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Seyward Darby (00:02)
If you were really concerned with the idea that people, you know, weren't having children, you should say, well, why is that? And what can we do policy-wise to enable that choice for people? Right? Like, it's like something's wrong with us as women, as opposed to something is very wrong with this unequal, unstable, fascistic environment that, you know, we find ourselves in.
Kim Villanueva (00:35)
Hello and welcome to Feminism NOW. I'm Kim Villanueva, the president of the National Organization for Women. Looking at the dictionary definition of natalism, it doesn't seem like it should be such a loaded word. It literally means in favor of childbearing. That's not bad. Some people want to have kids. But in public discourse, natalism means so much more. It's become associated with the far right and with public debate about who isn't having enough children and who's having too many.
That's why Rose and I are thrilled to talk today with Seyward Darby. She's the editor-in-chief of the Attivist magazine and the author of the book Sisters in Hate, American Women on the Frontlines of White Nationalism. We're going to talk about what natalism means now and how it's become part of a moral panic. And this seems like a topic that our members might have something to say about. We'd love to hear from you about childbearing, whether you do it or not, in this day and age. You can call now at the number in our show notes and send us a voice message.
or email us a voice memo at feminismnow at n-o-w dot o-r-g. We'd love to put your voice on the show. And now, Rose, take it away.
Seyward Darby (01:40)
you
Rose Brunache (01:44)
Hi everyone, this is Rose. You hear a lot in the media about the population, especially whether or not people are having enough children. Honestly, women. I don't think of myself as an anti-Natalist. I'd love for people to have children if they want to. But people who call themselves pro-Natalists, they're not talking about having a choice. And they only want certain people to have more children. Kim and I are looking forward to today's conversation with Seyward Darby. She's the editor-in-chief of the Atavist magazine.
She's also author of a book, Sisters in Hate, American Women on the Frontlines of White Nationalism. She also wrote a 2025 article in Vogue and the history of natalism and the far right. Seyward, thank you for being here.
Seyward Darby (02:28)
Thank you so much for having me.
Rose Brunache (02:30)
First, what is natalism exactly and how is it different from what's in the media?
Seyward Darby (02:34)
So natalism is a fairly simple concept. It's that people should be having more babies. And to your point, women specifically should be having more babies. And so it is a belief that, an ideology that holds that we need more babies, we need more people, and therefore, you know, we need women to get pregnant more. And currently, you know, you're seeing it a lot in the media from a couple of different perspectives.
We have sort of these tech bro, Silicon Valley, often billionaire types who are talking a lot about sort of optimization of human civilization and specifically having more sort of perfect babies and having more of them to, I don't know, make the planet better in the future. And by better, they mean obviously, you know, more in their image. But you're also just seeing it a lot.
from the far right, which of course has more or less become the mainstream right in the United States. You're hearing it a lot from politicians, activists, and specifically there's this big focus on white women having more babies. People are concerned that women are choosing, some women are choosing not to have children or to have fewer children. And you're seeing a lot of rhetoric from the right about.
how dangerous that is, as if it's a threat to the country and again, to the country in their image. The idea of it being a predominantly white nation, we've seen the percentage of white Americans as a proportion of the population decline and you hear people on the right very agitated about that. So natalism is the answer for them.
Kim Villanueva (04:12)
Well, you've obviously done a lot of research on natalism. And has it always been affiliated with the far right? And how did that come to be so?
