In a recent article Pro-Natalism is Not Enough, Emma Waters critiques several types of pro-natalism. She finds “mere pro-natalism” inadequate because it focuses solely on increasing birth rates without addressing family formation, treating children as economic solutions rather than as gifts.
Technocratic pro-natalism is also criticized for its desire to control child traits via technology, reducing children to customizable products. Both approaches, she argues, fail to address the deeper cultural issues driving the birth decline and overlook the importance of marriage and family stability.
I have quite a few friends across the broad spectrum we call Feminism. Some of them are reading this post. And I implore them not to cut me off after they “hear” what I have to say in a moment. But first let me establish my bona fides.
I call myself a “freedom-feminist.” (Yes. Men can be feminists too.)
These are its basic principles:
Freedom Feminism> Contemporary synthesis of egalitarian and maternal feminism
> Stands for the moral, social, and legal equality of the sexes
> Affirms for women what it affirms for everyone: dignity, fairness, and liberty
> Opposes efforts to impose on women (or men) stereotypical social roles, yet recognizes that men and women will typically employ their equal freedoms in distinctive ways
> Asserts that efforts to obliterate gender roles can be just as intolerant as efforts to maintain them
> Establishes that differences between the sexes, under conditions of freedom, can be a sign of social well-being. Freedom feminism is at peace, not at war, with abiding human aspiration1Freedom Feminism: It's Surprising History and Why It Matters Today (Values and Capitalism) Copyright, 2013 by Christina Hoff Sommers.
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That establishment of my feminist bona fides was a setup for what comes next. [I hope it worked!]
It may sound sexist. But hear me out. Women and men are different. I discovered this truth from living life. To bolster my claim, I’ve read a few scientific studies on the matter. And of course there are my theological commitments.
Here’s one difference, women typically process pain and stress differently than men. And they usually do it together. Unlike the lonesome cowpoke.
According to experts there is a “collective stress response” gender gap.
This explains why most “mass hysteria” outbreaks in history involve females, not males. Especially young women. (Of course, virtually all “mass murder and mayhem” outbreaks in history involve males, not females. You could call that the “collective rage response” gender gap.)
It’s not that compared to men, women are emotionally unstable. That’s the old sexist saw. Certainly “mass murder and mayhem” makes a strong claim for the label “emotionally unstable!”
"It sounds sexist, and it's sure to raise the ire of some feminists, but the literature does not lie. Throughout history, groups of people in cohesive social units have suddenly fallen ill or exhibited strange behaviors...often all of those affected, are females. In fact, of the 2,000+ cases in my files which date back to 1566, this pattern holds true over ninety-nine percent of the time." [emphasis mine]
Okay, I just felt a “virtual” frying pan smack the back of my skull when someone read the word “hysteria.” Or was that a Louisville Slugger?2Some of my feminist friends might suspect the use of sexist language here, the term “frying pan” suggests the “lady in the kitchen” striking out the only way she can. I hope “Louisville Slugger” restores your confidence in my bona fides.<grin>
Who did that?
Abigail get me outta here!
