Alberta’s associate status of women minister apologized after a screed celebrating women as baby-makers “not exactly equal” to men won third prize in a government essay contest for young women.
The essay, one of the first winners in the government’s newly instituted “Her Vision” contest, echoed the “white genocide” rhetoric of many a contemporary fascist convinced that falling birthrates among white people could lead to what the anonymous essay writer labels “cultural suicide.”
“Women have a unique strength: our ability to give birth,” the essay begins.
This strength cannot be justly undermined, underestimated, or demeaned, for without it none of us would be alive today, our way of life and our culture would vanish, our very species would cease to exist.
The world population today is nearly 8 billion, and growing, by the day. If the essay writer is concerned about a “birth dearth,” why not simply take in more immigrants? Well, she’s got an answer for that.
While it is sadly popular nowadays to think that the world would be better off without humans, or that Albertan children are unnecessary as we can import foreigners to replace ourselves, this is a sickly mentality that amounts to a drive for cultural suicide.
Ah, got it. Those in the “Great White North” don’t need more (possibly not-so-white) foreigners invading their space. Funny, I always thought that the “white” in “great white north” was a reference to snow, not skin color.
The first rule of health for any biological population is their ability to reproduce and pass along their way of life into the future.
Their “way of life” seems like a dogwhistle for “their white skin.” .
Not that the essayist is open about her racial views; you have to read between the lines. Not that she makes this particularly difficult.
Women are not exactly equal to men. This biological reality is also under attack by present-day delusion. To try to promote that women break into careers that men traditionally dominate is not only misguided, but it is harmful. Such a focus detracts from the languishing unique strength and the truly important role that women have in the preservation of our community, culture, and species.
In other words, forget about women in STEM. Women’s collective “job” is to make babies.
Unfortunately, present day government policies all-too-often have this misguided and harmful aim. Many women now realize in their late 30s that they actually want a child after having been taught that career was what mattered earlier in their lives, and they then regret not having done it earlier, when they were in their prime.
This is really starting to sound like a post on some “red pill” forum. Or the manifesto of the Christchurch mass killer.
Sadly, having children is an expensive burden in our modern society. It is this way because our society has become oriented around personal greed and selfish and hedonistic goals.
Huh? Do people get tax credits for adopting cats instead of having babies or something? If so, maybe I should move to Canada.
Families who are trying to raise children are competing for resources such as housing, are at a disadvantage in this environment. And while there is some government assistance for people with children, it is primarily focused on the lowest income parents, so it provides little help to middle class families.
Stop trying to help poor people! Help people who don’t need as much help instead.
My vision of Alberta is a place that is oriented around healthy families and communities again, not around personal greed and selfishness.
Why is not having kids “greedy?”
Recognizing children as being of the utmost importance in our society would be the cornerstone of such a future. Unity among people requires shared common values, and the importance of children and family are the most fundamental values of any healthy population, so this is also the place to start towards achieving greater unity among presently divided Albertans.
“Unity” is one way to put it I guess. Presumably immigrants cant’ be a part of it.
As a future parliamentarian, I would promote healthy appreciation for the value that young Albertan women have in their ability to carry our population forward into the future.
That’s quite a euphemism for “popping out babies.”
I believe that the best approach would be to reward families for their reproductive service both with financial rewards to offset the financial burden they are taking on and with medals to symbolize their valuable achievement of having 2+ children. Encouraging our society to reorient in this healthier perspective would provide the greatest good for Alberta going forward and would alleviate many of the problems that we are currently facing.
This is where the essay ends on the best screenshot of it I’ve been able to find. (The original has been taken down by the government that originally gave it a prize.) But this fash-lite screed is clearly not deserving of any awards, at least outside of a contest to see who can fit the most fashy dogwhistles in 500 words.
H/T — @mvario1on Twitter for letting me know about this.
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800 billion? I think your math is a little off.
I have questions as to which government officials selected the essay.
The United Conservative Party of Alberta is split between right-wingers and ultra-right-wingers. Alberta is labelled “the Texas of the North”, but the social democratic New Democratic Party led by Rachel Notley is currently leading in the polls, so fingers crossed.
As a Canadian I’m disgusted but not at all surprised that the useless United Conservative Party would think this pile of steaming fash propaganda is a winner.
