism”? It’s not in my dictionary… If it’s a typo, just ignore me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalism
Cizungu – there was something similar in Russia, too, created after WWII to promote repopulation. The award/medal was called “Mother-heroine” and I believe it was for a woman with 10+ kids. I don’t know if it still exists, but I don’t think there was ever an attempt to “modernize” it in a similar manner. I don’t know if that ever convinced anyone to have more kids. The local belief used to be that rural families needed to produce more able-bodied workers to tend the fields and support the families and that there were a lot of “mother-heroines” in agricultural areas. But in the age of collective farming, having more kids to work the fields wouldn’t make sense, so I don’t think there really were a lot of women with that many kids.
Just to play devil’s advocate here, and toss out a few ideas:
Russia is the world’s largest country by area. It has a middling-sized population, which is in steep decline. It has suffered many ruinous invasions, and has a long border with the world’s most populous country. Any country with that profile might start exhibiting odd behaviors regarding population issues.
The Bolsheviks (as modern Russians refer to the regime which ruled from 1917 — 1991) made a religion out of industrial production. Their country would produce, produce, produce, dammit, no matter what the final cost. The Soviet Union ultimately became the world’s biggest producer of steel, industrial chemicals, and the like, while the population waited for the rewards of their labors. It ultimately suffered economic collapse, in part from this emphasis on heavy industrial production. But old habits die hard.
Russians see themselves as heirs to a very long and proud cultural history. Muscovites are well-used to having foreigners (this writer included) rave about the fantastic art and architecture of their city. Yet, they argue repeatedly about whether to keep their distinctive alphabet, or adopt ours. Their bold experiment in politics failed, while ours seems to have succeeded. Russia, not America, defeated Nazi Germany, but somehow the Americans and the Germans have had it easier than the Russians. Why should those countries have robust populations, while Russia’s dwindles?
I’m not picking on that nation, of course; I’m just showing how irrational human attitudes are towards sex and procreation, and how that profound irrationality can alter a nation’s viewpoint. (Has anyone here tried to explain our own thirty-year-plus Cold Civil War over reproductive freedom to a non-American? Talk about irrationality!)
Ulyanovsk is not a town full of middle class families. It is a desperate place ruled by gangs and plagued by depression. Even by Russian standarts it is a bit of hellhole. ^_^ So, mayor tries to cheer up the citisens by announcing that the state cares about children and supports families. It is obviously bullshit – a good face for a bad game. So, it is not a big deal, just PR-crap.
As for immigrants, they are not crazy. They will not go to Ulyanovsk. So, either Ulyanovsk will find the way to procreate or it will die out. It is a birthplace of Lenin, BTW. Not-so-instant karma…
I think there’s definitely a chance for dialogue about noncoercive, entirely voluntary changes to combat overpopulation. One thing that comes up again and again is better education for women. Better general education and better sex education- free and nonjudgemental birth control, and information about every type. Plus, as somebody else mentioned, the male pill. New types of birth control, better health care, all leading to increased choice and autonomy for women.
I think that these are culturally sensitive ways to talk about this; I certainly don’t think we should stop talking about overpopulation altogether.
I’d argue that suggesting and encouraging the use of condoms is actually not an infringement on anyone’s rights or body. It is, after all, just encouragement. And as far as the “immorality” of condoms, I can accept that others might feel that way; but I fully and strongly support a continued push for condom use and awareness. Condom use saves lives, which I think is pretty moral.
Orange,
Amanda is suggesting using pressure and shame, not encouragement.
I think suggesting and encouraging contraception is fine, but as feminists it’s not our job to provide free marketing for Big Pharma. And we ought to be far more concerned with providing women with education and options than pressure and shame.
We MUST stop acting like we know what’s best for other women’s bodies. We have to get out of the bedrooms and out of the vaginas.
Maybe I’m misinformed, but I was under the impression the orphanages of Russia are filled beyond capacity, due largely to alcoholism and poverty. I have heard many stories about abused and abandoned orphans in the former Soviet Union. So, I’m wondering why these children aren’t being adopted by other Russians and why that isn’t considered a solution to the population problem?
First of all, you need a lot of middle class people willing to adopt. Russia don’t have that much. Second, this is not a solution, because orphans are part of the population. Russia declining population statistics includes orphans. Third, it is not easy to adopt Russian child into Russian family, because corrupt officials prefer to sell children to Europe and USA. For bribes and stuff. So, one has to outbid foreigners. Which is not easy for Russian middle class families.
Also, a fairly significant minority of the children in Russian orphanages have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or Fetal Alcohol Effect. It’s much more of a problem than in most other countries which place children for international adoption. Those kids are not generally considered adoptable. [cynical] For Westerners willing to spend a lot of money and go all the way to Russia to get a white baby, I think they’d want a healthy one. [/cynical]
Amanda:
Italics mine. Just saying. In the past, I’ve rarely found Amanda to be enthusiastic about shaming women in general. Ever.
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