Tokyo Olympics Chief Says Women Talk Too Much At Meetings
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That's a strawman generalisation that lets you avoid addressing the specific thing being referred to.
You've got it backwards. "This conversation is evidence of rape culture" and "you're part of it too" are dismissive nonsense that avoid addressing the specific thing being referred to.
Yeah I've heard their school exams are grueling and students kill themselves if they don't get a high enough score. And they have a huge problem with Otaku and marriage-age men just not wanting the responsibilities of a family.
Yeah, on top of the standard Late Stage Capitalism impediments to marriage and kids (low job security, bad pay, lackluster benefits, super long hours, housing costs, etc), basically demanding adolescents *not* form interpersonal relationships, especially with the opposite sex, for a significant portion of their schooling to obtain the Holy Test Score might've caused some unintended results.
Oh yeah, see that in a lot of places. Parents who are all "Concentrate on study, not dating" for years, and suddenly switch over to "When am I getting grandkids?" with no warning. In one of the Rivers of London books, this was expressed along the lines of "He can start thinking about women once he's married and has kids".
One thing I find very sinister about concentrating on studies to all exclusions is students are fed the lie that some day they'll be at the top of the corporate ladder, that employers want to hire the Brainiac over the charismatic candidate. And that's just not true. So much of job security and promotion comes from personality and being able to work with others, not just being the smartest in the room.
So these kids are robbed of adolescences, can't date or hang out, all on the promise they'll make it big in corporate work, and then find themselves single and alone, in dead end jobs with no promotion in sight while someone who studied less but spent more time socializing rises further.
Even in such a stiff and repressed culture like Japan the ones who succeed are either likable and good to work with, or just a relative/friend of the boss(but that part isn't restricted to Japanese culture)
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To be fair, as a marriage age man in the US, I don't want the responsibilities of a family either. I don't like children, and I really like saving money by not having to care for them.
Societies can deal with a small amount of those. Besides it's not like you don't have anything going on with your life (hopefully). The otaku, "herbivore", "manchild-4-ever", phenomenon is a guy saying "it ain't that bad", when society asks them how they can settle for nothing. Of course these people have more than simply nothing, but it doesn't amount to much more than a fleeting hedonistic existence.
Same (except in the UK). I mean, I'm sure kids are great and all that, but, like, I can't be bothered. They just look like so much effort, and apparently you have to sustain that effort for ages. I reckon a lot of people just have them because they're bored. Just learn to build a robot or something.
I, as a parent, can confirm that they take LOT of effort. Probably either pick work or parenting. Doing both is the worst
If they are happy what's the problem? It's their life. If people want relationships and/or children they are free to pursue it.
I'd say the real problem is people who have children that shouldn't. Children that are neglected or abused. I never understood how anyone could do that but they most likely never wanted kids in the first place. I don't think there is a stronger case someone should never be pressured into doing something they aren't comfortable with, and that goes for both men and women.
Now ofcourse maybe in Japan other societal factors are involved but I don't really think so. Marriage and fertility rates plummeted in the western world as well(particularly Europe, and then espescially Germany). And Germany is probably one of the most luxurious welfare states with lenient working hours and child care compensations. I think the primary reason is that we don't have to conform to traditional role models anymore, and people are free to adopt alternative lifestyles. What probably also contributes is that people have gotten really ehm..criticial in partner choice but that is most likely a separate discussion. We don't really 'need' eachother anymore so it's mostly down to looks and physical attraction now.
Eventually society as a whole should accomodate to this trend of an aging population and many to most people being single. It also comes with a lot of positives like less of a need for constant economic growth that is wrecking the environment and stressing people out. The current economic model isn't sustainable anyway. More disease and more weather disasters will become the norm not to mention the loss in biodiversity, rising sea levels and deforestation. We are only having our first taste with covid, massive forest fires, tornadoes and blistering heat waves. So yeah if people don't have, or don't want, families and/or children I definitely don't think they should be stigmatized for that.
I wholly agree with the first part, the major reason neither my brother or I, both fairly well educated and well paid individuals, won't have kids isn't because of cost but because we would feel neglectful in attempting when trying live the life we want and raising children.
The second part I'm not so sure about, I rather think that many modern societies, at least western ones, have realized that self-realization isn't just going down a checklist. Whereas the previous generations thought that a life well lived required children and marriage the newer generations are far less bound by tradition.
As for the third point I'm not quite sure, anecdotally I don't see a lot of focus on appearances but rather overall compatibility, but meeting potential partners has become more difficult with more people being almost exclusively at home or work, perhaps interspersed with social interaction between friends. For most young westerners you have to either meet someone at work, find someone that you turn out to like(and who stays with you) during your youth, or go to dating services (still a fair bit of stigma there).
Children are like anything else: you have to produce the bad ones in order to get the good ones too.
There's a fair argument that it's better than a fleeting non-hedonistic existence. And we can't do anything about the "fleeting" part, really, so we might as well enjoy the time we have.
The birthrate is high enough where I live, and where most of us live. It could, if anything, afford to be a bit lower.
You caught my drift. Though I can't agree with anything related to antinatalism, even if only tangentially.
Afaik, that "herbivore" term means the guy has no ambition whatsoever, and thus it would be the easy lifestyle first and then whatever job that makes it possible. I wrote a bunch of alternative terms because they apply variably. Like over here and possibly in other Nordic countries being a welfare NEET for ever is a possibility. Though a closer resemblance could be to a semi-professional gamer/streamer who supports himself with a low-paying job.
Knocking on a topic that's bigger than this thread, but I'll summarize something off the top of my head.
In the long run any antinatalism or "childfree" sentiments sort themselves out. However, during the course of a lifetime our way of life can doom itself, as dying societies have little authority in deciding the future. The liberal-minded people that consider maybe having one child think that the people moving in to keep demographics afloat will adopt their values instead of just their consumerism. I wouldn't bet on it.
About partners, there are still overwhelming trends in people's attitudes and what everyone ends up with. Even the persistent singles usually get into a monogamous relationship in their 30s. (1-2% of men are of course "doomed" due to demographics, but that's one thing we can't do anything about.) But before that age range the average guy is at a massive disadvantage akin to the infamous 20/80 rule that online dating and big cities exacerbate further into the inflated expectations that you describe.
I'm not really thinking about anti-natalism. Just arguing against the presumption that the "best" or most valid life goal for an individual is to have children. That's a damaging attitude as far as I'm concerned, which pigeonholes people into roles they don't always feel comfortable with.
I'm not cut out to have kids, honestly, and I don't think I'd be very good at raising one.