Could Oppressing Men Resolve Fertility Collapse?

In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore a controversial theory about the relationship between male oppression and high fertility rates in certain cultures. Drawing from an article titled "Oppression of Males is the Gender Oppression of the Future," they delve into:

* The surprising link between male oppression and fertility rates in religious communities

* Analysis of high-fertility cultures like the Amish, Hutterites, and Hasidic Jews

* The role of gender dynamics in maintaining cultural cohesion

* Practical applications of these ideas in modern families and religious traditions

* The concept of "tactical honesty" and its impact on relationships

* The importance of family identity and intergenerational thinking

* Personal anecdotes and reflections on implementing these concepts

This video offers a unique perspective on gender roles, cultural preservation, and the challenges of maintaining high fertility in modern society. It includes discussions that may be controversial or challenging to some viewers.

[00:00:00] Hello, Simone! I am excited to be talking to you today. I saw an article that changed my view recently. It was sent to us by a fan on the best way to structure a religious or cultural system to survive fertility collapse.

Yeah, forget Handmaid's Tale, it should be The Footman's Story! Right? Specifically, the article argues that men need to be oppressed for us to survive fertility class. I read so many articles, when I go into an article the article was titled, Oppression of Males is the Gender Oppression of the Future.

And I thought it was gonna be, you know, because it's come to us by a fan, some sort of like, men's rights thing, where it's like, oh, you know, these days males are being more oppressed than females. No, actually males need to be oppressed by a woman. A very based woman, by the way. Yeah, she sounds dreamy. Need to be oppressed For an idea of some of the other content on her blog here, her blog's called Wood from Eden.

She has stuff like, nudists in space. And then another one, the [00:01:00] mulberry question this time of year, I suppose that the foremost question on everyone mind is what to do with all of the mulberries. These are our questions. I think, I think it's the same woman who wrote a book on raising chickens.

So very, very fun, very base to thinker. And she was pointing something out. Now, the first thing is something that most of our fans know, religiosity and gender discrimination alone, like traditional gender discrimination against women does not really protect fertility rates that much. It has a small amount, but not a huge amount.

It is a specific religion and the specific nature of the discrimination, which is protective. So she writes, Here, very interestingly however, looking closer into the matter, the picture gets more complicated and more interesting. Fertility rates are falling worldwide, also in countries infamous for gender inequality.

For example, Iran has a fertility rate of 1. 7 and Saudi Arabia, 2. 2. That indicates that gender inequality [00:02:00] itself is not a magic wand to make people have more children. Also, when people from gender unequal countries immigrate to Western societies, Their fertility tends to fall very quickly. Their children often have as low or even lower fertility than the host population.

But here is where it gets wild, was the line directly after that, because I did not expect this at all. For example, Somalia has a fertility rate of around Somalian women who immigrated to Norway in the last half century had a fertility rate of 4. 5, more than any other immigrant group. The daughters of those immigrants, however, had a fertility rate of less than two. So it only takes two generations for one of these high fertility cultural groups to have it completely washed away if they move into a prosperous environment, which shows to us that the majority of their high fertility is downstream of low.

prosperity. This is why it's so important to talk about prosperity induced fertility collapse and to look for cultures that have a [00:03:00] high level of fertility despite being in prosperous environments. Then she goes on to note something very interesting.

. So she takes two sort of prototypical high fertility cultures that we'll be going over that are high fertility, even when they're in prosperous environments, specifically really three, the Amish, the Hutterites and the Hasidic Jews.

And she points out something that is shared among these communities. And there are a few shared among these communities but that are not found in other low tech high religiosity, religious denominations. Specifically she reports on an instance and you and I have experienced this as well, where she was at a port, I think in Dubai or something like that.

And she could see all the migrant laborers. And it was fascinating because it looked like this huge collection of different cultures and, and, and traditional dress styles when you looked at the women, but when you looked at the men. Everyone was dressed the same. They were all dressed like Westerners [00:04:00] in pants, jeans, and shirts and in fact, generally speaking, in Islamic countries, the only environments where Simone and I have regularly seen is, Males maintain traditional dress is when there is a strong financial incentive for them to be doing that.

Specifically, these are upper class individuals with like bureaucratic state, basically offer jobs in the UAE and Saudi Arabia or Qatar. Outside of that, it's actually pretty rare, especially when they immigrate to other countries And this is another really interesting thing. So I'm going to put pictures on the screen here, because people might not know this about Hasidic Jews.

So it was Amish, both the men and the women look different, same as Hutterites, but with Hasidic Jews, the women look very Western in the way they dress. Yes, they have specific rituals around things like wearing wigs or hats and stuff like that. But broadly speaking, they could pass for a Westerner. The men could not.

But we're going to go over because this isn't the extent of the additional [00:05:00] things being asked of men within these cultures I will note here, because people might hear about, Oh, I'm saying Ultra Orthodox Jews males have it hard.

How could you say that? They don't have to do anything but study their entire lives like, how is that hard? Women in Ultra Orthodox communities have to both make a living for the family, receive a secular education, and have and raise a lot of children, right?

The husbands only need to study. And people can say, isn't that like a kusher life? And I guess, in a way it is, but keep in mind that they have even less Freedom of what they do with their lives and women do really, if they want to attain any level of community respect. And this study lifestyle is incredibly hard.

Like you, it is, it is not. A slacker study lifestyle. It is one of intense, intense long hours and study because it is the entire dedication of their cultural system. And so if you could imagine that, like, the only [00:06:00] metric you were judged on, both as a youth and an adult. Was your knowledge of one particular subject and everyone in your culture agreed on that?

How difficultly you would be working and how stringently you would be working was in studying that subject. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the South Korean university entrance exam system. This one measurement that you have, there's one job you have. It's like the South Korean system except for a few things.

The South Korean system, when you get into college, if you did well in the first part of your life, you basically never have to work again. It never ends. It never ends with this one. That's the catch. It never ends. But two, the