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Wednesday, April 08, 2026

 

The backlash against the backlash: Socialist feminism & left politics in a time of reaction

By Diana O’Dwyer
Published 

feminism versus far right Rupture

First published at Rupture.

After every crisis of capitalism comes protest and social upheaval — of a progressive or reactionary character. The 2008 crash was followed by a decade of progressive mass movements: Occupy, Black Lives Matter, feminist movements for abortion rights and against gender-based violence, and revolutions and near-revolutions like the Arab Spring. In Ireland, we saw mass movements against water charges, for marriage equality and abortion rights and progressive legislation on gender recognition. Just like in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, when the civil rights movement was followed by second-wave feminism, the gay rights movement, the movement against the Vietnam War and May ‘68, the mass movements of the 2010s sparked other mass movements.

Unfortunately, both waves of progressive mass protest were also followed by, first, a global economic crisis and then a conservative backlash. In the 1970s and ‘80s, this meant the oil crisis, Reagan, Thatcher and neoliberalism. In the 2020s, the Covid crisis accelerated a growing far-right backlash and ushered in a new phase of reaction across the world. If you were looking to pinpoint a date when the anti-feminist backlash took off, it would probably be Trump’s first election as US President in November 2016. A rapist running on an anti-choice platform, Trump promised to overturn Roe v. Wade. This ultimately happened in June 2022, shortly after the Depp vs. Heard trial sounded the death knell for #MeToo. Trump’s second Presidency has put the backlash into turbo drive. The most powerful man on earth is again a known rapist. DEI programmes have been decimated, reproductive rights are under attack and traditional gender roles are being forcibly reaffirmed.

The seeds of the backlash were already there pre-Covid, but lockdown isolated people from real life, and the algorithm enticed them into noxious online echo chambers. This created the perfect environment for a paranoid conspiracy theory pipeline, leading from Covid denialism and anti-vax propaganda to racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. We all have friends, family members or co-workers who have lost their minds since Covid - their brains swamped by a never-ending flood of shit.

To paraphrase Marx and Engels, no matter how much progress we make under capitalism, short of a revolution, we cannot finally rid ourselves of the “muck of ages” — it will re-emerge in various forms until the whole rotten system is overthrown. This is painfully apparent in two of the main fronts in the current anti-feminist backlash — reproductive rights and the family — and gender-based violence.

Reproductive rights & the family

Historically, fascists were notorious for burning books. Now they want to burn contraceptives as well. It was reported in July1 that the Trump administration had decided to incinerate nearly $10 million worth of contraceptives earmarked for USAID programmes in Africa. A State Department official referred to them as “certain abortifacient birth control commodities from terminated Biden-era USAID contracts” because the stocks included IUDs and emergency contraceptives.2 This is connected to the dismantling of USAID — but the reason the Trump administration wanted to burn the contraceptives rather than sell them or give them away is clearly ideological. Blocked by laws in Belgium (where the contraceptives are stored) that prohibit incinerating reusable medical devices, the plan now seems to be to allow them to expire. Planned Parenthood estimates this will lead to 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions.

This literal destruction of reproductive rights is going hand in hand with the rise of a reactionary pro-natalism — championed most notoriously by Elon Musk, the slayer of USAID, who has fathered fourteen children with at least four different women. Outside of Musk’s tech bro weirdness, pro-natalism is more usually associated with the valorisation of marriage, the traditional nuclear family and rigid gender roles. It is intrinsically bound up with racism; its raison d’etre is to avoid immigration - the only other way to grow the labour supply.

The “tradwife” phenomenon is part of this. Sophie Lewis3 analyses it as an attempt to escape the “double shift” of paid and unpaid work. Women’s participation in the workforce has meant they end up doing two jobs instead of one, while their wages are swallowed up by housing and childcare costs. People cannot afford to have children until their 30s or 40s and so end up having fewer children or none at all. Parents, especially women, are exhausted by this double shift.

The far right’s response to this crisis of biological and social reproduction under capitalism is to blame it on feminism — just like they blame the housing and cost of living crisis on migrants. They say that a man’s wage used to be able to support the whole family. But now, because of feminism, everyone has to work. So it’s feminism that is destroying families, driving down birth rates and driving up the cost of housing because mortgages are now based on two incomes rather than one.

