Deep (and Not-So Deep) Questions of the Day

1. Is Twitter killing the blogs?

I read this somewhere, possibly on Twitter. So are we all going to tweet about our tweets once the blogs are dead and buried? Not that I would necessarily mind it. Just think of how many tweets my archives could produce!

2. What is the impact of misogynistic surveys of mothering on women's willingness to have children?

This is something I have wondered about. Most every single study that is reported anywhere on the question of mothers is Bad News For Mothers. So imagine, if you can, a girl born completely aware and rational. Imagine that girl growing up and finding that everything is the mother's fault. Everything! There is really no way of not getting at least suspected of bad mothering in this society.

The usual argument I read on the topic of women who decide not to have children is that such women are selfish, cold, uppity bitches. So even not being a mother is the woman's fault!

But at least a woman without children isn't blamed for the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or the obesity of children or not breast-feeding children long enough or of toilet-training them too early or too late. And a woman without children but with a paid job isn't accused of abandoning her children or of turning them into aggressive bullies or of not watching over them 24/7. Besides, she has time to work long enough to earn a better income for old age security.

Come to think of it, the society does very little to make motherhood an attractive proposition. Maybe that's the reason for the forced-birthers' campaign against birth control?

Whatever. It's always the whip and never the carrot.