The misogyny of ignoring the childless

Too often, women who can’t have children are dismissed or, at the very least, their emotions are dismissed. We all know that the world is uncomfortable with emotions. The world is especially uncomfortable with the emotions of women. And that subset of women who aren’t mothers?  Well, even some mothers who went through infertility with us are uncomfortable with our emotions, hearing us express our losses, and the reality of our lives. They don’t want to be reminded they could have been us. It’s as if we have to be silent, never mention the fact we don’t have children and what that means for our lives, because it will discomfort the rest of society. They want us to be content being ignored and isolated.

The inherent misogyny that sees women’s emotions dismissed in society in general – “don’t be so sensitive”  “you’re imagining it” – makes many women self-conscious about their emotions, feeling that there is something wrong with them. It’s gaslighting, and this concept has, fortunately, been brought into the mainstream lexicon in recent years. My own mother often said “you’ll think I’m crazy, but …” and would then tell me something she did that was purely an expression of her particular preferences, and of course, not crazy at all. She said this more frequently after my father died, maybe because she was making more choices on her own, or because she didn’t have him validating their combined interests. On reflection, though, I can remember him – from time to time - dismissing her choices, her emotions. Mainly, I think, because they made him so uncomfortable. And the thing is, he wasn’t an unkind or selfish man. It was just the way he was, the way society was when he grew up, and sadly, often, the way it still is today. Women are still taught that our emotions, our likes and dislikes, our “ways” are slightly crazy, not quite rational, defective, and easily dismissed.

Decades ago, I contracted dengue fever on a business trip to the Philippines, though symptoms did not develop till I was back in NZ. My wonderful GP picked up on it, and tested me for dengue and malaria immediately. I thought she was crazy. Weeks went by and I tried to get back to work, but was still having a lot of time out. Then I got the phone call that confirmed my dengue fever. (It’s so rare in NZ that it took four weeks – or thereabouts – for the tests to come through.) My boss made the comment that he had started to think it was all in my head. Would he have said that of any of his male staff members? A few years later, one of my colleagues also contracted it in Asia, where he was living at the time. Of course, there they tested him for dengue immediately, admitted him to hospital, gave him lots of fluids, and he had a speedy recovery. But the care and concern given by that same boss and all the other staff was dramatically different to their reaction to my illness. My illness was dismissed as psychological, rather than serious, simply because I was a woman. (And I might add, extremely stoical about the whole thing! Turns out period aches and pains are similar to the bone-breaking aches and pains of dengue fever.)

These double standards are carried over in all areas. A few years ago it was reported that a study at Otago University said that they found no real evidence that emotional disturbances are caused by PMT. The researcher explained that women are conditioned to dismiss any strong emotions around the time of their period as PMT. Any concerns they raise at this time are often seen as invalid, because they are supposedly hormonally driven. Yet in fact, women have similar feelings and reactions across their entire cycle. It’s just that we, and our men, are conditioned to dismiss any strong emotions at “that time of the month.” (I don’t know how convinced I am by this, “conditioned” as I am. Especially as I saw the dramatic difference in my temperament before and after HRT.) I know that over the years, almost nothing has made me angrier than when my husband would dismiss a concern I raised simply because it was “that time of the month.” Or these days, the equivalent is, “have you been taking your HRT?” The comment is only ever defensive, and fortunately 99% of the time he doesn’t think that way, but occasionally (once or twice a year?) he slips back into his conditioning. Or maybe HIS hormones are out of kilter the few times he reverts to this gaslighting?

Dealing with infertility, or coming to terms with our no kidding lives, is no different. When we’re told to “get over it” or that we’re “dwelling on our issue” or “too sensitive” or “self-pitying,” I wonder if that is simply a discomfort with our emotions, or whether it is actually just another example of misogynistic “gaslighting” in action. What I do know is that it is both unkind, and particularly painful to hear. By dismissing our emotions and feelings of loss over infertility and the life we now have, we are being told our feelings are not important. Or worse, that we are selfish, or lucky, and should be quiet! That is hard enough to deal with normally. But when we are now living lives that some people feel – just because we don’t have children – are less important, it reinforces that feeling of invisibility, of worthlessness, that so many childless women have to battle against.