This narrative exploits a sense among some men that they are being brought down to the level of women or even below — for instance, through the decline of male manual labour and feminisation of professional jobs. Of course, this ignores the fact that women are still significantly poorer than men. The hourly gender pay gap is around ten per cent but the lifetime earnings gap is much wider; women take more time out of the workforce for childcare and are more likely to work part-time. Women also do twice as much housework as men, even when both are working full-time.

Men’s loss of privilege is in no way absolute; it’s just less than it used to be. This sense by men of a loss of privilege relative to women and a desire to reassert that privilege is fuelling the rise of the far right — just like a loss, or perceived loss, of relative superiority among white people is fuelling racism. Right-wing demagogues fan the flames of this fratricidal resentment, identifying it as the perfect way to prevent working class solidarity against the billionaires they represent.

Richard Seymour writes that the “loss of distinction” is experienced by the supporters of the far right as a massive impoverishment, “tantamount to the downfall of civilization”.4 Women or black and brown people doing less badly than white men than they used to might not sound like a good enough reason to burn things down. So conspiracy theories like the “Great Replacement” are required to link it all into one great big imaginary disaster. That’s why the language of the far right is so ludicrously apocalyptic.

The politics of gender-based violence

Lurking barely below the surface of the backlash is the threat of violence. The far right cynically exploits increased concern about gender-based violence to justify pogroms against “military-aged” foreign men. Yet those involved are often perpetrators of violence against women themselves. Half of those arrested recently for racist rioting in the North of Ireland had previously been reported to the police for gender-based violence.5

Reported rates of gender-based violence are on the rise, too. This is partly due to greater awareness post-#MeToo, but the apparent proliferation of sexist attitudes since the 2010s suggests it’s also a real increase. Some studies have found worsening sexist attitudes among young men. For others, it's not so much that young men have become more sexist but that young women have become more progressive.

Research by Women’s Aid has found that 67% of young men hold, or don’t disagree with, traditionalist sexist attitudes about masculinity, compared to 40% of men overall.6 This includes beliefs like: “men who don’t dominate in relationships aren’t real men”; “Men should use violence to get respect if necessary”; “A man’s worth is measured by power and control over others” and “Real men shouldn’t have to care about women’s opinions or feelings”. Feminists often point to the growth of the manosphere as increasing sexist attitudes among young men. A study by Dublin City University7 found that within hours of setting up a social media account more than three-quarters of content recommended to 16-18 year old males on TikTok and YouTube was masculinist, anti-feminist or otherwise extremist. Big tech companies know that people watch extreme content for longer, which means they see more ads and buy more stuff. So the proliferation of the manosphere is directly driven by the attention economy big tech profits from.

Beyond the instinct to rubberneck, something else in the manosphere is appealing to young men. Women’s Aid describes influencers like Andrew Tate as “discuss[ing] themes around traditional masculinity, independence, and resilience”. Part of the reason this resonates is that the economics of late capitalism have robbed young men of autonomy and control over their own lives that would have been taken for granted in previous generations — for instance, being able to move out of their parents’ house. The average age for moving out of home is now 28.8

Men have also lost economic control over women. Increased female participation in the workforce has made women less financially dependent on men, which makes it harder for some men to form or maintain relationships. On top of this, women have more sexual freedom due to changes in attitudes towards sexuality. A Gallup poll last year found that 29% of Gen Z women in the US identified as LGBTQ+ compared to 11% of Gen Z men.9 In this context, manosphere content around working out, physical and emotional strength and dominating over women may give men back a sense of control.

As with reproductive issues, the far right speaks to real issues and anxieties but provides reactionary, sexist solutions: restoring traditional gender roles, returning women to the home, using male violence supposedly to protect us, denying us economic and biological freedom. Instead of addressing real economic causes and providing affordable housing or public childcare, the far right’s “solution” is to restore distinction and division among the working class and leave the class system intact. Ours is to abolish both distinction and the class system by fighting oppression and exploitation at the same time. That is the only way to unite the working class and end the rule of capital.