"the nervous disorders of the eighteenth century and the neurasthenia epidemic of the nineteenth century.3Julie Beck, “ ‘Americanitis’: The Disease of Living Too Fast,” The Atlantic, March 11, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/the-history-of-neurasthenia-or-americanitis-health-happiness-and-culture/473253/. Anorexia nervosa,4Ethan Watters, Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 34. repressed memory,5Paul M. McHugh, Try to Remember: Psychiatry’s Clash over Meaning, Memory, and Mind (New York, NY: Dana Press, 2008), 69 (noting that those with “false memory syndrome” were usually women). bulimia, and the cutting contagion in the twentieth.6Mandy Van Deven, “How We Became a Nation of Cutters,” Salon, August 19, 2011, https://www.salon.com/2011/08/19/tender_cut_interview/.One protagonist has led them all, notorious for magnifying and spreading her own psychic pain: the adolescent girl.7Robert Bartholomew, “Why Are Females Prone to Mass Hysteria?” Psychology Today, March 31, 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/its-catching/201703/why-are-females-prone-mass-hysteria.Her distress is real. But her self-diagnosis, in each case, is flawed—more the result of encouragement and suggestion than psychological necessity. Three decades ago, these girls might have hankered for liposuction while their physical forms wasted away. Two decades ago, today’s trans-identified teens might have “discovered” a repressed memory of childhood trauma. Today’s diagnostic craze isn’t demonic possession—it’s “gender dysphoria.” And its “cure” is not exorcism, laxatives, or purging. It’s testosterone and “top surgery.” [emphasis mine] — Irreversible Damage, Abigail Shrier8Shrier is a graduate of Columbia College who went on to earn a bachelor of philosophy degree from the University of Oxford and a JD from Yale Law School. Her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughterswas named a “best book” by The Economist and The Times of London. [2020, 2021]
I think she’s right.
All this is not highlighting a female flaw. It is a feminine feature (not a bug) that we adore and need!
The empathic female enters into the pain and loneliness of others. Closing ranks with the sufferer. Pulling them in. Embracing them at the moment of crisis. Sharing their pain. She is, in a word, mom.
Is there anyone quite like her? Nope.
I’m not saying that men are incapable of empathy or that you can’t find women empathic as a green tomato. But, c’mon. You’ve noticed a difference, right? You could chock this up to socialization, a “social construct” as some say. That’s a popular phrase these days. Still, the “facts on the ground” reveal, girls cuddle great!
But here’s a problem. Our young girls with their maternal instincts tend to internalize the pain of their troubled girlfriends. Combine that with pubertal anxiety induced by changing bodies, some changes they may never like, and then toss in the unwanted attention of boys and men as they “develop.” Not to mention all those comparisons with each other. It’s a mixed up challenging time for girls. And given their tendencies, if they find someone hurting like they are hurting it can present a peer problem.
For example. Hospitals that have anorexic patients, another dysphoria, are careful not to place them in the same area. Because the girls, if they find each other, will “feed off” one another.
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A critical factor emerged a few years ago. Social group formation started to change for boys and girls. Which brings us to the largest dysphoria cafe the world has ever known, a smorgasbord ideally situated to “nourish” a peer contagionpandemic.
Social Media.
This doesn’t explain everything about our current gender-dysphoric girl crisis. But it explains a lot. Adolescents today don’t hang out like they used to. Oh they communicate, like nobody’s business. But their interactions with peers have become disembodied.
This is a problem.
Here are a few relevant bullet points.
The GOOD NEWS
< Teen pregnancy has reached multi-decade lows.
< Rates of abortion among teens have plummeted.
< Teens are more tolerant of difference.
The BAD NEWS
> Teens in the West evince record levels of anxiety and depression.
In the past, if you were hurting, you got a hug, a real hug from a friend, especially if you were a girl. And if it was really bad, you sought therapy, religious counsel with real people. Today, increasingly, you get an electronic message and a super cool emoji, and receive counsel from an every growing group of Internet “Influencers” who are there for you 24/7, well their videos at least, to coach you through your discomfort, helping you blaze a trail to a “new you.” And words, words, words flow like a river, easy words, frictionless, effortless, blissful, abbreviated words, OMG, LOL. Distant words. From across the wide world words. Echoes really of what everyone else is saying. Teens follow trends, after all. But cliches without a body attached.
This is different.
Some of these supportive, affirming words, “group hug!” “you can do this!” discourage bodily life itself. At least the body you were given. Today’s affirming storyline is really different. And it is hurting us. Especially our anxiety ridden girls. (Our boys too, but I’ll talk about them later.)
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The most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) the clinician’s “bible” written in 2013 puts the expected incidence of gender dysphoria at .005-.014 percent for natal males. Much lower for natal females. Fewer than 1 in 10,000 people were expected to experience this dysphoria. Until about ten years ago the overwhelming number of cases were young boys usually presenting around ages 2-4.
