From This Japanese Newspaper, the Japanese Minister of Health recently uttered this wee bit politically incorrect remark.
In my perverse way, I find the situation slightly humorous, but the sentiment if meant seriously provides ample room for outrage. Outrage I say!
The saying does make you think though… if Women were machines and then gave birth to other women… would that not preclude an invasion of lethal cybernetic fembots. I have enough trouble with women without them being frenetic baby-raisin’ killing machines.
Ok, I should stop before I hijack my own thread yet another time…
Well, since per the article, “Japan’s per rate is just 1.26 babies per woman over a lifetime”, then Japanese women aren’t particularly efficient machines, and perhaps Toyota or Nintendo should be consulted.
First women begin their campaign to take over the world, THEN I learn that I’ve been using the word “preclude” wrong for about twelve years of my young life. Not only that, it’s one of my favorite words. It ranks similar to embolden…
Of course, once cloning is perfected, we’ll have no need for women who don’t look like Heidi Klum …
I really can’t believe a nation with restaurants that have signs saying “No Gaijin Allowed” would have such an insensitive government official. I am in shock!
I know this is a joke thread now, but I like shilling for the The Red Queen, which attempts to answer the fundamental question of why animals have sex at all. After all, if a mutant woman started to give birth asexually like aphids then she would massively outcompete and outnumber the slow sexually reproducing humans within a couple generations, especially since she would give 100% of her genes as opposed to only 50%…right? Well, it’s a lil more complicated than that. But sex = good for populationss, so a a parthenogenisis program wouldn’t work so well unless there was excellent genetic engineering to go along with it.
Indeed, while I’m not too fond of Japanese men, I have to admit that seems rather weak to angry over. If you are a medical person and discussing fertility, talking in mechanical terms doesn’t seem particularly out of place. So far as mother nature is concerned, people are just baby-making cogs.
No, thanks. I heard an explanation of that the other week and it comprehensively cured me of any lingering curiosity that might have led me to actually view the picture. :eek:
tubgirl?
I heard about Japan’s declining population growth on NPR’s Worldview. It was a fascinating program (ok-I was painting the living room while I listened, but still). I think there is a definite clash between cultural mores and modern life working its way out in Japan.
Why is the onus on the women? Where is the Ministry of Health’s comment on the male part of this equation?
Wikipedia link describing the picture - safe in the sense that it does not contain the image itself, but the description still might disturb some people.
