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Australia's Population Crisis.

Posted by JSYL on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 in
The director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research, Bob Birrell has shed a little light on our ageing population, saying in The Australian's What Women Want, 15 June, 2006 by Elizabeth Gosch and Patricia Karvelas:

"There is a marriage gap for women in their late 20s and early 30s who are unpartnered because there are more of them with degrees than there are men with degrees, and this is going to be a continuing issue because currently 55 percent of the people who commence degrees are women and 45 percent are men..."

"...Women have traditionally looked upwards in social status terms, but that's simply not going to work any more because just in educational terms there are more achievers among women than there are among men, so it does mean that many of these women will have to adjust."


How interesting. Not once in this article did I see it suggested that perhaps the onus lies on 'under-achieving' men. Maybe if men were encouraged to pursue academic success and therefore ensure higher starting salaries in white collar positions, there'd be more couples, more sex, and more babies.

Sound absurd?

By now you think I'm a Feminist Nazi with no arguments of any logic or substance. But I ask you, is my policy equally or more retarded than Costello's supposedly lighthearted comments not so long ago, that:

"If you can have children it's a good thing to do . . . one for your husband, one for your wife, one for your country...You go home and do your patriotic duty for your country."
(See: Fiery response to Costello, Townsville Bulletin, 13 May 2004, Tony Raggatt)

Let's add Tim's argument into the mix; namely that (paraphrased/summarised for the purposes of this rant):

'Women are genetically predisposed to waking up at three in the morning to breastfeed, it comes hand in hand with their ability to give birth...which is why women don't need to sleep as much as men generally.'

Does it then flow on, by this logic, that men have a blue-collar non-academic, non-willingness to pursue tertiary education gene, that somehow links to their predisposition to lazy-motherfucker-itis?

And if that is the case, then we indeed have a real moral conundrum on our hands, people.

And before you completely tune off, I am, albeit poorly, struggling to make a point: this whole 'populate Australia' debate has always been predicated on the assumption that its the responsibility of women to up the ante and slut it up, simply because if God gave them the uterus to do so, why wouldn't women want to give birth?

Rather shouldn't we (meaning the men making these ludicrous remarks) look perhaps at elements other than the physical push involved in having a baby? Emotional and financial support and security, social acceptance, secure home, a father figure, a husband, sperm.

Its not just a female problem. Women with 5 kids by 4 different fathers are seen as sluts sponging off the dole. Educated women in their 30s who are single and have no children from former marriages etc are viewed as frigid career hungry ice queens. Women who are married but choose not to have children are seen as counter evolutionary and not 'real women'.

All social stigmas, all created by men who at the same time, want women to have MORE children.

Never once thinking that men who don't make child support payments, forcing single mothers to rely on the Government for money, who don't strive for the top rung of the corporate ladder or even just financial stability and independence, or conversely are the men keeping that glass celing in place which DISCOURAGES women from having children, or the men who have a low sperm count and as a result can't give their WIVES and their country children...are the true causes of fertility decline.

Perhaps if both men and women were seen as equal or somewhat equal players in the procreation policy, a less sexist and more realistic solution may be found after all.

Overly optimistic? Perhaps.
Utterly impossible? Not quite.

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1 Comments


Dear Jane,
I'm shocked you feel this way!
By the way, that reference to a
'Tim' is not me Tim is it? I didn't think so!

That's pretty hilarious. So, are you like, mad at men? Or mad at the stereotype of women?
Or that men are now somewhat lazier? Or that women-who-want-to-move-up-the-social-ladder have it harder now, because there are less 'quality' (= *ehem educated) men - and that's somehow the whole male's fault?
Confused, and I want clarification post too!

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