The backlash to the backlash

After several years when the far right seemed to be growing almost unopposed, there is now a growing backlash to the backlash. In the last year, we have seen renewed movements on gender-based violence, including protests in support of Nikita Hand, marches of thousands on International Women’s Day and smaller marches against the manosphere to the headquarters of social media companies. Women are also to the forefront in countering racism and in the Palestine solidarity movement, including through groups like Mothers against Genocide. An exit poll10 from the General Election last November showed twice as many women as men voted for People Before Profit, with 7% of women voting for the Social Democrats compared to 4% of men.

We can also see signs of a backlash to the backlash in recent positive election results for the left in Ireland and internationally. Catherine Connolly won the Presidential election by the largest ever margin, running on a progressive left platform that opposed imperialism and war, championed the “meitheal”11 and spoke out against the rise in anti-immigration sentiment as “misplaced” “anger … channelled to the wrong people.”12

Die Linke performed unexpectedly well in the German elections in February, running on an economically left, anti-far right platform13 and outpolling Sahra Wagenknecht’s economically left but socially conservative BSW. Hundreds of thousands of people in Britain are signing up to join Your Party and the leftward-moving Greens. Zohran Mamdani has just won the New York mayoral election on a cost-of-living-focused left platform, which included universal free childcare as a core demand and defended trans people’s right to healthcare.14 Rather than deciding “woke is dead” and throwing trans and racialised people under the bus, like some on the left have been tempted into doing, Mamdani’s success showed that it is possible to “bake in” socially progressive politics alongside a “bread and butter” left economic programme. Significantly, in addition to increasing turnout, he flipped 15% of Trump voters into supporting him.15

A notable feature of the backlash years has been a growing political gender divide internationally, from Ireland16 to the US, Europe and South Korea. This can be seen as a problem for the left because we obviously need both men and women to succeed — especially in relation to the global ecological crisis. It’s also a massive opportunity: to recruit more women and redress the historic gender imbalance across most left activist organisations.

There are also reasons to be hopeful that the gender divide is more a case of young women politicised by a decade of feminist movements moving left, than it is of young men moving right; that young men have mostly been more apathetic than radicalised.17 This is important because it means organisation and mobilisation can move young men leftward, like it has young women.

Mamdani’s election is interesting here, bucking the trend by attracting roughly equal support from women and men18 while also winning 81% of LGBTQ+ voters.19 What unites all of these recent left electoral successes is a massive youth vote. Die Linke was the most popular party for 18-24 year olds,20 62% of young voters under 30 chose Mamdani,21 and two-thirds chose Connolly.22 After several years of almost uninterrupted gloom and a seemingly inexorable drift to the far right, there is reason to be hopeful again, if we keep on fighting.

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Sunday, March 22, 2026

‘One Person Cannot Tear Our Movement Down,’ Farmworkers Say of César Chávez Revelations

“The labor movement was organized not only to protect workers’ paychecks and benefits, but also to ensure they are safe from any form of harassment, inappropriate conduct, or assault.”


Artist MisterAlek replaces a portrait of César Chávez, in a mural that he created in 2021, with a portrait of Delores Huerta, at the Watts/Century Latino Organization in Los Angeles, California on March 20, 2026.
(Photo Christina House/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Mar 21, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

“Our collective power is what defines us and is our movement, and one person cannot tear our movement down,” Alianza Nacional De Campesinas said in the wake of The New York Times reporting Wednesday on multiple sexual abuse allegations against late Mexican-American labor leader César Chávez.

“As a farmworker women’s organization, many of us have experienced or witnessed the sexual abuse and silence women endure in many aspects of our lives,” the group continued, adding that “we are deeply troubled and devastated” to learn about the reporting, and “we stand with Dolores Huerta, Ana Murguía, and Debra Rojas, who have bravely shared their painful stories.”
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Huerta, cofounded with Chávez a group that went on to become the labor union United Farm Workers (UFW). In her comments to the Times and a separate statement, the 95-year-old described two separate encounters with Chávez that led to pregnancies: “The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him... The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.”