@Pseudonym: It ain’t just the math that’s off here.
As an Albertan I can assure you than I am as surprised as anyone that this wasn’t the winning essay.
It’s also not a surprise that the woman who wrote the essay is typical of “women should be having babies and not competing with men” women in that it’s different somehow when she goes into politics and takes a good government job away from a man.
I mean, Jesus.
One of the things that’s always puzzled me about the white genocide thing is that the idea we die out through “race mixing” (urgh, sorry). I always thought that, for example, if I had kids with someone from India or Polynesia or whatever they would have 50% of my genes, my heritage, and be influenced by my culture whatever their skin colour was. The concern of racists is so aesthetic really – the idea of being pearly white.
I’m 33 in a couple of months and childless, and I can say with 100% sincerity that this is not because I wanted to pursue a career, but the usual quality of life factors affecting the working and middle class of my generation – insecure rentals, cost of living, lack of access to adequate mental health care etc etc. When I was still in my “prime” over 80% of my household income went on rent and bills.
So I guess the only place the writer is correct is that if you want more families in this day and age you are going to have to financially support families. I could do without The Cross of Honour of the German Mother, however.
What, you don’t want random Nazis to approach you on the street and thank you for your reproductive service?
Whenever I get harassed for being single and childfree by choice I point out I’m not really as white as I look. It’s really interesting how many people think I’m taking one for a team I wouldn’t belong to if I was as white as I look.
@Gaebolga
It’s so funny that they think a medal would be in any way motivating for a normal person isn’t it? “Ah, the worst people on earth approve of me. What more can a mother want!”
It barely merits pointing out that these folks always think the solution to women having fewer children than they would prefer is to prevent said women from having careers.
As if it is their business whether other folks have children, and how many. And completely ignoring and measures that might it easier for women (and other potential baby-havers) who do desire children but are delaying to be comfortable having them earlier. (To be fair, this author dose briefly allude to support for families, but seems more concerned that it is going to less-well-off folks, as opposed to advocating for things such as better child-care options.)
I am 41 and childless.
Career had nothing to do with it.
@Lollypop: They really do think everyone else is somehow both inferior and genetically overwhelming and thus their mixed-race descendants, if any, won’t be real people. It’s a creepy and also kind of a miserable mindset.
I’m in my late 40s and have always been infertile, so I couldn’t just pop out a few kids even if I wanted to. And fortunately, I don’t. Never been in a good position to adopt, and unlikely to qualify for it, even if I wanted to do that instead, which I also don’t. Only likely to be involved in childcare if I ever get in a long-term relationship with someone who already has minor children, which hasn’t happened so far. (Incidentally, I’m currently involved with someone who has an adult daughter who I’ve yet to meet.)
Obviously I don’t think much of people who glorify womanhood as little more than babymaking. Can’t be a part of their world, wouldn’t want to anyway.
It’s amazing how these people- along with far too many others – think like this about young women marrying and bearing children. Different societies have different values and expectations.
In pre-famine Ireland they maintained a much larger population than now, and it was stable. How? Why?
Simple really. Men were not really suitable as marriage partners if they couldn’t support a family financially.
So they had to wait until Dad died and they inherited the farm. Sounds familiar just being an agricultural, land-based income rather than the modern professional and skill-based system. So a very large proportion of the population didn’t marry until their mid to late 30s. They then produced a fair number of offspring but delayed compared to the marry as young as possible societies. (Obviously there were sidesteps and work-around like older generations “retiring” and the younger generations taking over without formal tenure on the land. And other clevernesses. )
Heaven alone knows how many variations of these kinds of alternatives have been used all over the globe throughout history and antiquity.
Did this contest only have three entries? Did Jordan “Benzos” Peterson judge it? Was it a contest for Stefen Molyneux impersonators?
No baby’s ever popped out of my uterus – just fibroids. I regret the fibroids more than the lack of kids. Mr. Parasol and I are a family all on our own. Well, on our own plus the kitties – we’ve raised 8 cats from kittenhood over the course of our marriage, so I figure we’ve done our bit.