Seyward Darby (04:20)
Absolutely. ⁓ I think when you look at the far right as a sort of ongoing phenomenon, not just in the United States, but my research predominantly focuses on the United States, but in other ⁓ contexts as well, it is at its core a pronatalist movement for a couple of reasons. And I think first and foremost, the idea that the future needs to be different than now, that it should be more like the past, in their mind, that necessitates
having more children that necessitates reproducing procreating children who come first of all who look a certain way who are white but also who can be raised in a certain environment you know with with certain religious beliefs or social beliefs political beliefs and that has always always been the case you can look back at various iterations of of the right again in the united states but also in other contexts and
there's always a push for women to have babies, for babies to be ⁓ celebrated. And one of the anecdotes I always like to give is that in Nazi Germany, ⁓ the state actually handed out medals to women on the basis of how many babies they had. Which leads me to the second reason that the far right is a pro-natalist movement. It is a hyper, hyper traditional space in which gender roles are very clearly defined.
and are very much, you know, man in charge, man has job, man defends, you know, the home ⁓ and protects his family and women have children. Women have children, they raise children, they keep the home. And the movement is pro-natalist in no small part because those roles are such an essential part of the ideology and it's a way of keeping women in a box, quite frankly.
So yes, this is not a new thing that we're seeing today. It is kind of same song, different verse. The most polite amongst them, if you could call them that, will not say that outright. They won't necessarily get into that, specifics, but they really are concerned with white women having children because they want there to be white.
people. Like it really does come down to that basic fact. And the second reason is people are really terrified of, on the far right, are really terrified of women's independence. They're really terrified of the idea of women making choices about themselves, about their bodies, about their futures that do not cohere to an idea of gender that says women's first priority, responsibility is to bear children.
raised children. ⁓ And so that's why, you you hear a lot of these far right figures talk about, you know, sort of talk about single career driven women as if that's a negative on its face. Or, I mean, I have a son now. I had a baby a year ago. He actually just turned one on Monday. at the time that I was working on my book, I did not have children. And I was frequently called a childless cat lady, which true, I was childless and I had a cat. I also had a dog. But
Again, those are hurled as insults, as though women who make choices that do not fit into the box of traditional gender roles are ⁓ somehow abject, objectionable, gross, failing, you know, and are held up as you don't want to be like that. And so I really do think that the concern with people having more babies is deeply tied up with keeping women in check, keeping the idea of womanhood in check.
Rose Brunache (08:01)
I've noticed that a lot of white nationalists are obsessed about Japan in particular and the demographics happening there. I don't know if you touched on that. And why do you think they're obsessed about Japan? Yeah.
Seyward Darby (08:12)
I don't in my book actually, but I'm gonna guess and please correct me if I'm wrong, that it has a lot to do with the fact that Japan is a fairly homogenous society, is that correct? yeah, white nationalists are very interested in this idea. Okay, so what they'll say is we're not against diversity. We like the idea of everybody being separate. So the idea that Japan for the Japanese,
⁓ You know, I don't know, Kenya for the Kenyans. The United States for white people, of course, that completely overlooks what the United States is. First of all, that it was founded on the basis of a genocide of the native peoples who were here. And then beyond that was a country of immigrants from a great variety of places, not all of whom to begin with were even considered white. know, whiteness is a completely fungible concept that gets redefined according to political needs and desires over time.
So yeah, they'll fixate on places that have a much more homogenous population as an example of like, nobody's mad at Japan for being homogenous. Why are they mad at us for wanting to be a white nation? And that just completely eschews context, right? It doesn't look at history. It doesn't look at social dynamics. It doesn't look at any number of things, but the white nationalists, the most savvy amongst them are very good at sort of boiling things down to these seeming hypocrisies.
or seeming gotchas that people aren't seeing, which are not gotchas or discrepancies at all, right? They're just very conveniently sharing context and history away from situations so that whatever they're talking about really speaks to whatever they believe.
Kim Villanueva (09:53)
You've touched on this theme a little bit, the link between natalism and eugenics. Could you explore that a little more?