Murguía told the Times that Chávez molested her for four years, beginning when she was 13. Rojas said she was 12 when Chávez first groped her breasts in the same office where abused Murguía. When Rojas was 15, the newspaper reported, “he arranged to have her stay at a motel during a weekslong march through California, she said, and had sexual intercourse with her—rape, under state law, because she was not old enough to consent.”

The reporting has sparked a wave of responses from labor groups, elected officials, and others who have expressed support for survivors and stressed, as Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan wrote Friday, that “the rightness of the movement for the dignity of workers, for the rights and respect of Latinos, and for a future in which there is more freedom and possibility for poor people... cannot be tarnished by Chávez’s behavior.”

UFW Foundation said this week that “as a women-led organization that exists to empower communities, the allegations about abusive behavior by César Chávez go against everything that we stand for.”

Describing the alleged abuse as “shocking, indefensible and something we are taking seriously,” the UFW Foundation also announced that it “has cancelled all César Chávez Day activities this month.”

California lawmakers are planning to rename César Chávez Day, a state holiday celebrated on March 31, Farmworkers Day. Artists and officials have begun removing plaques, murals, and other memorials.


American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations president Liz Shuler and secretary-treasurer Fred Redmond said Wednesday that in light of “these horrific, disturbing allegations,” the AFL-CIO “will not participate or endorse any upcoming activities for César Chávez Day.”

“The AFL-CIO will always stand in solidarity with farmworkers who have fought for and won critical rights over generations through collective action, resilience, and extraordinary determination—a history that cannot be erased by the horrific actions of one person.” said the pair. “The labor movement was organized not only to protect workers’ paychecks and benefits, but also to ensure they are safe from any form of harassment, inappropriate conduct, or assault. Our commitment to safety and justice for farmworkers, immigrant workers, and all in our workplaces will never waver.”

Advocacy and labor leaders also emphasized the importance of ensuring movements are save for their members. GreenLatinos founding president and CEO Mark Magaña told the survivors that “we stand with you and take this opportunity to recommit to our work supporting the farmworker community who toil in dangerous conditions, including extended exposure to extreme heat and deadly pesticides, while women farmworkers also continue to suffer from disturbingly high rates of sexual assault.”

“To our community, the movement for justice and dignity for farmworkers is much bigger than one person,” Magaña continued. “At a time when our communities are under serious attack, GreenLatinos remains committed to that movement. ¡Sí, Se Puede!”



Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, said that “Dolores Huerta, Ana Murguía, and Debra Rojas are showing us what real courage looks like. For decades, they kept secret the sexual abuse they experienced because of the power César Chávez held and his legacy within the labor and civil rights movements.”

“That kind of silence doesn’t just come from one person, it comes from systems and people in power who make women feel like speaking out will cost too much or threaten the very movement they helped build,” Simpson argued. “We stand with Dolores Huerta, Ana Murguía, Debra Rojas, and all survivors. We’re committed to building movements where no one has to carry harm or abuse in silence just to keep the work going. Our movements are bigger than one person, they belong to the people who build and sustain them. We have a responsibility to protect each other so everyone can be safe within them. That means choosing people over power and legacy, and creating spaces where safety, care, accountability, and dignity are the foundation of the work.”

The revelations about Chávez come as President Donald Trump’s administration pursues its mass deportation agenda and amid a fight for justice for survivors of Trump’s former friend, convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Members in Congress continue to call out the US Department of Justice for the Epstein files it has withheld or heavily redacted.



US Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said that the reports on Chávez “are shocking and disappointing about a leader that I for many years had looked up to, like so many Latinos growing up in the US. But as I have said many times this year—no one, no matter how powerful, is above accountability, especially when it comes to abusing young women.”

“The farmworkers’ movement has always been bigger than any one man,” declared Gallego, who represents the state where Chávez was born. “It belongs to the thousands of hardworking people who have spent decades on the front lines fighting for the dignity of agricultural workers. We have to keep that fight going, especially now, when our community is under constant attack.”

Gallego also recognized “the incredible bravery of the women who came forward,” as did Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who asserted that “there must be zero tolerance for abuse, exploitation, and the silencing of victims, no matter who is involved.”

“Confronting painful truths and ensuring accountability is essential to honoring the very values the greater farmworker movement stands for—values rooted in dignity and justice for all,” added Padilla.



