I read a compelling article recently that said if we want to successfully avert climate collapse and our potential extinction, we must primarily deal with the root of rampant over population and not just our pollution impact and land use footprint.
I think we all essentially know this, however this subject essentially remains the elephant in the room of climate change conversations. Everyone, climate activists and political campaigners included, seem to be avoiding this subject for fear of the very unpopular implication that it might require us to consider legislating restrictions on the right to procreate. Imagine having to apply to your government when you want to have children or imagine having ‘illegal’ pregnancies forcefully terminated by population police; people would be up in arms and there would be riots. Our right to procreate as humans is precious and fundamental to us above all other rights, yet this is what is literally choking our mother planet, we are mindlessly breeding like a parasitic infestation and we can’t even take care of the population we already have. How do we transform this knowing that our very survival and the quality of our existence on this planet is at stake?
What this article proposes as a solution, however, is something completely different to the common thinking. It outlines that if we truly want to reverse the trend of population we must focus our efforts on empowering and educating woman globally.
Research worldwide shows that when woman are educated and culturally, politicly and economically empowered they are naturally less inclined to have as many children. This makes complete sense as woman are by nature more sensitive to the order and harmony of their environment as well as the needs and future of their children. We then realise that this out of balance, this epidemic of over population is fundamentally a symptom of patriarchy. Men have dominated the decision making with regards to woman’s reproduction for centuries under the guise of survival and protecting lineage, race and culture of family, tribes and nations. The old adage ‘keep her pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen’ is exactly how we got to a world population of 7.7 billion people. Over population has everything to do with the striving of men’s desire for ‘more’, more land, more wealth, more power, more status and of course more children.
We simply do not need more people on this planet in fact we need to reduce. With mechanised technology we no longer need the quantitive labour force to manufacture or build, we do not need large ranks soldiers to protect our boundaries, medicine is improving lifespan and reducing the impact of disease. One by one we have removed the usual population and lifespan regulators. Our new value system of aspiration needs to be about the shared quality and depth of our living experience not the quantitive value of having. To do this we need to return to the most effective population regulator of all: a woman’s choice.
In this context gender equality and woman’s liberation takes on a whole new significance for it is now actually about saving our planet. With that sense of urgency in mind it should fundamentally change the way we perceive and approach woman’s liberation. In this context governments worldwide should be mandated to provide quality and compulsory education for girls, woman should be preferred for major career opportunities and daughters should even be getting the lions share of their family inheritances. Is that really such an unrealistic possibility to embrace given what we are facing?
Should we rather not do what it takes to restore a natural environment for individual self regulation and self governance. It’s either this or we get to the point where dictator styles governments will be justified to declare a state of emergency on a woman’s reproductive rights. That will take us back to the stone age of patriarchy and the oppression of the feminine.
When we empower and educate woman as a priority, the future of humanity will undoubtedly stand a better chance. We don’t ultimately stand to lose, it will be like learning to write with your other hand and shifting dominance over to the other side of the brain; it ultimately serves the same body, its just learning a different way of being.
The time of the masculine principle dominating this planet is over, as men in power we have done all the competing, fighting and expanding that our planet can possibly tolerate; patriarchy has truly had its day. I believe our job as men in this new age is to clean up the global mess we have created; to start with ourselves and then extend that transformation and healing to all. We need to be willing to resign our majority stake in decision making positions of politics, economics and religion and focus our expertise and energy on on nature conservation and restoration, sustainable technology and present child rearing. We also need to do a lot more singing and dancing to learn to get out of our heads and into our bodies to connect once again to mother nature and to understand how we can serve her instead of serving our own egos. This not as radical as we may think, many men are doing it already, this is what the emerging sacred masculine of the new earth will look like. Right now now we just need to get over our fear of losing our privilege and dominance; it can be done.
The German nation is a great example, it went from being a Nazi dictatorship in the last century hell bent on taking over the world to one of the most prosperous humanitarian nations in the world; it took less than two decades.
Men of all nations, races and cultures can likewise transform the character of masculinity to become more ecologically connected, emotionally sensitive, nurturing warriors of our planet and woman can deal with the lions share of decision making and finances. I am not even kidding or being ironic, I believe its actually the best chance we have of restoring wellbeing to our civilisation. With woman around the world being liberated and holding the majority of decision making positions not only will this naturally resolve over population but also change the context of political and economic policies particularly affecting pollution, land use and the need for wars.
The well known prophecy that the “meek shall inherit the earth”, is mostly likely pointing to phenomena that the feminine shall inherit the earth… and they should.
The priority of climate change activism efforts should be a woman’s liberation.
What do you think?
Hymn Jay
Heinrich is a life and spiritual coach, shamanic facilitator and theatre-makerhttps://www.tigerhymn.com/
