I was just reading an article about population control over on boingboing, and they had a quote from Kim Stanley Robinson on birth control: "empowering women is the best climate change technology."
I didn't read the whole thing, I just skimmed, but I assume they are referring to the statistics that indicate that the more education and control over their own reproduction that women are given, the less children they have (and if you want to see a fantastic movie about this, I highly recommend idiocracy, starring Luke Wilson).
which leads me to wonder, do empowered women have less kids and more cats instead?
i'm pretty empowered, i have two degrees, and i've had three cats.. hmmm. my mom has two degrees and she had two kids and two cats. hmmm. my sister has no degrees, zero kids, and one cat. What does it all mean?? that my mother's children could attain the same number of degrees or less? the same number of children or less? or perhaps, the terrifying possibility, that years of spaying and neutering have allowed our cats to position themselves for a takeover?