Seyward Darby (10:00)
Absolutely. I, ⁓ the number of times I've been reading a story about natalism had been like, it's eugenics. Like out loud to my poor husband, who's like, you know, been listening to me rage about this for a decade now, basically. I think that, again, they would never say this, or at least a lot of them would not say this outright, but they're not just interested in everybody have more babies, right? They're interested in healthy, attractive white people having.
more babies. And I actually think this is where the Silicon Valley sort of tech bro, know, Elon Musk of it all is really interesting because they're actually more overt about what their sort of intentions are, right, is to how do we optimize? How do we make people better, healthier, more attractive, whiter, you know, all of that. And that's that's eugenics, right? Like, that's the idea that you are in one way or another, or in many ways, you know, trying to affect the actual like
shape of the population and the composition of the population. So I think that eugenics is an unquestionable part of this, even if it isn't systematized in the way that we have thought about eugenics historically, because in particular of the Nazi regime and the way that they systematized eugenics. But eugenics just as an idea, as an aspiration, is very much tied up with natalism as we see it today.
Rose Brunache (11:24)
But don't you see a contradiction? Because a lot of them, they're against abortion rights, even for minority women. So it's a kind of a contradiction. You'd think that they'd be happy that black women can access abortion or whatever group they don't like. But it seems that even they're against that. So what is its explanation for that?
Seyward Darby (11:40)
Yeah, no, I think that's a great question. They want everybody to have more babies. They just want the people who they don't think are desirable who have babies to then also be trapped in circumstance, right? And so you look at, you know, the lack of interest in any kind of social services in providing, I don't know, prenatal care, in providing child care, in providing, you can just look down the long, long list of all of the things that they oppose.
and say what they're actually interested in is again, sort of turning to the past and making it more like the future. Like a world in which women of color, for instance, are really trapped in their circumstance because they are told, yes, great, have more babies, we want you to do that. But also, you we're not interested in remedying inequality. We're not interested in making this a more egalitarian country where people can, you know, make the choices they wanna make and sort of work and succeed on equal terms.
And so this is, think this is the other thing about natalism, and I probably should have said this earlier, like it's very tied up with a broader agenda, right? I do think though, and I think this is where we're seeing this increasingly by way of immigration policy, right? Like there is an active, violent push to keep people who are not white out of the country, right? And so again, it's all of these things side by side. It's okay, well, we have who we have here. How do we convince the people who are
desirable racially to procreate more? How do we keep the people that we who we can potentially keep out away so that they're not procreating here? And then for the people who it's like, okay, well, they're here, you know, we're gonna we're gonna act like that's okay, even though for a lot of them, it's not. How can we make a natalist agenda be in collaboration with a more a more widely regressive agenda, politically, socially, economically?
And again, I wanna go back to the fact that this is ultimately about keeping women in check, right? And women in roles as defined by a misogynistic, patriarchal sort of society. And so, yeah, it's not all women in the same container. It's like women in one container, but then inside of it, who gets to be where, right? Like who's at the top versus who's at the bottom and what does that mean?
Rose Brunache (14:00)
I see social media posts complaining about, you know, more women because you can see deformities in your pregnancy early on that some women are boarding and they're complaining about that. So was like, wait a minute, I thought you don't want these people who have disabilities. Like I'm just so confused. Like Down syndrome specifically, that's it. Like people with Down syndrome population has decreased significantly because you can identify that pretty early with tests.
Seyward Darby (14:22)
Absolutely. The other thing I will say is like there are a lot of, for all of their interest in exposing hypocrisy and contradictions that aren't actually those things, they are afflicted by it. And there are lots of ways in which you can take, know, a plank of whatever, you know, you would call sort of their platform and say, well, doesn't that actually butt up against this other thing that you're saying? And it probably does. But I also think it's a sort of, if you take a step back, right, and look at
everything side by side and think about, okay, well, if they had their way, where would all of the chips fall? Right? And I think it's like, you have to kind of look at all of the parts moving together to really get a sense of, okay, well, on balance, how does this make sense for their agenda?
Rose Brunache (15:03)
Well, we've got so much to talk about, but we're going to take a step away first for word from our chapters.
