The 1950s called, they want their morality back (cross-post)

Cross posted at The ex-expat

As Deborah noted, Saturday was International Women's Day. Unfortunately the day was not used as an opportunity to celebrate how much progress New Zealand women have made in a short passage of time nor a call to work on issues that still inhibit women's freedom. Instead we had the National Council of Women lambasting young women for behaviour which is quite frankly none of their damn business.

But the kicker came in the Sunday papers where the SST declared that New Zealand women are too picky and are delaying having children until they find Mr Right. What a wonderful message our media is sending New Zealand women: that it is far better to procreate with any drunk, abusive, misogynist pig in your twenties than hold out for a smart, educated and respectful man in your 30s because there's a chance you may end up barren and alone. Charming and as we find buried at the bottom of the article not true.

Professor of demography Ian Pool attributes delayed pregnancy to workforce issues ie. that most women struggle to hold down a full-time job and a baby because many professional workplaces aren't welcoming of part-time work until your career is well-established and many professions are not welcoming of part-time work at all. I suspect that up until fairly recently, student loans would also have been a strong factor in women delaying childbirth. As unless they made a major a dent soon after graduation, stopping work to have a baby would have had an added cost of compounding interest on a women's student debt. The Student Loan scheme was introduced in 1992 and interest free loans were only introduced in 2006. That's almost 15 years where New Zealand had a policy that effectively penalized any educated woman wanting to take time out of the workforce to raise a family and these 'older mums' are part of that generation.

However while the discussion of social policies is fascinating, I find myself more infuriated by the none-to-subtle messages that the National Council of Women's comments, the man-drought meme, foreign fever and the Sunday programme is that it that New Zealand women have become too successful and need to be taken down a peg or two. So they are doing so by attacking their femininity and playing on an insecurity that both men and women have the fear of being alone.

But of more concern is that anyone should feel that they have the right to dictate to women what is the 'correct age' that they should be having children. As a taxpayer, I feel that ideally a couple should be a position where they are financially able to support their family and stable enough to ensure that the child's needs are taken care of. However that it is where my judgement stops. I don't care if a woman is 16 or 45, it is her decision when she feels she is ready to have children.

Unfortunately our media and more broadly our society seems to feel that instead of celebrating the different choices women have now, they should be lambasting women who aren't using this freedom to reproduce a standard of morality that we jettisoned for good reason.