Democratic Women’s Caucus Chair Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM) said that “the farmworker and civil rights movement was built by countless people—especially women and families who sacrificed everything for a better future. That history is bigger than any one person. Honoring that legacy means facing painful truths and continuing the work for justice with honesty and humanity.”

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus said that “while it’s heartbreaking when leaders are exposed as flawed beyond absolution, a just society has a duty to hold abusers accountable without exception.”

“A movement stands on its values, not the misconduct of an individual.The strength of a movement is defined by its constituency, by its achievements and, yes, by its willingness to hold its leaders accountable,” the CHC said. “We will always support the farmworkers who feed this nation, enrich our culture, and elevate our values. We commend the UFW’s courage in standing by its constituency.”

“We stand committed to work toward renaming streets, post offices, vessels, and holidays that bear Chávez’s name to instead honor our community and the farmworkers whose struggle defined the movement,” the caucus added, noting that this March 31, it will “recognize and honor farmworkers and their arduous, essential work, and reaffirm our unequivocal commitment to survivor.”


The US National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), by texting “START” to 88788, or through chat at thehotline.org. It offers 24/7, free, and confidential support. DomesticShelters.org has a list of global and national resources.
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Friday, March 20, 2026

Nandita Bajaj: Confronting Patriarchy, Pronatalism, and Population Denial



Robert Jensen
 March 20, 2026

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Not so long ago, the conventional wisdom in most liberal/left circles was that people concerned about population growth tended to be racists, nativists, and eugenicists. And mostly old white guys, according to a leading UK environmental writer.

“It’s no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: it’s about the only environmental issue for which they can’t be blamed,” wrote George Monbiot.

That description was a caricature when Monbiot wrote it, but today’s wealthiest white men (think Elon Musk) are more likely to advocate population expansion, not reduction. Environmentalists who highlight the problem of population growth—the threats to the health of ecosystems from too many people consuming too much—can’t be dismissed with slurs and stereotypes.

Nandita Bajaj—who is brown, female, and definitely not wealthy—defies those stereotypes. She chose not to have children and has dedicated her life to research and advocacy on behalf of women, vulnerable people, animals, and planetary health. Bajaj is executive director of Population Balance, a group that includes no racists, nativists, or eugenicists. Instead, its members face tough questions about the trajectory of the outsized human presence on Earth.

More differences from Monbiot’s stereotype: She’s not “obsessed” with population or interested in blaming individuals. Instead, Bajaj offers a compelling argument that population decline to a sustainable level is crucial not only for human survival but human flourishing, reflected in the group’s tag line, “shrink toward abundance.” Ironically, if anyone is obsessed about population these days, it’s those worried that falling birthrates endanger the fever dream ofendless economic growth.

“Human overpopulation is not the only factor driving ecological overshoot, but it is the most neglected one, and the factor that intensifies every crisis confronting us. And it really should be one of the most important progressive issues given its patriarchal roots,” Bajaj said. “Population growth happens on the backs of women and girls who are denied the autonomy to make liberated and informed reproductive decisions in order to serve the powerful forces of religion, nation-states, and economies. And those who deny the role of population are carrying water for the oppressive aspects of those institutions.”

Eileen Crist—a Population Balance advisor and retired professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech—said the group’s efforts to change the conversation under Bajaj’s leadership “have been a breath of fresh air.” But the message is blunt: “Population Balance is showing how consumption, population, and technospheric growth are connected and compounding variables of planetary disaster, suffering, and extinction,” Crist said.

Conventional background, unconventional choices

Bajaj was born in India in 1981 and has lived in Canada since 1998. In 2021, she took the leadership job at Population Balance, a small U.S.-based nonprofit that is growing in influence through its two podcasts (“Overshoot” and “Beyond Pronatalism”), research reports, media articles, guest presentations, and Bajaj’s debating skills. She also is a senior lecturer at Antioch University, where she teaches graduate courses about the links between pronatalism and human supremacy.

