This is a repost from The Fiamengo File wherein two women discuss feminist psychopathy and the choice of childlessness. If it’s too long, skip to the case studies of miserable women of every age in therapy trying to figure out from whence the misery. Every single young woman you know must read this, at least consider it. A full third are choosing not to breed. And if the stats hold, 90% of them will regret it, some bitterly.
They have been lied to. Childless women – particularly boomers in their senior years – never ever discuss the misery of skipping children. I know dozens, if not hundreds of them, GenX too, and for that solid 90% it is an enduring sorrow.
I am not a biological determinist, nor am I from a family that favors one choice or another. My stay-at-home mother advised my daughter to go back to work after she had twins, even though she already had a toddler. Luckily her employer was fully supportive. One of my grandmothers was a prairie schoolteacher; the other was a socialite who went round the world ten times; toss up as to who was more satisfied with herself, but I tend towards the prairie schoolteacher, though we can easily guess who had the most hedonistic fun..
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But these two thinkers below go deeper, suggesting that there is an inescapable bio-dynamic between men and women, that together, they are stronger, in that they serve one another. Shorn of that, we falter and run to neurosis, even madness. As a collective, I suspect, we are seeing the latter.
There is no right course, there is only choice. And information. This is meant as the latter, more data coming in from the generations that fell for feminist ideology.
Janice Fiamengo, a retired English professor steps up.
Last winter, it was my pleasure to engage in a long-form email conversation with Dr. Hannah Spier, MD, co-author of the podcasts “What Should I Tell My Daughter?” and “Psychobabble.” Hannah Spier is a Norwegian-born medical doctor with a specialization in psychiatry. She writes and speaks extensively on subjects of mental and physical health, policy, child rearing, and feminism from a compassionate conservative perspective. She now lives in Switzerland with her husband and three small children.
In a series of exchanges over about two months, we discussed Hannah’s decision—with the support of her husband but against the advice of family and friends—to quit her psychiatric practice in order to be a stay-at-home mother. We also explore her contention, based on extensive work with female patients, that feminism is literally making women ill by encouraging them to postpone (or altogether forego) childbearing. The conversation went in some surprising directions and led me to ruminations I had not anticipated. I am grateful to Dr. Spier for her deep engagement on these issues.
**
JF: Hannah, thank you very much for agreeing to this dialogue.
You have a podcast with the intriguing title “What Should I Tell My Daughter?” You write that the podcast “challenges the messaging directed at girls and young women over the past four decades” with a focus on “women’s deteriorating mental health.”
Could you explain what motivated you to start the podcast, what subjects you have focused on, and how you became interested, also, in the issues facing boys and men?
HS: Thank you for your interest in my work; I’m excited to share it with you and take the opportunity to pick your brain.
I started the podcast after years of clinical work as a psychiatrist, struggling to handle the insurmountable list of patients. They were mostly women with psychopathologies I have come to believe are caused by adhering to values shaped by feminism. The damage already done to the family at the point of therapeutic intervention is devastating, and the podcast is my attempt at doing preventative work. We must change women’s mindset before psychopathology develops.
I try appealing to women, as they hold the power to set the framework in which children grow up. That’s why I intersperse topics pertaining to the need for cultural change, which is my focus (i.e., feminism and the consequences of the sexual revolution), with human interest topics like dieting and toxic relationships.
My own personal journey from modern career woman to traditional conservative stay-at-home mom has shown me how one woman’s awakening can have a radical influence on the well-being of the man involved: my husband. While concern for the mental health of girls and women was the original driving force behind the podcast, through further study and conversations, such as with Dr. Aman Siddiqi, who came on the show, I realize that the problem is bigger than simply the messaging of girls.
For instance, my son is a typical boisterous boy who’s never happier than when running into things screaming “Hulk smash.” He should be met with “boys will be boys,” but instead people admonish and disapprove. The fear for my sons is a helpless one, because the risk they face isn’t preventable by making different choices. They will meet a society prejudiced against them, tailored for girls to succeed: a society that breeds real pathologies by medicating the disorders they socially construct (i.e., ADHD). That’s why I’m naming season 2 “Psychobabble,” and plan on attacking a broader range of issues where the culprit is feminism.
As someone new to advocacy with enthusiasm and hope, I’m grappling with the challenge of charting a course. Here, I think your input would be extremely valuable. How has your journey informed the way you approach the fight against feminism? What are the most common mistakes people make?
JF: There is much here that I’d like to know more about. I’d like to ask you, if you don’t mind, to share something about how you made that turn from “modern career woman to traditional conservative stay-at-home mom.” Was it gradual or sudden? Was it triggered by a single experience, or was it more of a conscious choice over time?
I had a somewhat unusual trajectory, going from radical feminist to not-particularly-traditional (but radical) anti-feminist. It wasn’t typical and I’m not sure the experience has equipped me to analyze feminism’s effect on women as well as I would like: I sometimes think that my mind doesn’t tend to work like other women’s minds do.
In brief, I was devoted to my academic career for a long time and never became a mother. I have felt guilty about that and also fraudulent: what right have I to discuss the harms of feminism for families, especially children, when I’ve never raised children? (Unlike many women, I suspect, I was born without any maternal instinct. Even from the time I was four or five years old, when a mom on our street invited me and other little girls to visit her newborn baby boy, I wanted nothing to do with babies: the other little girls were excited and cooing over the infant, wanting to pick him up and cuddle him; I felt uncomfortable and awkward. That never changed.)
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It wasn’t until much later in life, in my mid-40s, that I understood in my heart that I was made to love a man and look after him. I experienced that deeply, along with a fierce outpouring of affection and angry protectiveness towards young men (and all men.) I found myself identifying viscerally with the men who have been subject to mistreatment and injustice or even simply to the blame and shame that our culture radiates at male persons. It hit me like a tidal wave when I was a university teacher, and the sense of moral outrage has never left.
Because of that primary identification, I have a hard time understanding what women, young and older, are experiencing today. I have had dozens and dozens of conversations with men about gender issues, and I have been stunned by men’s generosity towards women, their general liking of them, and even their reverence, in many cases, for women’s needs. Those conversations contradicted everything I had been told about patriarchal contempt for women. Even men who are angry or disillusioned with women almost never strike me as misogynistic.
I don’t have many conversations with women about gender issues or feminism. I am shy about speaking to women, sometimes convinced in advance that I won’t like what I discover. On some occasions, I’ve been disappointed and shocked by a casual nastiness in such conversations that has made me afraid to go much further. As a result, though I agree with you whole-heartedly that feminism will not be defeated until women join with men to throw it into the garbage bin of history, and although I agree that women too are harmed by feminism, I’m not sure what avenues to explore with them.
