Tacky Alert.
I suppose it makes sense that if something doesn’t work, to fix it. So one might give Hakuo Yanagisawa credit for good intentions. The BBC reports on foot in mouth disease:
Haku
o Yanagisawa called for women to do their best to bear children in order to counter Japan’s plummeting birth rate and rapidly ageing population.
“Because the number of birth-giving machines and devices is fixed, all we can ask for is for them to do their best per head,” he said. [photo added]
NaomiC, Corrent Wire,whispers sweetly, “This shit has got to stop!:”
You know, just when I think we’re making progress against males’ stereotypical attitudes toward women, we see that we haven’t progressed past “baby-makers”.
Just when I think we’re making progress on a every woman’s right to make her own decisions and not have religion derail the train of progress, we see that another group/society/culture wants to send us back into “our traditional roles”—wombs on two legs. (Not to mention, save Japan from a loss of taxpayers???)
Lisa, ToykoMango says, “I think Japan needs a new health minister:”
Interesting…I was not aware that my main purpose as a Japanese woman was to give birth. He must be very disappointed in me and all the other childless females out here. Sorry, dude.
BD, Lagged, says:
I don’t know much about Japanese society, so can’t comment. But it’s sickening nevertheless.
Bill Belew, Rising Sun of Nihon asks:
[M]en are asking where to apply the oil to make the ‘machines’ work better.
(H/T photo: Cassandra Does Toyko )
Update: Yanagisawa obviously got his ages wrong. James Joyner, Outside the Beltway posts:
A 67-year-old who gave birth to twins last month lied to a Los Angeles fertilization clinic.
Gee twins at sixty-seven. Still time for Mrs. Pelosi of have two more and demonstate her superior ability at multi-tasking.
Tags: BitsBlog, International affairs, Life, Social Issues
January 28th, 2007 at 20:52
Tacky?
Oh, I dunno.
Not so long ago, the Chinese decided that place limits on childbirth, for reasons of their own. What followed was a disaster, that the Chinese will be feeling for generations.
Now, I wonder, what is the difference between that disaster, and the one caused by the supposed Feminist?
January 28th, 2007 at 21:02
Well a major difference is that the Chinese government had the power to impose their views In contrast the gender feminist movement, a.k.a. the cows, has undue influence but is far from control. Most women have rejected the extremes of gender feminism.
Mrs. Clinton will be disappointed when she does not carry the women’s vote.
January 28th, 2007 at 21:15
David;
frankly I’m not quite sure about your observations that the influence we are speaking about does not equal control. I submit that the difference involved is one of time. Granted that the greater power of the two was in the hands of the Chinese government, and thereby their wishes took far less time to be put into practice. That said, however, consider this;
I have often in the spaces made the observation that there is a major difference between changing the behavior of someone, or a group of someone’s via an external control, and changing the behavior of someone, or a group of someone’s via a change of mind set. Of the two, the latter is infinitely more powerful, and infinitely longer lasting.
Of the two, it seems to me that in this case the restrictions being placed on childbirth by the political left, is in the long run an equal danger to said restrictions being placed by the government. Indeed, because it is stronger and longer lasting, the non governmental pressure is in fact more dangerous over the long haul.
Do not misunderstand; I think the argument, (at least as translated… and I wonder if that’s not part of the issue, here), is lame in the extreme. the argument could have and should have been far better made. But I don’t know as I’m going to come out with guns blazing, simply because he made that argument. Those reacting to Yanagisawa’s statements would do well to consider the social disaster occurring just a few thousand miles from where Yanagisawa was speaking.
January 29th, 2007 at 6:39
Confesssion, I had some nebulous idea of tying in Mrs. Pelosi’s boosting of her fecundacy as supporting the idea of the baby makiug machine. Instead I took the low route and used the Bill Belew comment a punch line.
January 29th, 2007 at 7:26
(Chuckle)
Well, that’s an interesting point is well. I wonder myself, how she would deal with such a comment. But I wonder if the left is honest enough to look at the questions Yanagisawa raises, as regards the social impact of the lower birthrates that are the end in fact of what the left has been pushing for years.
Before the readers start misunderstanding me, and I suspect to some degree that’s already happened, there are no real hard and fast answers to this one. I for one, certainly don’t want the government mandating a birthrate, regardless which direction that may go. On the other hand, however, I don’t think that we can so blithely discount the effect on our society that major changes of the like can bring.