I’ve found though, that the older I get, the better fortified I am to defend myself. Because of the writing I do here, and reading all sorts of other No Kidding writers, I have statistics, evidence, facts, to legitimise my feelings. (I wish I didn’t have to, but we all know the pronatalist, patriarchal society we live in.) It is easier to stand up for myself. But I know too that it can be very difficult for childless women (in particular) to have their losses, their experiences, their very lives dismissed. It’s difficult to be told that they’re over-reacting or super-sensitive all the time – by friends, family, and the men in our lives. In many ways, it is misogyny taken to an extreme. Very sadly, this dismissal of our feelings is something we have in common with women all over the world, whether infertile or not, whether childless or not. It’s 2024. Women have legitimate thoughts and feelings. Even childless cat ladies! It’s time society accepted that.

 

Feminist concerns don't end with childlessness

My littlest niece turns 16 next week. 16!!! I’ve been more disturbed by that than my other nieces/nephews growing up. Maybe because I’ve had more to do with her. Maybe because she’s the last niece/nephew. There are already great-nephews on the scene; the oldest has his 21st birthday next week too. Good grief!

I was recently watching a teen drama, and couldn’t stop thinking about my niece being in each of the situations portrayed. Then yesterday morning, I read a NYT article that shocked me. I guess the fact I don’t have kids has protected me from the realities of teen life in the 2020s! Then again, because I don’t have the same bond and bias as a parent, maybe I can look at all these events and social patterns without quite so much personal involvement, and certainly without the fear of judgement of my parenting skills, or the often-delusional belief that “my child would never xxxx” that I have heard in the past from so many friends and family. I sent the article to my sister and chatted about it with her – she’s open to my comments as long as I’m restrained and tactful about my opinions! (It helps if I keep them generalised, rather than niece-specific!)

The thing about this article that disturbs me though is the lack of progress that women (or young girls) have made in terms of their sexual relationships. And men too, for that matter, as the article talks about peer pressure to perfect these acts. It stuns me that still, in 2024, certain acts are prioritised over female consent and pleasure, even by the young women themselves. And that what we might have seen as abuse is accepted by a majority today. Is it because they think it’s cool? That they have to, to be seen as desirable? That it fulfils some kind of female role? And some kind of male/female dominance/subservience role? Argh. Or is it just a lack of education, of discussion about gender and sexual roles? Is it just ignorance and peer pressure? In the meantime, in the practice discussed in the article, women are suffering ongoing health implications, and even death.

I don’t have to be a mother to be disappointed and disgusted by that. I don’t have to have a genetic stake in the next generation to be concerned about the future for young women and girls, and the way formerly abusive behaviours are being normalised. I despair that so little progress has been made. I could start into a much longer rant about my views on this, but I will spare you that. I'll just say that in this case, my bond with those who are subject to society's still biased gender assumptions and roles is far closer than any perceived distance between those who are parents and those who are not.

Just Us: Barbie, feminism, and Not Kidding

This is the last topic I ever thought I would write about. I had a Barbie when I was a girl - it must have been a birthday present, and it was very unlike other birthday presents I had received. I was a bit of a tomboy - I got a gun, holster, bolero, and Deputy Sheriff badge when I turned five, and was terribly jealous of the boy next door, who also had chaps! (As you can see, our one channel of TV in the late 60s early 70s was dominated by US Westerns. lol) Most of my dolls, teddies etc seemed to be hand-me-downs, so a brand new Barbie was exciting and terribly glamorous. Until, just a short time after my birthday, my mother gave me a haircut. So my little sister decided to give Barbie one too. Her long glamorous blonde hair was gone - she had a raggedy pixie cut for the rest of her life. I was not impressed. And my sister is tired of being reminded of it!

Barbie was always unrealistic - I didn't really know any/many blondes, her figure was ridiculous, and when I knew enough to understand, infuriating. And I'm pretty sure I had her before the unrelenting pink phase (I abhor unrelenting pink for girls - even though I quite like the colour), and before the cars, houses, and all the other Barbies appeared on sale. The commercialism, the sexism, the impossible physical expectations of Barbie turned me against her.

So when I heard there was a Barbie movie, I didn't think it would be for me. But a fellow No Kidding friend and I decided to go. We'd heard good things, and we knew we couldn't drag our significant others along to see it. We went this morning. It made this old feminist happy. There were so many brilliant throw-away lines. And I especially loved the comment "if my feet were this shape all the time, I'd never wear high heels again!" Hear, hear!

