Dr. Fokt, I take your point regarding generalization seriously, but I am talking about social systems here, not individuals. Since social systems impact all of us, in one way or another, generalizations are applicable and correct. Taking something personally is to defeat the purpose of this discussion.
Patriarchy is a social system that divides humanity into men and women. Since this division is neither natural, nor healthy, everyone trapped inside this system struggles underneath its weight, while the favored few who live outside, or above this system, enjoy the benefits of all human labour.
In the context of this discussion, bringing up childbirth is modeling and reinforcing patriarchy. It’s a simple natural fact that it takes humans three years to reproduce themselves. Growing a fetus inside a woman's body is just the first nine months of the process. Since a woman’s body is too small to carry an infant all the way through development, the infant leaves the woman's womb and enters the social womb where it will continue developing for another two, even three years. During these last 24 to 30 months of the birthing process, the infant must be fed, watered, cleaned, changed, clothed, and taught survival skills. Inasmuch as infants die in three minutes without air, three days without food and less than three hours in freezing cold, or blistering heat, protection is essential.
In the social womb, all men and all women are responsible for the well-being of every infant placed in their collective care. Patriarchs kept men working for them, by relieving men of responsibility for the social womb, while forcing women to carry the burden of reproduction from conception all the way to adulthood (the equivalent of asking women to carry several toddlers all at once). Just thinking of the women, I know with ten or more children, makes me ache all over. In these families, men take their responsibility for the social womb so seriously, they do at least half, often more, of the physical work required to take care of infants.
