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Budapest W3: Politics of Reproduction - Childfree and Feminine


Rosemary Gillespie. 2003.  Childfree and Feminine: Understanding the Gender identity of voluntarily childless women.  Gender &Society, 17, 1: 122-136.

"I argue that although social change, the support of partners, and women's greater autonomy may be may prerequisites for choosing to remain childfree, they do not fully explain why in Western society only a small proportion of women make this choice while the majority continue, at some stage in their lives, to become mothers." p.123

"in Western societies, pronatalist cultural discourses establish a template of femininity, whereby motherhood is perceived to be the cornerstone of adult femininity and the desire for motherhood and the role of mothering central to what it means to be a woman." p.123-4

"while "suitable" white, middle-class women have struggled to gain the right to avoid, terminate, or limit pregnancies, the rights to motherhood of Native American, Black, and Latina women have been compromised through their disproportional and nonconsensual sterilization." p.124

Reasons why women choose to be childfree:

Freedom - living your life for yourself, not others. Financial freedom, free of responsibility.

Being with a partner without having children can be seen as a relationship of choice, free from the ties of childrearing

Losses - others perceive them as lacking, or having something missing from their lives, whereas the participants felt they would lose their own lives if they had children

Motherhood: "included demands, hard work, responsibilities, and sacrifices to their well-being that they were not prepared to make. Often, it involved specific activities, associated with nurturing and caring, that held no appeal for them and had no place in their lives." p.133

"These women reflect a radical departure from hegemonic understandings that to be a woman is inextricably bound to motherhood." p.133

"In describing the pull of remaining childfree and a more radical push away from motherhood, and by articulating a rejection of motherhood as central to their sense of femininity and identity, childfree women highlight the transformative effects of agency." p.134

Main points:

Childless and childfree - childfree has the option of choice, childless is robbed of choice

Men are not associated with being cold when childfree

There is a radical rejection of having children and being a mother as opposed to social and economic issues - there is female agency in being a mother as well as not being a mother.
New forms of femininity are created through childlessness and being childfree.

Research question - Why individual women choose to remain childfree
- Career opportunities increasing for women
- Discursive tools available to justify their decisions
- Changing perceptions of male partners
- Increased access to contraceptive
- The longer women stay in education, the later or chance to not, have children (more educational opportunity for women)

Semi-structured interviews - interviewees are able to expand on points that are important to them
The opinion of not wanting to have children still has to be justified

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