Silent bodies: Childfree women’s gendered and embodied experiences

Abstract

This article reports from the first studies on voluntary childlessness in Sweden and addresses a so far neglected issue -the embodied experiences of childfree women. These childfree women reject and resist pronatalist understandings that conflate being a woman with being a mother. However, instead of explaining their childlessness by external factors, mentioned in previous research, the interviewed women created a positive feminine identity separated from motherhood with reference to their 'silent bodies', i.e. bodies without a biological urge to reproduce. Reducing voluntary childlessness to a mere result of biological determinism, the article argues, establishes a legitimate, natural position, less provocative and stigmatized in a pronatalist society. Nevertheless, paradoxically, drawing on biological determinism both challenges and reinstates pronatalism as it builds on the simultaneous acceptance of, and detachment from, the biological reproductive urge. The study hence highlights how persistent the social and cultural link between motherhood and womanhood is, but also how this relationship can be challenged.

Fifty shades of freedom. Voluntary childlessness as women's ultimate liberation

“…Studies using a qualitative approach have identified a wide range of different motivators for women, such as; lack of "maternal instinct"; dislike of, or disinterest in, children; fear of painful childbirth; humanitarian concerns about population growth; career orientation, and; a more satisfactory marriage (Callan, 1986;Park, 2005;Peterson & Engwall, 2013;Somers, 1993;Veevers, 1980). The most frequently mentioned benefit of remaining childless is the feeling of freedom it affords (Houseknecht, 1987).…”

Missing Out on the Parenthood Bonus? Voluntarily Childless in a “Child-friendly” Society

“…Establishing exactly which policies that can achieve an increase in fertility is beyond the scope of this paper. What can be concluded is that a wide range of motivators influences such a life decision as remaining childless, some of which are related to social, cultural, economical, political and gender-specific pre-conditions (Peterson 2014b;Peterson and Engwall 2013).…”

Postmenopausal Motherhood Reloaded: Advanced Age and In Vitro Derived Gametes

“…Voluntary childlessness has been and still is seen as a sign of immaturity or selfishness, and childless women are often seen as “psychologically maladjusted, emotionally immature, immoral, selfish, lonely, unhappy, unfulfilled, sexually inadequate, unhappily married, and prone to divorce” (Veevers , 7), “deviant,” “aberrant, immature, and unfeminine” (Gillespie , 225; Letherby , 10). Such negative perceptions of childless women may have subsided to some extent in some environments but are still shared today (Vinson, Mollen, and Smith ; Peterson and Engwall ). Failure to reproduce is questioned, and “[p]eople keep asking childless women why they are childless, whether they plan to remain childless, how they feel about being childless, and they warn them that they are going to be lonely in their old age” (Stotland in Rhodes ).…”