Yes, I’m not denying that. But the point is to ensure the ability to make that choice for ourselves, either way. Patriarchal control rested on not just control of childbearing, but on alternatives to that. Do you think that nuns or women who couldn’t conceive children or women who were before or past childbearing age were somehow magically exempt from patriarchal control? While childbearing was certainly central to it, the crux of the matter was control of almost every aspect of a woman’s life and there being no legal, social, or economic alternative to that.
In the current era, some of this is women fighting over the definition of what a “real” woman is. Some women sneer at women who stay home and raise children and some women who have children sneer at working women - it’s all bullshit posturing if you ask me and does nothing to help us create a more egalitarian society. Having children or not having children should not define a woman. Period.