I'd heard about America Ferrera's monologue about the contradictory expectations of a modern woman. What I loved about it was the inclusion of those who were not mothers, as well as those who were mothers. I had been enjoying the feminism of the film up to then, and realised I had been unconsciously bracing myself against the onslaught of expectations for mothers, and to feel ignored. But we were not ignored, not forgotten. The message was acceptance - of who we are, regardless of whether we have children or not, regardless of whether we are high achievers or not. I loved that latter point too, because so many of us without children feel that we have to do find the "Next Big Thing" to make up for not being a mother. But we don't. We can, of course, and that is wonderful. But equally wonderful is finding happiness in our lives being ordinary. Surviving. Thriving. By just being us. Ken and Barbie both learned that lesson in the movie. We all need to be reminded of it. Brava, Barbie!

Losses and last resorts

When I was undergoing investigations and treatment for one of my ectopic pregnancies (I cannot recall which), at the entrance to the hospital car park, one or two anti-abortionists waved signs and shouted at cars and visitors to the hospital. Ectopic pregnancies are not viable, they are dangerous, and can and do lead to maternal death. At the time, I was given a standard ectopic pregnancy medication, methotrexate, to end the pregnancy. Even the Catholic Church acknowledges that ectopics require treatment, and are never viable. But every time I entered the hospital, I wondered what vitriol would be hurled my way if they knew what treatment I was given. But they didn't make me feel guilty. I felt guilty enough that my body had not worked properly, and that I had no choice. That the baby I had been ready to welcome would never in fact make it. No, I felt nothing but anger towards these protestors who were deliberately hurting women (and men) like me who had no choice. And to take it further, they were hurting women (and men) who felt that they had no choice, for whatever reason, and so had to exercise choice.

Enduring pregnancy losses, and infertility, and living a life without children, has only made me feel even stronger about this. Just as I say that many of us walking the No Kidding paths had no choice in the matter, even as others mistakenly tell us we chose to live childfree, it is the same for women seeking abortions. So much about abortion is that the women making the decision have no choice - so many women have missed the opportunity to have any other choices because of financial situations, abusive relationships, failing contraception, illness (physical or mental), poor education, ignorance, foetal abnormalities, etc etc. It's a last resort. A last resort that shouldn't be taken away.

Up until recently, abortion in New Zealand was part of the criminal code. Abortions were available, and funded, but women still had to get the approval of two doctors before it was possible. This wasn't difficult, if you had the means, but I'm sure that for poor, rural women, it was. Not to mention the indignity that women who knew what they needed or wanted, and knew all the alternatives, still had to ask two doctors to acknowledge that they had made the right decision. This situation has now changed, doctor sign off is not required up to 20 weeks, and abortion has been decriminalised. All parties now say they would not change the situation. I cannot imagine how furious I would be if that changed. 

So I feel for my US friends and family and readers. As I've also said on A Separate Life here, I want to let you know that we are all thinking of you. As my Prime Minister said, "it is a loss for women everywhere."

Feminism and childlessness

 I was prompted to write* this by a BBC article on a UN Gender Study which “found that 90% of people hold some sort of bias against women.”

 “How depressing,” I thought. “How depressing that it is so unsurprising.”

 I think I’ve been a feminist since I was a little girl. I was certainly a feminist before I was officially “No Kidding” or childless, before I entered the workforce, and before puberty. It’s how I see the world. How the world has seen me. And so of course, reading these articles, my mind immediately went to how frustrating it is in our lives when we are pigeon-holed by society, in business, politics and government, healthcare, sport, the arts, domestic arrangements, etc. You name it! We are further constrained by our parental status – whether as a mother, or as a childless, No Kidding woman. I took it a bit further, seeing that discrimination against us, as women without children or as mothers, is a form of misogyny. It does not see us as individuals, but as objects, and judges us by our biology, rather than by our personalities, our characteristics, our flaws and our talents.