None of those endeavors was part of her plan as a young woman, when she trained to be an aerospace engineer and assumed she would be a mother. “My love for science, math, and airplanes drew me to study aerospace engineering, but a number of personal epiphanies in my late 20s pushed me to start exploring overpopulation, reproductive rights, and overshoot more seriously,” Bajaj said. “The deeper I looked, the more I started questioning the received wisdom of my cultural values.”

Bajaj grew up in a middle-class family with relatively progressive views. Both her parents were educated and had successful careers, and she had the freedom to choose her vocation. After working in aerospace engineering for a few years, she was a high school physics and math teacher and administrator. But Bajaj said marriage and motherhood seemed inevitable, even inescapable.

During that time, she met her now-husband, Mike Farley, a white Canadian who teaches high school and university courses in geography and environmental studies. Their interracial relationship caused some consternation within her family, but the decision not to have children was seen as far more radical. Bajaj remembers that when Mike first asked her about her views on having kids, she was confused.

“I asked him, ‘What do you mean? Don’t we have to?’” she said. “Mike assured me it was a decision we would make together.” Bajaj said she felt both joy and shock. “That I could choose to not have children was overwhelmingly liberating,” she said. “That I—a feminist, an aerospace engineer, and a seemingly independent thinker—hadn’t thought I had a choice, that was a shock.”

That was Bajaj’s introduction to pronatalism, the “internalized cultural expectation that motherhood was inevitable,” which led her to begin exploring the idea’s origins and consequences. She asked herself: “Was there a connection between my internalized lack of reproductive choice and the fact that India is the world’s most populous country?” She started to see how pronatalism undermines reproductive choice and drives overpopulation, not just in India but around the world.

In 2019, Bajaj enrolled in the graduate program in humane education at Antioch University, where she now teaches, to study the links between pronatalism, overpopulation, human supremacy, and ecological overshoot. She brought that framework to her role as executive director of Population Balance.

Overshoot

For many environmentalists, the key threat is climate change. For Bajaj and Population Balance, climate change and other ecological crises (chemical contamination, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and species extinction) are the result of overshoot—humans drawing down the ecological capital of the planet beyond replacement levels. Since sociologist William Catton’s 1980 book, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, the term is used to mark the point where a population’s demands exceed the environment’s ability to regenerate resources and absorb wastes. Ecologist Bill Rees, an advisor to Population Balance, describes overshoot as a meta-crisis, the root cause giving rise to the varied environmental problems.

Bajaj said that many environmentalists focus on a single crisis, which leads to downstream “solutions,” such as renewable energy, that are important but inadequate. Too often, environmentalists embrace temporary technological fixes that avoid the most obvious long-term fix for all ecological crises: a reduction in human consumption by lowering both the population and our aggregate consumption of energy and material resources. Consumption is not equally distributed around the world, of course, but Bajaj said that anyone concerned about equity and justice can’t ignore these questions. Many do just that.

“On the podcast, we try to look at the many ideologies that contribute to the problem and to the denial,” Bajaj said, “from the pronatalism that fuels overpopulation, to the growth-biased economies based on consumerism and social injustice, to the worldview of human supremacy that exploits animals and nature.” Just as important, she said, is highlighting “transformative pathways that go beyond technological fixes and toward interconnectedness with all beings.” In the episode “The ‘Energy Transition’ Delusion,” for example, Bajaj and cohost Alan Ware interviewed a historian of science and technology who explained why decoupling economic growth from energy and materials use—a favorite claim of the techno-optimists—is delusional and discussed ecologically realistic alternatives.

Crist said Population Balance is working to get beyond the dead-end framing of consumption versus population, as though these factors are separable. “Population Balance is exploring how the unstrange bedfellows of technological fundamentalism and human supremacy—both doctrines of human omnipotence—are blindsiding humanity to the breakdown of everything that runaway growth has unleashed,” Crist said.

Pronatalism

After five years of producing the “Overshoot” podcast, Bajaj and Population Balance launched a second podcast in 2024, “Beyond Pronatalism.” Far from being the province only of the right, pronatalism is rarely critiqued, including within mainstream feminism.

Bajaj defines pronatalism as the cultural pressure to have children to meet the demands of state power and economic growth. She said pronatalism has been a feature of patriarchal states for thousands of years, and those societies that continue to impose oppressive sex/gender norms tend to have the highest fertility rates. Pronatalism, Bajaj asserts, undermines not only reproductive choice but also the right of children to be born into conditions conducive to their wellbeing—socially, materially, and ecologically.

