Hair does (i repeat) NOT have a gender.

*Exactly Dave, culture is a huge influence on how long or short, men or women, wear their hair. Men can certainly still be masculine with long hair just as women can be feminine with short hair.

Someone mentioned the social and environmental trends in west Europe are causing the birthrates to drop, yet the United States has the same trends and our birthrates are much higher than Europe and our birthrates are increasing. Because of higher birthrates and also immigration, the U.S. is growing extremely rapidly in population {200 million in U.S. in 1970, 290 million today, and projected population of 440 million in 2050). The main reason that west Europe's birthrates are lower is so many women and couples there have decided not to have children. In the U.S. even many single women and Lesbian couples I know have kids,{my significant other Tina has a child}, not to mention hetrosexual couples. *
*I have been to west Europe, you really notice the difference. In the U.S. there seem to be kids everywhere, especially here in the middle part of the country and everyone talks about their kids and having kids. Over there it seemed to me just the opposite.
*For centuries west Europe sent people to North and South America. Will the trend be reversed in the future? Will the Americas, as we get more populated and overcrowded, send people to Europe where they will undoubtly need more workers in the future?
Just a little sociological note there.

Actually Kathyann what you suggest may happen in the future is in fact already happening. People from the America''s are starting to move back to the European continent.
Italy is actually paying people of Italian ancestry from Argentina and southern Brazil to move back to Italy. This only makes sense since the Italian-South Americans are growing in population and many are poor.
Spain has recently begun to bring in Mexicans and other quasi-Spanish people from Latin America to replace Morrocan guest workers.
Russia is starting a program to encourage Russians and other Slavics from the U.S.A. to move back to Russia. There is also an increasing American and Latin American community in Britian, Germany and the Czech Republic. Because of Ireland''s recent prosperity some Irish-Americans are returning to Ireland.
The reverse immigration from the America''s to Europe is already occuring.


Not me though I''m staying here in good ol'' Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. !

I think that, along with the fact that more women in Europe are not having children a couple of other things are happening to.

One is that people here are having children much later, well into their 30s in many cases which naturally drops the number of children they will have - not only through decreased fertility but also because there are less years in which to do it.

The other is that there is a lot of planning of families, in terms of deciding how many to have and what spacing you want for them. In Britain there isn't really a tendency to have lots of kids.

I'm going to have to take exception to some of what you've said here, Brent. To link the health of a society to number of children produced is a bizarre sort of measure; and the comments you make about immigration to western europe are ill informed. Have more children? I intend to have none and that is my business and not society's or the government's. Not saying this is your agenda, but the most active proponents of larger families have always been fascists (cf Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy).

Just my 2 cents,
Chris

*Chris.

I really don't think Brent said people should have unusually large families, but they should have enough children so they don't depopulate, which would cause huge economic problems. If you have read anything about west Europe you know that in a few years because they aren't having enough children they will have far too many old people compared to the number of young workers and their social security system will eventually collapse as they will be unable to pay for all the old people without enough young taxpayers. They will be plunged into poverty as they will have to dramtically increase taxes on their workers severely lowering their standard of living and will probably have to cut all forms of government social benefits.
I have worked in various aspects of business and finance and I know this to be true, I know how financial things work.

* Having read some of Brent's posts he mentioned that he is a White Guy married to an Asian woman. He also seems to be very tolerant of gays and lesbians, which as a lesbian woman, I appreciate.
I hardly think he is a fascist. Nor are the Scandinavian governments who pay people to have more children fascist, in fact they are some of the most socially liberal, socialistic governments in the world.


*Many of my fellow gays and lesbians won't admit this but having children is a "normal" and yes a "healthy" function of being an adult.* I am certainly not saying everyone has to have kids, I respect single childless people or couples without children, {be they hetrosexual or homosexual}, just as I respect people with kids, but thankfully many people have decided to have children otherwise there would be no humans, which would make the world a pretty dull place. *I like people myself.

*****Having kids isn't for everyone but I know the joy that Tina and I get from her 5 year old daughter. *She is a joy!

Dear KathyAnn,

Thank you for your post although I did not feel you were judging me. Nor did I feel that Chris was calling anyone fascist. I can't speak for Chris but I was just posting in response to his statement about his choice not to have kids.

I applaud your lifestyle as I applaud all lifestyles regardless of what "box" they fit into. I have a dear friend who is living life as a transsexual waiting to go through surgery and she has taught me a lot about living life outside of the norm. I lost a family member to AIDS many years ago and have many same sex couple friends. I always look for a person's soul and inner self when I make friends and do not care if they are old, young, what color their skin is, their sexual preference or how their body looks. It is very liberating and I cherish all the people that are in my life in some way.

As far as any of the other posters here at HairTalk, we (Jeff and I) have suffered through some terrible times in the past with trolls who posted only to anger and upset people, a wide range of spammers, hackers and deliberate virus attackers. We just suffered through a horrible 48 hours dealing with a virus attack of huge proportions. If a person is serious about participating from an honorable position they will register as member. If they don't I continue to view them with rightful suspicion.

