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I'm writing a paper right now on the treatment of Aryan women during the Third Reich and one of the key components was having a lot of children to raise the "aryan" or racially pure race. But I for the life of me can't think of a word to represent the idea of women only really being good for making/having kids. The only word I can think of is baby-making machines, but thats hardly eloquent. So any ideas?

Basically what I'm trying to say is that women were dehumanized down to the point where they were beyond being encouraged to reproduce but forced. They were only seen in society during the Third Reich as being good enough to have children, as in that was their main purpose.

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  • Are you looking for a neutral word? Or are you looking something with a particular connotation? You can edit your post to include more info.
    – Em. ♦
    Mar 29, 2018 at 20:45
  • @Max Not something neutral, specifically relating to women only being good to have children. So a negative connotation.
    – Julie
    Mar 29, 2018 at 20:49
  • There's the concept of a woman only being good for her "biological purpose"... but I'm not sure how it's supposed to fit. Example sentences really help these sorts of requests, so if you have the sentence you want this to slot into written already, or an idea of how you want it to go, adding it to your question would be beneficial.
    – Catija
    Mar 29, 2018 at 20:59
  • Progenerative reductionism?
    – user3395
    Mar 29, 2018 at 21:18
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    "what I'm trying to say is that women were dehumanized down to the point where they were beyond being encouraged to reproduce but forced." You could say that the women were being treated as broodmares, if you wanted to be metaphorical.
    – TimR
    Mar 29, 2018 at 21:27

4 Answers 4

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Pronatalism does suggest government-encouraged procreation, but not "dehumanization of women" -- in fact, pronatalist policies might actually venerate women, especially those who have many more children than average.

"Brood mare" is often used for this situation, as is "baby-machine" or "baby-maker".

"Incubator" is, I think, too vague without further context.

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Although not literally appropriate, Incubator (an apparatus for growing pre-term organisms) is quite dehumanizing.

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The word I was looking for was pronatalism!"belief that promotes human reproduction. The term is taken from the Latin adjective form for "birth", natalis. Natalism promotes child-bearing and parenthood as desirable for social reasons and to ensure the continuance of humanity."

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  • Not many people would know what you meant.
    – TimR
    Mar 29, 2018 at 21:27
  • "Pronatalism" doesn't have a negative connotation. Even things like parental leave are considered "pronatalist".
    – Catija
    Mar 29, 2018 at 21:48
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    I'm afraid this does not tally with your description. pronatalist is the adjective for pronatlism, which is a policy or ideology but does not describes how women were viewed as female reproductive automatons.
    – Lambie
    Mar 29, 2018 at 23:33
  • Just natalism, that yes.
    – Lambie
    Mar 29, 2018 at 23:48
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You could say something like:

Nazis saw women as nothing more than uteruses.

In other words, just a place for babies to grow.

Essentially the same expression (but with very different sentiment) is used in the title Women Are More Than Freestanding Uteruses.

Another similar (but humorous) example of an expression like this would be this clip from Friends where Joey points to his head and say's it's "not just a hat rack".

If you're specifically talking about Lebensborn, which was the program where some "racially viable" women were given financial aid to breed with SS officers, then I'd just use "Lebensborn women".

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