According to Shrier’s research:
Before 2012, in fact, there was no scientific literature on girls ages eleven to twenty-one ever having developed gender dysphoria at all. In the last decade that has changed, and dramatically.
The numbers for this decade: Two percent of high school students now identify as “transgender,” according to a 2017 survey of teens issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).9 Michelle M. Johns et al., “Transgender Identity and Experiences of Violence Victimization, Substance Use, Suicide Risk, and Sexual Risk Behaviors among High School Students—19 States and Large Urban School Districts, 2017,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 68, no. 3 (January 25, 2019): 67–71, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6803a3.htm.
Some have argued that the reason for the “western spike” is because we’ve finally learned how to be more tolerant and excepting of difference and people now feel free to express themselves openly, especially our women.
Why then do we not see 30, 40 and 50 year old women “coming out” as Trans? Where are they? We’ve seen (MtF)10Male to Female Caitlyn Jenner. Where are the adult women identifying as Trans-men? Now is their moment.
It’s not happening. Rather, the unexpected spike is among teenage girls.
A new chapter in our story is being written. We need to read about it now.
This is the story of the American family—decent, loving, hardworking and kind. It wants to do the right thing. But it finds itself set in a society that increasingly regards parents as obstacles, bigots, and dupes. We cheer as teenage girls with no history of dysphoria steep themselves in a radical gender ideology taught in school or found on the internet. Peers and therapists and teachers and internet heroes egg these girls on. But here, the cost of so much youthful indiscretion is not a piercing or tattoo. It’s closer to a pound of flesh. Some small proportion of the population will always be transgender. But perhaps the current craze will not always lure troubled young girls with no history of gender dysphoria, enlisting them in a lifetime of hormone dependency and disfiguring surgeries. If this is a social contagion, society—perhaps—can arrest it. No adolescent should pay this high a price for having been, briefly, a follower. — Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier
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CHRISTIAN FIRST PRINCIPLES
Here’s where I put on my Christian hat and encourage my Christian sisters and brothers, by God’s grace, toward the Truth. (Non-Christians, give us a minute.) Although it may be difficult to apply in practice, especially in our modern context, here’s a basic principle of God’s ongoing revelation to us.
The fresh wind of God’s Spirit will never contradict God’s purposes from the beginning.
“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” All things visible and invisible, as the first stanza of our Ancient Creed says. Over the years I’ve expanded my understanding of God’s bi-natured world. Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Matter, Soul and Body, Male and Female make up the vital, indispensable components of God’s Good Creation. And I believe all of God’s Good Creation was, in the beginning, created equal.
Heaven and Earth, equal.
Spirit and Matter, equal.
Soul and Body, equal.
Male and Female, equal.
Different. (We are not Pantheists.) Yet equal. And meant to harmoniously overlap and interlock. As an integrated whole. A loving Unity with Plurality. Like our Creator. Our Triune (3in1) God. Before there was any created thing, there was loving community.
I call this view of creation equal dualism.11I want to clear up what may be puzzling to some. By juxtaposing Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Matter, Male and Female, Soul and Body, as I have done am I not saying that maleness corresponds with Heaven, Spirit and Soul and that femaleness corresponds with Earth, Matter and Body and isn’t that dichotomy more than slightly demeaning? Some might say, objectifying? Well, first of all, the main point is the union of each pairing, or the complementarity of each pair and not the correspondence between the different pairings. For example, both males and females are a mysterious unity of spirit and matter, or if you prefer, soul and body. But let me question a further assumption that many make here, an assumption made especially by disciples of Plato (It’s possible to be a disciple of Plato and not know it!). That assumption is something I’ve called, unequal dualism. Unequal dualism regards the second place position in each pairing as inferior to the first. For example, Plato linked the irrational and physical with the female sex, and the rational and spiritual with the male sex. Making males superior to females in his mind. And only in his mind! Unfortunately his was a very influential mind. Our Big Picture Story.
