Once again Formersnag raises the big 'N' ism, once again proving the credibility of Goodwins Law. (google it if you have to)

The other side of Goodwin's Law is that anyone who raises 'Hitler' or Nazism' in anything but an accurate historical argument can be considered to have lost the argument at that point.

Formersnag, for future reference you may have to find another analogy.

On the other hand, the comments about fertility are overall correct: the optimum time for motherhood IS late teens and early 20s. That is a biological fact.

It is also a fact that feminism is still required in this society, and the world, to try to bring greater equality. The one problem I have is that equality does not mean that all things have to be identitical. There are differences between men and women, that have to be addressed, but men and women are still different.

Stickman
I don't disagree with your summary. I was relaying a friend's experience and while there are pressures with some of these conditions, it does come down to individual choice - as always.

It might be easy to become so obsessed by the goal of having a child that other quality of life issues are overlooked. Reactions to these sorts of things, like cancer, are very individual and personal I guess and not everyone will come to the same conclusions.

As far as the author's point though, I don't think I blaming behaviour is relevant in the area of fertility. More perhaps that those who do not conceive may feel an inbuilt sense of failure or guilt (if there are family pressures). For some it is hard to let that go - but let it go they must.

Doug
When I had my first child at the age of 28 - quite young for my peer group but was told by the obstetrician that I was an 'older' mum. At 28! We women are built for childbirth much earlier. Many families are, for economic/career reasons, choosing to have children later and I imagine this will increase business for the fertility industry.

Houlley
Sorry to hear about your mum. My friend's experience and comments were very similar.

Pelican - yes I agree, the pressure comes from within, which is why I found the article so strange. Who would go through the agony of IVF just because someone else thought you should? With the possible exception of being pressured into it by a spouse...

To those who have posted about the need for feminism - sure - but the feminist cause is done no good by those who write dross like this, sanctimoniously rabbiting on about problems that don't exist and making baseless statements about largely successful medical procedures that bring happiness to the majority of customers.

Dougthebear, where do i start?

I like many others in the

Anti
Femanist
League

have been using the word Femanazi for it's shock value, but with mixed feelings, as it is an insult to the German people. Nazi Germany had strong family values, protecting women, children & men from DV & child abuse, unless they were Jewish. Everything you have been taught about Nazi Germany other than the Anti Semitism, is a lie. They treated almost everybody else very well, especially the workers, who were provided with good pay & conditions. They had women flying Messerschmidt's in WW2!

There is nothing feminine about femanism, it is a deliberate, premeditated child abuse system, designed to produce several growing industries (DV, child abuse/DOCS, social work, poverty, welfare, etc) all providing "jobs for the girls". If there was no, or reducing child abuse & addiction these industries would fade away and they are the red/green labour conspiracy's greatest gravy train.

formersnag:"several growing industries (DV, child abuse/DOCS, social work, poverty, welfare, etc) all providing "jobs for the girls""

All worthy sectors in their own right, I'm sure you'd agree. What's not worthy is the way in which these fields seem to have become Feminist fiefdoms, dominated at the top by political operatives who are quite happy to use "fudged" figures to "demonstrate" why they need more funding. Furthermore, each of them is awash with private-sector organisations that derive their entire income from public funds, meaning that the political game is the only one in town.

davidf:"In many parts of the world"

Not in this part of the world. In Australia, women dominate the education system, with 2/3 of all Australian-origin tertiary students being women; equal pay for equal work is a prosecutable legal requirement; longer life expectancy is accepted as a "natural" state of affairs; women are offered dispropotionate levels of State assistance compared to men and they abuse and neglect children at many times the rate that men do.

In fact, in most parts of the world females are dominant in the education systems. See http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/report2009.pdf for a breakdown. that report also highlights what is wrong with a feminist-inspired approach, since it quite blatantly ignores any situations in which women are doing better than men and there are very many countries in which that is the case, at least in some fields, such as education and health where there has been a massive push via the UN over the past 30 years to "empower" women by providing them with a locally superior education with a view to getting them into positions of authority. It has been very successful.

As the authors say on page 6:"We find the one-sided scale more
appropriate for our purposes."

It is hardly surprising that with this level of mis-representation of data there is a lot of confusion among people of goodwill. I urge you to look at the raw data, not the "massaged" headline index that this report would prefer you to use. There is a striking difference between the two.

Formersnag wrote

"Nazi Germany had strong family values, protecting women, children & men from DV & child abuse, unless they were Jewish. Everything you have been taught about Nazi Germany other than the Anti Semitism, is a lie. They treated almost everybody else very well, especially the workers, who were provided with good pay & conditions. They had women flying Messerschmidt's in WW2!"

unquote

Where do I start? firstly the German government started killing its own people before it started exterminating Jews and Gypsies: The first to die were the 'mentally feeble' and 'useless eaters': see http://www.regent.edu/acad/schedu/uselesseaters/

Family values? Like sending off its young men to die to carve out lebenstrum in the east?

Women in the Reichsweher were strictly part-time - they were not allowed to wear uniforms when not on duty. The only woman pilot to fly Messerschmidts was Hanna Reish, as a test pilot. Meanwhile the Soviets had female pilots flying combat missions (in Po-2s, see http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/soviet_women_pilots.html) and serving as tank crew. Even the western allies had female pilots flying service missions as ferry pilots.

In Germany women were at no time emancipated. The role of the German woman under Nazism was as breeder and homemaker.

You really should read more.