I will say that I have zero tolerance for anyone that posts what appears to be deliberate attempts to attack, rile or cause discension on the HairTalk boards. Although some may not agree with my stance, history has taught me that the only way to deal with trolls is to block them from the boards. They are welcome to go somewhere else.

I have dedicated every spare minute of my life since 1997 to HairBoutique.com, which was started with my own hard earned money and is still 100%supported from our store sales. So yes, I do take this seriously and hopefully my willingness to act against trolls has made HairTalk a safe and good place to post.

Thanks again for your post.

Best wishes,
Karen

*Chris I don't pretend to know more about west Europe than you or others that live there. I have been there twice in the last five years on vacation, once for nearly a month. I have been to most of the countries in western Europe. I loved vacationing there, that is why I went there twice.* I also don't think in any way are Americans superior to west Europeans. *There are differences between America and western Europe though, that is for sure.


*England seemed the most like America to me, I mean the people's mentality and attitudes, not just language, {since just about every country I went to there, many people spoke English}. The country I liked the best was Ireland. I was absolutely enchanted by the place; it's beauty, the kind people, the music in the pubs, I was charmed by Ireland.{Darn ! I don't have a drop of Irish blood, but I felt like a long lost cousin when I was there!}.

The countries of the European continent seemed very different than America to me. Not better or worse, just different. Talking with people there and reading the English language press there I know that some of the biggest issues in countries like Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Holland are immigrant issues. There was alot of talk about Russians, Albanians, Turks and so forth bringing more crime and unemployment to west Europe{and I know they have fairly high unemployment already there}. * Another big issue was expanding the European Union to include all of east Europe. This was also a very contentious issue. It was very clear to me that each country in west Europe has their own language and culture, which, quite rightly, they want to preserve. In America everybody from wherever their ancestors are from just learn English and become Americans. But we are a fairly new country made up of immigrants, we don't have an old time traditional language and culture like the west Europeans. America often seems like it has almost no tradition at all at times, like we just invent our culture as we go along. Europe really does have a great, and many centuries old, traditional culture, which is really cool, that is beautiful, the traditonal culture!* But it can also make it harder to absorb vast east European areas{ like Turkey, Russia, the Ukraine, Poland, and especially the war torn Balkan states}, into west Europe. Not only the cultural and language differences but also east Europe is so much poorer economically than west Europe. Some parts of the old Soviet Union, the Balkans, and Turkey have genuinely third world standards of living. It isn't so easy to bring in and integrate dozens of poor countries with 400 million people in them.* So the whole idea of making the European Union too much bigger was extremely controversial. Almost everyone in west Europe I talked to about it thought west Europe should try to help east Europe, but no one I talked to thought that large areas of east Europe should be brought into the European Union, {at least not right now}, or that large numbers of immigrants from east Europe be brought in. The surveys and polls done in Europe indicate this as well, that this is the feelings of a majority of west Europeans. I have read this in the British, European and American papers.
* This is different than America because the U.S. is really a continent in itself, it is a huge land area with a large and growing population. Europe is dozens of smaller countries, each with their own language, culture and traditions. America is not better than Europe or visa-versa. * But they are different. Europe has much more tradition to defend and protect and they obviously have very strong feelings, quite rightly, about their traditions.


*****And as I mentioned before, there are other differences too. But I emphatically am not judging anyone. I am glad different parts of the world are different from each other. Variety is the spice of life as they say!

Karen.
Thank you for being so understanding. I was actually not going to even mention that I am a lesbian and in a relationship with a woman, but I decided a few years ago that I am a "normal" person in my own way and I wasn't going to hide in the closet anymore. Now, without being obnoxious about it I hope, I let people know I am a lesbian and that I am not an extremist of any sort or forcing my beliefs or lifestyle on to them.

* I have to be myself though. If people reject me because I am lesbian well I guess I just won't associate with them all that much.
You learn who your friends really are.

*Wow,
Thanks uzma that's sweet of you! I appreciate your warm welcome. Best wishes!

Please lock this thread. As of post possibly 22 or in that area, the topic of conversation was birthrates.



And then this last post. Time to quote from it.

God did not *cough*cut-a-piece-out*cough* make any mistakes.


You got that right. Now stop shoving such a concept down my throat. That sentence is true both ways. If he exists, he's magically perfect (IPU complex) and if he doesn't, well, nonexistence makes that concept unable to make mistakes. I'm a moderate atheist, I'm not shoving my lack of belief down your throat, but kick me, and I'll kick you back.


And even w/o the divine references, it isn't even on topic. The topic was about people using FEMININE AND MASCULINE as BUZZWORDS to make themselves magically feel better when they have an array of words that actually mean something to use in its place. That's like using God to justify doing good. Why not do something simply because it is good ? --- Simple. People need to glorify themselves, and that type of egoism makes me sick.



Thanks to "most" of you for participating in this thread when it still meant something.

In my humble opinion, the intention of Lili's post was to support and reassure.

We all have a personal philosophy of life and can only interact with each other from this subjective perspective.
Some choose to impose their values and belief systems on others, be it subtly or overtly.
Let's not go there.

I re-assert: It is the intention that is important, not the philosophical framework.

Forget the God-bit if it offends you.
See past it and through it to the simple expression of care by another human being.