“My epiphany about my choice to not have children made me wonder how many others believed that parenthood is their destiny,” she said. “Following my graduate studies, I designed a graduate course—which is the first of its kind as far as I know—on the links between pronatalism, population growth, and overshoot.” Bajaj said that the popularity of the course demonstrated to her that people were eager to discuss these issues.

“The questions about whether or not to have children—and the impacts of that choice on parents, on the potential child, and on the larger community of people, animals, and ecosystems—can be uncomfortable, even threatening,” she said. “But in the safety of our class discussions, students feel validated and transformed when given the opportunity to explore their most intimate feelings and worldviews without judgment.”

Bajaj said she gets that kind of engaged response from many students when she gives presentations at other universities, and the podcast grew out of those responses.

“The stories I hear are different in details from mine, but at the same time so similar,” she said. “We all want to make liberated and informed choices, and in a patriarchal world that sees women as reproductive vessels, those choices can be largely invisible or, at worst, completely absent.”

Critiquing pronatalism does not mean she is antinatalist, in the sense of haranguing people not to have children. Bajaj rejects anti-procreation or voluntary human extinction arguments, which she thinks are simplistic. “Antinatalism—an anti-life, anti-human position—reduces 3.5 billion years of evolutionary processes to a utilitarian calculus of joy versus suffering to justify non-procreation and ends up inappropriately blaming those who have little say over their own reproduction,” she said. “Our goal is a world where people are neither pressured into having children nor scorned for having them, and where people arrive at reproductive decisions with maximum autonomy, education, and informed responsibility.”

Bajaj said that for those with the privilege of choice, informed responsibility means that we ought to consider the ethical implications of our reproductive decisions. “There’s a difference between imposing a worldview on others, as antinatalism does, and awakening others to a sense of reverence and responsibility toward Earth and other beings,” she said. “A person can reasonably choose not to procreate, either in anticipation that children born will likely suffer in this time of planetary crisis or out of a sense of joyful connection with, and care for, the existing community of life.”

Crist said Bajaj has done the most in the contemporary NGO scene to explain and expose pronatalism as a key driver of population growth. “We have to understand that overpopulation is not only ecologically unjust to countless nonhumans and nature, but it is also based on longstanding, often brutal forms of injustice against countless girls and women who have been, and continue to be, stripped of authentic choice in the reproductive sphere,” Crist said. “Nandita is leading the way.”

Spreading the word

Much of Bajaj’s work at Population Balance focuses on research, education, and public information. She travels—albeit reluctantly, with mixed feelings about getting on the airplanes she once dreamed of designing—to speak, especially when invited to debate.

At the 7th International Conference on Family Planning—held in November in Bogotá, Colombia, with 3,500 attendees from 120 countries—she participated in a debate on the question, “Should we fear falling birthrates?” Her team’s call to abandon growth-obsessed economics in favor of caring economies that respect ecological limits won the debate with an overwhelming majority of votes.

Bajaj said it is always heartening when people listen and engage with these issues, especially when she sees the relief most women feel when they realize they have choices. “Watching people awaken out of these ideologies with a sense of urgency and responsibility to move toward a more humane and just pathway is the most powerful antidote to the emotional heaviness this work can bring.”

Those human connections take a bit of the sting out of the dire ecological realities that she confronts every day.

“If it weren’t for the joy of being surrounded by the deeply meaningful connections with family, friends, animals, and nature, it would be impossible to do this work,” she said.

(Author’s note: I was a guest on the Overshoot podcast in 2022 to discuss “An Inconvenient Apocalypse,” the title of my book coauthored with Wes Jackson.)

Robert Jensen is an emeritus professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin and a founding board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center. He collaborates with New Perennials Publishingand the New Perennials Project at Middlebury College. Jensen can be reached at rjensen@austin.utexas.edu. To join an email list to receive articles by Jensen, go to https://www.thirdcoastactivist.org/jensenupdates-info.html. Follow him on Twitter: @jensenrobertw

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