Malia Williamson (15:14)
My name is Malia Williamson and I am the president for Riverside County Now. We have some amazing locally elected women that we have worked really hard to get in office. From city council to local school boards, we're trying to get a woman in Congress. So that's what I'm most proud of, trying to get better women elected in office. Because we know a lot of the problems that we are having right now is because we have too many men who are running things.
The issues that are most important to our chapter are the all-out attack on our underserved communities, including the trans community, the LGBTQ community, the women, the ICE raids that are happening right now, attacking our Latino community, Asian community. So it's everything that is happening right now that is affecting our communities. And, you know, that's what we're going through right now. In 2026, we are tackling the cost of being a woman by doing more food drives.
You know, as we are seeing more cuts that are being passed on by the federal government, there's a lot of families and kids are, you know, going hungry. So we would like to focus on that. We also have domestic violence organizations locally that we would like to team up with and bring more awareness and bring more support for them. Listeners can find us at RiversideCountyNow.com, which is our website. And we are under the same name on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok as well.
Rose Brunache (16:44)
And we are back. Seyward, we were talking about how people who are pro-natalists worry that Americans aren't having enough children. Is this a moral panic?
Seyward Darby (16:53)
Absolutely. It's absolutely a moral panic. So if you were really concerned about depopulation, if you were really concerned with the idea that people weren't having children, first of all, you should not just be concerned with, you should be concerned with the people who want to but can't or won't, right? And then you should say, well, why is that? And what can we do policy-wise to enable that choice for people? So I think like that's, if you look at it, it's like, you're not, if you were really interested in this,
you would be looking at the real causes and doing something about it. And the other thing is this is where immigration comes in. It's like, you're worried about depopulation, yet you want to keep people who are a crucial part of our economy out of the country? Like, just, it doesn't make sense, right? And so I think it's absolutely a moral panic because what people are saying is women aren't having more babies because we are saying that it's a bad thing. Like culturally, are, you know, we are saying that it is
not desirable. And so somehow we've turned away from nature, right? Like it's like something's wrong with us as women, as opposed to something is very wrong with this unequal, unstable, fascistic environment that, you know, we find ourselves in.
Rose Brunache (18:09)
The 2025 Gallup poll showed that 40 % of American women 18 to 44 were thinking of leaving the United States. A Pew study showed that 12th grade girls were less likely than 12th grade boys to say they wanted to get married. How do you think that poll numbers like that affect the pronatalist people?
Seyward Darby (18:27)
think that they see those numbers and say five alarm fire, girls don't want to get married, which like honest to God, a 12th grade girl, like, I don't know, it's like, why are we even asking them about what they want? Like, do they know what they want? Like next week? Like, I don't know, it's just, it's such a weird question personally, I think to ask, but whatever. I think that the idea that a 17, 18 year old girl should want
to get married or that they should want to get married at a certain rate, right? That a certain number of them should want to. I don't know. It's just a, that to me is like moral panic 101. And so I think that pronatalists will take those kinds of holes and say something's wrong. You know, our kids are being indoctrinated with, you know, an anti-marriage, anti-natalist agenda. Again, as opposed to, first of all, maybe these are young women on the cusp of independence who are saying,
I don't think about getting married right now. Like I want to go to college. I want to get a job. I want to be in the world. I want to travel. I want to do, whatever. And so I don't know, maybe marriage is just not top of mind. And like, thank you feminism for like allowing that to be the case. Right.
Kim Villanueva (19:36)
I'd like to switch topics for a little bit and talk about the media, because it seems that the media is able to be skeptical or to focus on the far right when they are talking about hate speech and misogynist talk. But when the far right talks about population, the media is almost sympathetic at times. So what do you think is causing that dissonance?
