Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37659
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37659
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In general, bigotry is calling or assuming something inherent to a trait (gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, language spoken) that, even if it is true, does not have any rational basis for being associated with that trait. For example there is no rational basis for assuming skin color has anything _inherent_ to do with intelligence, promiscuity or morality. Any mental trait attributed as inherent to skin color, _even if true_, should be assumed to be traced to _social_ factors (including racism resulting in poverty or wealth, good schools or bad, ample opportunity or a paucity of it, etc).

Even if women DO highly value having children, there is no rational reason to think that is _inherent_ in women. Many women do not value it at all, are they suffering from some birth defect in some way? Or is the high value a result of cultural (including religious) brainwashing that this is their purpose in life, to be mothers?

In fact, in the current American culture men are far more sexually promiscuous than women, and can father far more children than any woman can mother. If "must have children" was inherent in women, wouldn't they outrank men in promiscuity and get themselves pregnant early and often?

You can't really know how another group will take something, even interviewing them may do you no good. Minds change. Your safest bet is to make the cost something that plausibly impacts both males and females equally; even if it is only females that will pay the price.

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Edit to address arguments in commentary; since this is on-topic as to what is sexist:

It is brought up that Infertility affects both men and women. I believe the question is whether men would value "descendants" as much as a woman does, and that is not implied by the story or clear to readers. In modern culture our stories suggest differently; young men in books and stories routinely risk (and lose) their lives and nobody thinks of the loss as "the loss of a potential father".

Our modern culture focuses on females as reproductive vessels; hence the phrase "women and children first", implying men of any parental status are expendable. It's why young men form the vast majority of our combat troops and women still must struggle to fight on the front lines or in elite ranks.

However, while it is appropriate for adults to decide for children that do not have fully formed brains, note that in "women and children first" the men are _also_ deciding for the women as if they do not have the necessary cognition to decide for themselves; i.e. the statement implies that adult females are incapable of thinking for themselves. That is sexist, it is part of treating women as dumb livestock that exists to bear children. It doesn't make a difference if this on occasion benefits women by putting them first in a rescue or not letting them join front line warfare, it harms them through the far more widespread subjugation of women in everyday life as being less capable of making good decisions than men, less capable of leadership and making the tough decisions about life, death and nations going to war.

It was argued "women and children first" was not about childbearing but chivalry; but chivalry comes from the same sexist root: That women need the protection and guidance of _men_. It defines a clear cultural value of women over men, for one and only one reason: Women have wombs and are not as expendable as men. If your tribe loses 45 of its 50 men in battle, the remaining 5 can impregnate all 50 of your women. The next generation is full. But if it loses 45 of its 50 women in battle, the next generation isn't even viable to keep the tribe going. Read [_"Is There Anything Good About Men? How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men"_](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/019537410X), a book by Roy Baumeister.

Another commenter then claims the adaptive fitness of 'desires children' is so much higher than 'doesn't desire children' that it would be more surprising for it not to be inherent; and another agrees that there is every rational (evolutionary) reason to think that is inherent in women.

No, there is no rational reason to think it is any _higher_ in women than it is in men; and rational reason to believe otherwise: Modern humans capable of anticipating the future far enough in advance to picture themselves in a completely different life (with children vs. without) are likely the only animal that can plausibly evolve to "want children", and we've only been around about 50,000 years. All the rest of the animal kingdom wants **sex,** and nearly universally males are evolved to want it more than females due to the greater cost and risk to females.

Thus it is far MORE likely that men's greater desire for sex has evolved into a greater desire for children, because fatherhood has no inherent biological costs to bear: No pain, disability, risk of death or even responsibility. Nothing prevents a man from fathering a child in a few minutes and walking away forever, putting all the risk and costs of parenthood on the mother. Those risks to the woman's health and life are considerable; and includes a biologically driven imperative to devote years of raising her children for years to an age where they can fend for themselves. The total energy cost differential, between women and men creating a viable human that can fend for itself, is about a million to one.

Thus, if anything "evolved" as a desire for children, it should be much stronger in men than it is in women, because for a man the cost is trivial and has no penalties. Literally a few minutes of enjoyable effort versus several years of hard labor for her. In rational evolutionary terms motherhood is (on average) far more heavily penalized than fatherhood, and that far greater cost to women should _lessen_ her desire "to have children." (I'm not saying that is the case, but that it is plausible.)

Back to the story: For an author that does not want to appear sexist, it is best not to attribute emotions to just one gender when there are (for readers in the real world) many examples of the opposite being true. In this story, because the witches are all female, there is a heavy risk of this, especially since lineage is determined by matrilineal lines instead of paternal lines; creating a penalty (in this fictional world) for women that men do not have (but IRL men would have; "passing on their [sur]name" and thus honoring their male ancestors).

A preferred penalty would be something that readers think _clearly_ applies to men as well as women, both in the matrilineal fiction and in real life.

Original score: 5