I live in Alberta, and really this is just the tip of the iceberg. As Galanx said, the provincial government here is split between right and ultra-right wing, and our corporate media (Global News) supports them, meaning that people who live in rural areas get a constant stream of pro-fascist viewpoints. I grew up in a rural community, and it’s one of the most toxic places I’ve ever seen. Racism, sexism and support for fascism runs unchecked outside of Edmonton and Calgary.
How bad are things in Alberta? In 2019 the provincial government decided to doctors make too much money and decided to cut back pay (after they campaigned that they could reduce health spending without cutting pay for healthcare professionals.) Our Minister of Health actually went to a doctor’s home to intimidate him. When that blew up on social media, he threatened to sic Legislature security on people who criticized him. The current party leadership picked 2020 to destroy hospital workers union (so that they could outsource the work), and then in 2021 they picked a fight with the nurses union. (Yes – you read that correctly – they decided to slash pay for hospital workers and nurses during a global pandemic.)
The party is currently electing a leader, and the frontrunner is a Sarah Palin wannabe (who is being taken seriously by the news media here. Her main policy position is “Alberta should just ignore any Federal laws that are too liberal.”)
It is true that, token things like tax credits aside, we do a shitty job of helping families. But the solution is to give families the support they *need*, not to force women out of paid work and get rid of contraception and abortion, ffs
Does anyone want to know what essays came in 1st and 2nd?
I’ve never had a career, always had stable housing and income pre-menopause, and the Mr. and I are what a FOAF called “appliance white”.
Never wanted kids. Never had them.
Loved kitties. Have had several. Current beast is telling me I’m late with the noms.
I hope the idiots gave the prize to the 4th place finisher. But if there was money, the fash creeps kept it for themselves.
At least any girls who wrote essays that said “women are real, and being oppressed” know how badly the fix was in.
The way the world is going, with pollution, global warming, and fascism everywhere, I think it’s the opposite of greedy to have kids, knowing what they’ll be living through. My mother said she was glad my brother and I didn’t have any back in the 90s.
People who give me crap about “you drive a car, you eat meat!!!” are really put-out when I point out that I have saved tons of carbon by not having children in a 1st world, high-consumption society. Which probably outweighs them with their fast fashion, buying clothes and items so often for the rugrats they’re so proud about teaching ecology to. Throw in my solar panels, constant recycling/composting, and the fact my car’s a hybrid that only putters around town, mostly on battery… well.
And none of my cats have been as loud while screaming as children are, so I’m helping noise pollution to.
(There is whining now, must go)
Not exactly equal to men? For the hundredth time, equal doesn’t mean identical in this context. It means women and men should have the same rights and same freedoms to decide the courses of their lives.
@Moon Custafer
I just don’t understand it. Nationalism I get to a certain extent (although that’s of course the gateway drug) because that’s falling in love with a story you’ve been told and continue to tell yourself even when reality doesn’t quite match up. But as you say to be worried about white people dying out is… something else.
My dad told me about this a couple of days ago. From what he said, I figured it would be anti-immigrant (and it is), but I thought the “women’s main value is as baby-havers” wouldn’t be QUITE so blatant.
Chiming in with the people who don’t want kids of their own. For me, it’s not to avoid overpopulation, or because kids are expensive, or worry about bringing someone new into an uncertain world. These are all valid concerns. Mine is a little sillier: I’m still a bit of a hypochondriac and pregnancy/birth is a big medical deal I’d rather avoid.
But it’s also because I want to put more time into my “career,” I guess; not to be some sort of super businesswoman but to do writing, research, and perhaps music (I am planning to record my first few songs this summer with a friend). Those are my main interests. If my partner wants to adopt when we’re more settled, that might be something I want, although I would prefer an older or foster child to a baby because I feel there are more risks with the adoption process not being transparent. Or maybe that’s more an issue with international adoptions? In any case, I know people have babies in their 40s, but I think in a few years I probably won’t have the energy I’d need/want to spend on a very young child.
I’m like that with teaching/tutoring too – prefer to work with teens and adults than little kids. Anyway, tl;dr is that I’m certainly not against children, but I prefer them not to “pop” out of my body because it isn’t that easy 🙂
I plan not to have kids because I’m a tocophobe (fear of giving birth), and out of concern for the environment. Besides, a digital nomad lifestyle of traveling the world with a laptop isn’t exactly good for a kid.