Seyward Darby (19:55)
yeah, well, I think that a huge part of it is patriarchy, right? Like patriarchy is not something that only exists on the far right, you know, maybe it is lesser degrees, but we still live in a highly patriarchal society. And I think that even people who wouldn't, you know, certainly identify as a white nationalist would say, you know, well, yeah, I guess kind of the point of us existing is to procreate, you know? And I think maybe we really should be concerned about numbers of people. And so,
I think that the history of patriarchy is a huge contributing factor to the way the media covers this space. I will also say that it's like the media is allowing the far right to set the terms of the discussion, because the far right will act like we're not just ultimately talking about race here. And I think that really lets them get away with something.
And I think part of this is, mean, the media has really struggled to cover the far right generally for forever because for the longest time wasn't seen as a threat. And then with the rise of Donald Trump, people were sort of scrambling to figure out, you know, how do we cover this? And I think even still for a while there was a, this is sort of just a bunch of, you know, sort of.
guys with swastika tattoos, undesirable, not really that much of a threat, but a little scary. And now, mean, my God, it's, again, the far right has kind of become the mainstream right, or the mainstream, I should say. And so I think that when the media is covering natalism, you see a lot of people who don't necessarily have grounding in the history of the far right, in the rhetoric of the far right, and are kind of...
sort of just taking something as a news story. You here's this person and here's what they're saying and here are their eight children and their raw milk and whatever, and aren't necessarily taking a step back and saying, and here are the waters that they swim in and here is the history that this derives from. And look, I get it. I've been a journalist my whole career. You cannot fit that into every article that you write, but I think it is incumbent upon journalists and editors and people more broadly in media.
to do the best they can to contextualize this. And I mean, the other thing about media now is, okay, so you can't fit everything you want to say into a 2000 word article or whatever, but you're out promoting your story and you're on social media. And again, it's like, how do we make sure that the narrative that we're putting forward about natalism is contextualized ⁓ and rooted in history and really conveyed for what it is?
Rose Brunache (22:35)
It's also wild to watch natalism appear in pop culture. In November 2025, Timothy Chalamet did an interview with Vogue and he said he thought not wanting to have children was bleak and that procreation is the reason we're here. And he's not someone you would picture as a trad guy or pro-natalist. Why do you think these ideas are so popular and compelling?
Seyward Darby (22:58)
Well, Timothy is an interesting case, I think, because he's in a relationship, whether genuine or not, with Kylie Jenner. And I think that you could really make the argument that the Kardashian-Jenner clan has been a pretty powerful, I think, natalist ⁓ horse. I mean, they're famous. They're so famous. And having kids has always been a huge part of their story, right? This is all to say, it's interesting to me that
he as a celebrity in particular would say that because so much of the Kardashian-Jenner brand has seemed very tied up with having children and know, arguably eugenics, right? Like appearance and optimization and how do we stay as young as we possibly can.
Kim Villanueva (23:40)
I don't want to say I enjoyed reading your book, Sisters in Hate, but I thought it was so incredibly informative. it's interesting because it was written in 2020, which was just six years ago, but yet natalism seems to have exploded in culture. mean, how can you explain why it's taken off so much?
Seyward Darby (23:57)
Writing this book was a very difficult process for any number of reasons, but one of the more difficult phases has actually been having it out in the world and seeing over the course of like, you're right, almost six years now, the ways in which either nothing has changed or things have gotten worse. And I think that a huge part of it is the persistent and growing influence of the MAGA agenda and its grip.
on politics and on a large number of people and the way that they think. I think that it is also very much tied up with the explosion of social media. When I was working on my book initially, TikTok wasn't a thing. I guess it existed, but it just wasn't a thing. And so the explosion of tradwives, for instance, that's deeply tied up with the...
you know, sort of ⁓ influence our economy. And so, you know, I think there are technological forces in play, political forces in play. And then I do think that there are economic forces in play. We had the pandemic, we've had real economic struggles in part because of the pandemic, in part because of bad policy. And I think that there really is a moment of lot of instability and uncertainty where people look around and they, and this, you know,
you can look at history, the currents of history for forever, right? And in moments of real challenge, you know, where do people turn? What are the narratives that they start to hold onto? And I think this idea that as a people, we've kind of gone astray, that we need to get back on some kind of track. I think that a lot of both natalism, but then, you know, sort of the fur-raid agenda more broadly, it doesn't surprise me that we are where we are. And I don't think that there has been a great comp-
telling counter narrative to that. And I think that I would love to purely blame MAGA types for where we are, but I also think opponents of MAGA types have done, and I mean this sort of nationally elected politician, have not done a great job in figuring out how to counter it.