Here is another excerpt from the Past, Present, and Future story of a Triune Creator:
“Have you not read that the one who made themat the beginning ‘made them male and female,’” [Matt. 19:4] - JESUS
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By 2016, Facebook, the worlds largest social media platform had 56 profile possibilities under the category: gender.
In the ongoing debate about abortion and personhood, the criteria for defining who counts as a person is crucial.
Mary Anne Warren’s1 Mary Anne Warren was an American philosopher and professor renowned for her work in moral philosophy, particularly in the field of bioethics. She earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard University. ‘five traits of personhood’—consciousness, reasoning ability, self-motivated activity, communicative capacity, and self-awareness—provide a framework that some use to argue for the permissibility of abortion. However, Christopher Kaczor,2Christopher Kaczor is an American philosopher and professor specializing in ethics, philosophy of religion, and bioethics. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and has held academic positions at various institutions, including Loyola Marymount University. in his book “The Ethics of Abortion: Women’s Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice,” offers a compelling critique of this framework, exposing its significant moral and logical flaws.
1. Consciousness and Self-Awareness: Not All or Nothing
Warren’s first two traits, consciousness and self-awareness, suggest that only beings who are aware of their existence and can perceive their environment are persons. Kaczor points out that many human adults, such as those in a comatose state or suffering from severe cognitive impairments, would fail to meet this criterion. These individuals lack self-awareness and, at times, even basic consciousness. If we accept Warren’s criteria, we would be forced to conclude that these individuals are not persons, which is a morally untenable position.
2. Reasoning Ability: Excluding the Vulnerable
The requirement of reasoning ability further complicates the definition of personhood. Many adults with severe intellectual disabilities or those experiencing advanced dementia cannot engage in complex reasoning. According to Warren’s criteria, these individuals would also be excluded from personhood. Kaczor argues that this exclusion is ethically problematic as it devalues the lives of individuals based on their cognitive abilities, rather than their inherent human dignity.
3. Self-Motivated Activity and Communicative Capacity: Unrealistic Benchmarks
Self-motivated activity and communicative capacity are traits that not all humans possess at all times. For instance, infants, who are undeniably human, do not yet exhibit significant self-motivated activity or sophisticated communicative capacity. Similarly, individuals with severe neurological conditions may lose these capacities. Kaczor highlights that defining personhood based on these traits is flawed as it fails to account for the inherent value of these individuals’ lives.
4. The Arbitrary Nature of Birth as a Marker
Warren and others often argue that birth marks the beginning of personhood because it is the point at which a fetus gains independence from the mother. Kaczor critiques this view by noting that the transition from the womb to the outside world does not suddenly endow a fetus with new capacities that confer personhood. The developmental changes that occur at birth are gradual, not instantaneous, making birth an arbitrary and insufficient marker for personhood.
5. The Dangers of Functional Definitions
Kaczor’s central argument is that functional definitions of personhood, like those proposed by Warren, lead to morally arbitrary exclusions. By tying personhood to specific capabilities, we risk dehumanizing those who do not meet these standards. This approach has historically led to grave injustices, such as the exclusion of slaves and victims of the Holocaust from being considered full persons.
Conclusion: The Need for an Inclusive Definition
Kaczor advocates for an inclusive definition of personhood that values all human beings regardless of their functional abilities. He suggests that personhood should be inherent to all members of the human species from conception. This approach avoids the ethical pitfalls of excluding vulnerable groups and recognizes the intrinsic worth of every human life.
In conclusion, while Warren’s ‘five traits of personhood’ attempt to provide a clear framework for determining personhood, they fall short by excluding many individuals who undeniably possess inherent human dignity. Kaczor’s critique invites us to reconsider how we define personhood in a way that respects and includes all human beings, emphasizing the need for a more compassionate and just approach.
