Birth Strike

Jenny Brown

Description

When House Speaker Paul Ryan urged U.S. women to have more children, and Ross Douthat requested “More babies, please,” in a New York Times column, they openly expressed what policymakers have been discussing for decades with greater discretion. Using technical language like “age structure,” “dependency ratio,” and “entitlement crisis,” establishment think tanks are raising the alarm: if U.S. women don’t get busy having more children, we’ll face an aging workforce, slack consumer demand, and a stagnant economy.

Feminists generally believe that a prudish religious bloc is responsible for the protracted fight over reproductive freedom in the U.S. and that politicians only attack abortion and birth control to appeal to those “values voters.” But hidden behind this conventional explanation is a dramatic fight over women’s reproductive labor. On one side, elite policymakers want an expanding workforce reared with a minimum of employer spending and a maximum of unpaid women’s work. On the other side, women are refusing to produce children at levels desired by economic planners. By some measures our birth rate is the lowest it has ever been. With little access to childcare, family leave, health care, and with insufficient male participation, U.S. women are conducting a spontaneous birth strike.

In other countries, panic over low birth rates has led governments to underwrite childbearing and childrearing with generous universal programs, but in the U.S., women have not yet realized the potential of our bargaining position. When we do, it will lead to new strategies for winning full access to abortion and birth control, and for improving the difficult working conditions U.S. parents now face when raising children.

Sujets

• Motherhood
• Care work
• Reproductive justice
• Pregnancy
• Abortion
• Labor
• Population
• Immigration

Informations

• Publié par: PM Press
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781629636535
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Jenny Brown compellingly explains the low U.S. birth rate: those primarily responsible for the labor of bearing and raising children (women) are responding as one should to lousy working conditions-by going on strike! Brown s bold and brilliant book ventures into terrain that left and feminist thinkers have avoided for far too long. A breathtakingly accessible analysis, supported by riveting and intimate testimonials, it s also an inspiring call to action.
-Liza Featherstone, The Nation
Birth Strike is a well-researched and wide-ranging analysis of how the public responsibilities of pregnancy and parenting have been privatized to benefit a capitalist for-profit system designed to minimize labor costs to produce wealth for the few. Offers fresh insight into how women s biological power may be harnessed to resist reproductive oppression.
-Loretta J. Ross, coauthor of Reproductive Justice
An audacious analysis of the falling U.S. birth rate, of the exploitive and often untenable conditions for raising children here and now, and of what might be done to change things. Feminist insight illuminates every chapter of this thoughtful book.
-Alix Kates Shulman, author of Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen and A Marriage Agreement and Other Essays: Four Decades of Feminist Writing
An astute analysis of power relations not only in the sphere of reproduction but also in the worlds of work, immigration, and government policy as they bear on women s ability to control their bodies . Brown lays bare why U.S. women who want to be mothers, and those who don t, have it far worse here than in Europe. Then she tells us how to change that.
-Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes
A few years ago, statisticians discovered that the birth rate in the U.S. had hit an all-time low . In her provocative book Birth Strike Brown jumps off from this evidence to discuss the history of birth control and right to secure a legal abortion in the face of the ruling class of men who traditionally have dictated the rules of women s reproductive labor. This book is worth reading.
-Susan Brownmiller, author of In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution
This book lays bare how U.S. politics around race and immigration are closely connected to the struggle for reproductive freedom, both in the past and today. You will never think about reproductive rights in the same way again.
-Ibram X. Kendi, author of Stamped from the Beginning
Jenny Brown reveals to us how and why reactionary ruling interests in the United States support heavy birth rates and oppose both abortion and birth control. Also given is a good report of various other countries and their prevailing interests. In all, an excellent read!
-Michael Parenti, author of Democracy for the Few
Why are we still struggling for childcare and paid leave in the U.S.? Basic rights to birth control and abortion? In Birth Strike , Jenny Brown exposes the economic interests at play and shows the mighty power of women to change the game.
-Lise Vogel, author of Marxism and the Oppression of Women
Birth Strike is an important contribution to the subject of women and our reproductive rights. Unlike much of the literature on contraception and abortion, Jenny Brown situates her analysis within the larger economic context of both labor and human rights.
-Ti-Grace Atkinson, author of Amazon Odyssey and founder of The Feminists
Jenny Brown s book Birth Strike is a game-changer and is equal in significance to Betty s Friedan s F eminine Mystique in the 1960s, which sparked a movement.
-Carol Downer, Feminist Women s Health Centers cofounder
Jenny Brown provides a compelling case that the battle over abortion and birth control is not just a religious or cultural difference of opinion. Rather, within these battles are deeper debates over the control of human labor . Filled with fascinating history and contemporary analysis, this book illuminates how women s liberation is in fundamental conflict with capitalism. Read this book to learn how women must take their political struggle beyond what are often narrowly misunderstood as women s issues.
-Stephanie Luce, professor of labor studies, City University of New York, author of Labor Movements: Global Perspectives

Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight over Women s Work
Jenny Brown
2019 PM Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-62963-638-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018948918
Cover by John Yates / www.stealworks.com
Interior design by briandesign
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PM Press
PO Box 23912
Oakland, CA 94623
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Printed in the USA by the Employee Owners of Thomson-Shore in Dexter, Michigan.
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To the next generation:
Alex, Amelia, Andre, Eli, Eliza, Ella, Enzo, Isaac, Kieran, Malcolm, Max, Milo, Reina, Robin, Rory, Sadie, Sarah, Simone, and Zoey
CONTENTS Introduction Global baby bust highlights necessity of reproductive work-in the United States, birth rates hit record low-abortion is under attack but also contraception-feminists give various explanations why birth control is targeted, but low birth rate is not among them-lessons from the morning-after pill struggle-a note on the power structure CHAPTER 1 International Comparisons Birth rate debate is overt in other countries-low birth rates are seen as threat to economies-Japan, China, Russia, Turkey, Germany, France, and Sweden change policies in response to birth slowdowns-paid family leave, child allowances, and childcare contrast to U.S. case CHAPTER 2 Small Government, Big Families Costs of parenthood, from childcare to college, are pushed onto the family- pro-family rhetoric means family instead of government, putting unpaid work on women-rather than assistance, parents face enforcement-wage stagnation means both parents must work for pay, squeezing the family care job into time after work CHAPTER 3 Is It a Birth Strike? Women Testify Women tell it like it is about motherhood in the United States and analyze their decisions to have or not have children-many stop at one-testimony suggests that women are on an informal, uncoordinated birth strike in response to bad reproductive working conditions CHAPTER 4 Comstockery to the Baby Boom Comstock Law outlaws abortion and contraception in 1873-abortion made illegal because married women are shirking their duty to have babies-law the culmination of a campaign to impose reproductive control on women-feminist campaign for birth control loosens laws by 1930s-Comstock not fully overcome until feminism s second wave CHAPTER 5 Population Panic to the Baby Bust Baby booms cause establishment panic about overpopulation, though they still regulate abortion-panic confuses feminists, do the powerful want us to have babies or not?-population panic subsides with falling birth rates by the mid-1970s-feminists still suspect they want to restrict births, especially among the unemployed, low-waged, and people of color CHAPTER 6 Longevity: Crisis or Blessing? Social Security has pooled the risk of having children, freeing women-politicians complaints that an aging population cannot be supported are a ruse-productivity has risen but workers haven t benefitted-cuts to Social Security force older workers onto the labor market and make retirees dependent on their children CHAPTER 7 Immigration: Instant Adults Low birth rates have created bipartisan fervor to recruit workers from abroad- solution involves ripping off mothers, parents, and societies elsewhere- guest worker systems are an employer favorite providing maximum flexibility-but problems for the power structure have them fighting each other to a deadlock over immigration-current levels don t make up for deficit in births CHAPTER 8 Reproduction and Race U.S. elites face contradiction since slavery times: they want the work of black people but fear organizing and revolts-southern power structure panics when workers leave during Great Migration-but with postwar rise of black resistance, forced sterilization becomes prevalent CHAPTER 9 Cheap Labor Do more workers mean lower wages? The debate among Smith, Malthus, and Marx-the importance of working-class power to the question-early twentieth-century calls for birth strike are controversial on the left-modern-day liberal Malthusians say they can fix poverty with birth control-birth strikes reveal the value of our unpaid work CHAPTER 10 Cannon Fodder World s most expensive military is in a bind from lower birth rates-unpopular wars make draft untenable-enticing recruits costs more, while tax base of workers to fund military is shrinking-two decades of war lead to recruitment crisis-costs of empire vacuum up resources needed to sustain republic CHAPTER 11 Controlling the Means of Reproduction Time to expose the high birth rate agenda-make sure no woman has to bear a child because she couldn t get contraception or abortion-use our leverage to demand better conditions for the work of reproduction-target those who are benefitting from our reproductive work but not contributing to it-unite 99 percent around well-funded programs that cover everyone APPENDIX Consciousness-Raising Questions ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ABOUT THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
T his book argues that the effort to block birth control and abortion in the United States is neither fundamentally about religion nor about politicians pandering to a right-wing base, nor is it a result of prudery, nor is it to punish women for having sex. It is about the labor of bearing and rearing children: who will do it and who will pay for it.
In the 1960s feminist movement, women s childbearing role was primarily seen as a vulnerability, an unfair burden, and an excuse t