Rose Brunache (25:59)
important do you think it is that we have a vice president who is like the spokesperson for us? Like this is something he's been talking about for a long time and for someone of this level of power to be a pro-Natalist and things like that.
Seyward Darby (26:13)
yeah. He is, I think it's really important that he is in the position that he is. And I will say this, and I should have said this earlier, natalism is a deeply political project, right? Like it is about shaping a society, a nation, and the roles that people play in that society. And I think that there's often, people don't understand that part of the appeal being sort of presented to women is it's not just
have babies and you'll be happier, have babies and you'll be doing what nature intended. It's also have babies and be part of something bigger than yourself, right? It's have babies and help this place be better, help this country grow, help it be more like you want it to be. And I think that somebody in a great position of political authority like JD Vance, that's when someone's telling you that you can play a part, play a role, and it can be important.
by doing these things in just such a way, I think that's really meaningful and in a really terrifying way.
Rose Brunache (27:18)
Your research has led to some pretty dark places. Is there anything in your work now that gives you hope?
Seyward Darby (27:23)
I'm not great with hope, I will confess. I think if there are things that give me hope, it's the people I've encountered who used to think differently and have changed their minds. And so there's a woman in my book who used to be considered herself part of the white nationalist movement and has now gone on to not only leave that behind, but is a very vocal, progressive voice. And so,
When the Trump administration initially was unleashing ICE on various cities, this woman, she lives near Portland, and she wrote an email to, I would assume, everyone in her contact list, which I'm sure it's an interesting contact list, given her history, and your contacts get stored forever. And it was basically like, here's what it's really like in Portland. And a progressive voice trying to counter the MAGA narrative about a fallen city and
criminals and drug addicts whatever. And I just remember being so moved by that, that she was someone who had just come so far and had really embraced the place ideologically where she found herself. And so, you know, I take hope in people like that and I take, you know, I have to, right?
Rose Brunache (28:42)
Thank you, Seyward, for such a great conversation.
Seyward Darby (28:46)
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. ⁓
Kim Villanueva (28:52)
This is Kim, and I'm here for our Grab Bag segment with a word from me, the national president of now. When rumors of the Epstein Files first came to light, the whole thing seemed a bit like a conspiracy. Yachts and islands and huge lists of rich people made the whole thing seem sordid. But we now know it's so much worse. The Epstein Files aren't just about powerful people. They're about the women and girls who survived. It's fundamentally wrong to play politics with the trauma of sexually abused children.
victims have waited decades for the justice they deserve. Now stands with the survivors of that abuse, and we thank the lawmakers who voted to release the files. We hope you will too.
Thank you so much for joining Rose and me this week and our conversation about natalism with Seyward Darby. Part of fighting back against people who would take away our rights is learning how they take concepts like parenthood and fold it into their own worldview. Only when we understand that can we fight back. If you want other people to learn too, feel free to share this show with your friends. Like and subscribe if you haven't already. We'd love you to stay with us on our podcast journey. And of course, natalism sparks a lot of thoughts and opinions. If you want to tell us what you think, we'd love to hear it.
Our number is in the show notes, so you can call and record a voice message. Or you can email us a voice memo at feminismnow at n-o-w dot o-r-g. Who knows? Your voice might be in a future show. We always want to hear from our members because we know that only together can we make a difference. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for our next episode in two weeks.