Sunday, March 18, 2012

Women's Empowerment Meme Getting Filtered Out By Natural Selection

Is the meme for women's empowerment getting filtered out in the process of natural selection in mainstream Secular/Humanist traditions?

I personally am in favor of women's empowerment, however the Universe itself is impartial and this very recent meme may not be cut out for survival in its current form.

The basic hypothesis is that in the short-lived Western Secular/Humanist mainstream tradition, women have the right to choose who they marry, when or if they should have children or have a career, and are free to divorce or leave a partner.  This is having the effect of reducing the number of offspring these women have - both genetically and memetically.  Statistically, the wealthier and more empowered the woman, the less likely she is to have the 2.1 kids required to replace them and their partner.  Add to that the fact that they tend to have them later in life when genetic damage has accumulated.

Most of the transfer of memes from generation to generation occurs between parent and child, though the spread of popular culture accounts for a lot of meme transfer also.  Hence the memes for women's empowerment are not replicating fast enough to replace themselves and should be dying out.

Facts to back up this hypothesis are: most of the wealthy Western Secular/Humanist nations as well as Japan are declining in population.  Non-Secular traditions where women are not fully empowered are increasing in population.

The only mitigating factor appears to be media such as TV, books, magazines and movies from Western popular culture.  These memes and belief constructs such as Democracy, Human Rights can spread to the youth of societies where women are statistically not empowered and change them slowly and subtly.

Further evidence that this issue has been recognized can be seen in incentive programs offered to families to have children.

The only reason the USA maintains or slowly grows its population is the influx of migrants and the relatively large number of women who are not fully empowered.

Perhaps cultures where women are empowered will finish the job of liberating women by making this empowerment sustainable.  This might require incentives and compensation to women for child-bearing  and rearing, some of which we see in European countries.

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