Bout time we called those axolotl tanks what they are!

Kevin M on January 28, 2007 at 11:43 PM

It’s about time a Tleilaxu Master put those powindah females in their place.

Does anyone here get upset when their doctor talks to them using jargon? I don’t.

oh well!

Where’s the outrage at those statements?

And as pointed out by others, perhaps those “eminent women” should take a look at their tanking birth-rate and become outraged that their society as a whole is circling the drain rather than at an old man’s slip of the tongue.

But then “eminent women” thrive on outrage, don’t they?

Mt

Given the disastrously low birth rate in Japan, I think the outrage should be directed at the failure of Japanese men to view women as childbearers.
Ali-Bubba on January 28, 2007 at 11:46 PM

I disagree with you on this point (your three views of women description is a good one that I did like.)

The Japanese men are not at fault – rather it is the terribly high cost of living in Japan that has contributed the most to the lower birth rate. This is the biggest reason,other factors do contribute but it centers on the cost of living.
Having lived in Japan for many years I had the opportunity to come to know the Japanese well. Their traditional values and societal norms are similar to our pre 60′s changes in the U.S.

Where this will be particularly tough for Japan and many other countries (Germany has been having lower birth rates for sometime now) is the changes to their culture brought on by immigration from other countries, as people are welcomed in larger numbers to sustain the society. IMHO it is the biggest strength the US has in its acceptance of so many more immigrants (legal of course) and the constant infusion of new blood into our society.

The intent of the minister’s comments was perfectly valid, even if his alliterative choice was poor. The number of women of childbearing age is a known quantity. It is a societal issue whether enough of them choose to perform in that capacity. Heavy duty blurring of lines here. It shouldn’t be government’s purview, in a free society, to attempt to control the birthrate, either up or down. But when the condition reaches near disastrous levels, the structure of that society is threatened.

The only wise choice for the government is providing strong positive incentives to families who are willing to grow.

Is it demeaning to think of a woman in the context of maternity? In a society teetering toward extinction, is the minister wrong to view the forgone reproductive opportunities as a net loss to Japan’s future?

There are 3 ways for men to look at women:
1. Androgynously – Women and men are essentially the same. They are units of labor production, and must be treated equally.
2. Sex objects — Women exist to provide sexual pleasure to men (a/k/a “Bill Maherism”).
3. Romantically — Woman as lifelong companion, soulmate, “the mother of my children.”

#1 & #2 are formulas for social disaster.

What he really meant was ‘devices’.

Before his speech was over, Mr Yanagisawa seemed to realise that he caused offence. “I’m sorry to call them machines,” he said afterwards.

Oh, I’m sorry, after the defeat of the Imperial Japanese Army and Empire, thousands of dead American Soldiers, countless Chinese, Philipinoes, Australians, New Zelanders, etc… etc…. then the Marial Plan, years and billions in re-building, terrorists, “civil war”……. then after all this, his comments “caused offence” and he apologized.

Kinda sounds like a part of the world that the United States is currently engaged in….. with a lot less deaths to American troops, nor civilian populations, no matter how the left and MSM want to spin it, but with the goal in it’s sights.

Time to pull out Mz. Clinton, Mr. “swimmer”, Lurch????

Please define the difference……. with nuance, and spin, and revisionist history…. we are waiting.

In the 1920s, Le Corbusier put himself on the map as an avant-garde architect by famously referring to the home as “the machine for living in”. But this machine analogy by Japan’s health minister is in a class of its……

The controversy goes to the heart of the debate about one of Japan’s most intractable social problems — the disinclination of its women machines to have children.

He was attempting to be politically correct by wishing the women to all be the same, like machines. No superiority/inferiority toward anyone. Socialism and feminism pure and simple. What’s the rub?

Environmentalists and Mr. Gore should like the statistics, though.

Another reality based point of view that will no longer be heard from because of the words he used. Japan is getting older, this is true. But no one will face it. Before its too late.