Motherhood, as great as it may be, has been a way of keeping women in control and at home. It is seen as “women’s work” and isn’t paid. It is belittled, generally by men, who seem to – in general – escape the really hard work that mothers do. How often do we hear praise for a man doing – for maybe an afternoon, or a couple of days – what their partners/wives have been doing for years? Even now, even in 2020? In pandemic lockdowns, who has been doing the childcare and home-schooling, even whilst trying to hold down their jobs when working from home?

 I’ve often wondered why, in the last twenty years or so, there has been such a rise in the cult of motherhood, even at the same time that there has been a rise in expectations of what women need to do to be considered “a good mother.” It seems as if we can’t win. You can’t win if you are not a mother. You can’t win if you are. You can’t win if you are anything less than “perfect.” And who decides what is “perfect?”

People, even women who have achieved things no other woman has achieved before them, struggle with change. I wrote some time ago about working with New Zealand’s first woman trade commissioner. Like so many women who achieved in the 1970s and earlier, Frances never married. There was no legitimate reason for her to stay at home. There was no legitimate reason for them to discriminate against her at work – they couldn’t argue that sending her to an overseas posting was going to mean that her husband’s career (like husband’s 20 years later) would suffer. She was so accustomed to the system and the times that she was surprised when she discovered I hadn’t changed my name when I married. I wasn’t the only woman in my department who had done that – many of my best friends were there, and didn’t change their names, or never married their partners – but maybe I was the first she asked about it. “Is that legal?” she said. Then, still struggling with the concept that my “maiden,” unmarried, name was simply my name just like her name was also the name she was born with, she asked what name my passport was in.

She struggled with change. Many women struggle with change, and struggle to see women in positions of authority, or women expecting help at home with the kids. “I didn’t have that, and survived okay,” they may think. Sometimes I wonder if it is jealousy. Or disappointment that they didn’t have the options. Women who have not had careers (either by choice or forced by society’s strictures) or those who have always worked for men, may struggle with the idea that one woman can be above them, when they are accustomed to seeing men making the decisions, getting all the power. They still use the old misogynistic standards of success and power because they’ve been brain-washed. They cannot imagine that women could be just as powerful. (And I haven’t even touched on the whole sexual objectification of women. That would keep me here all week!) Men, of course, struggle with the idea that they may lose their place and privilege. However powerless they might be, they like to feel that someone is beneath them. Power systems are taught, on both sides of the power gap. Discrimination is taught. Ultimately, misogyny is taught. 

And I think that’s why some women with children often look down on those of us without. So they infantalise us, pity us, put us in a box that is lower than them. They want to feel a little superior to someone else, when they may feel constrained or judged. I’ve written about that elsewhere. I think it’s why some of the vehemently childfree object to those of us who are No Kidding but don’t want to be called childLESS, usingthe label childfree. They don’t think we deserved it.  

But my point of all this is that we women** have so much in common. None of us wants to be judged because of our biology and what it can or cannot do, or to be restricted because of who society perceives us to be. We should remember that. We’re all women. We don’t need to turn on each other. We’re in this together.

 

 * Apologies to any No Kidding writers who covered these articles already. Let me know in the comments if you did.

** Further apologies to any male readers of my blog. This one was just for the women. I’m sure you can relate to a lot of it though.

She was one of us ... but no longer

So, back in October, I noted that our new Prime Minister was one of us, a No Kidding woman. Turns out it wasn't by choice, as she's always said she would like children, and has said that she and her partner had been told they were going to need help to conceive, and that they had put that on hold when she became leader of the Labour Party in the middle of last year.

In case you haven't heard, as the news has gone around the world, she has announced that she is pregnant. Given her openness about their infertility (though I doubt she would use that word), and my desire to see women in all positions, regardless of their family arrangements, I am very pleased for her. I wince a bit that she's going to be used as an example of the "stop trying so hard/just relax and it will happen" brigade, though I doubt she was at all relaxed during the election campaign, which is when she must have conceived (although she found out only after the election).

I also am pleased that the initial public reaction - that I heard or read at least - was positive ... well, except for my SIL, who ranted at me on whatsapp that it was dishonest of her to take the position when she knew she was pregnant, that she'd never cope doing both jobs. I knew I couldn't respond with any of my normal responses, which would have been "if she says she can cope, and has plans for the event, then I believe her," or "you'd never say that about a man," because the inevitable response (either said bluntly, or implicit in a withering comeback) would have been "you've never had a baby, so what would you know?"

So I just said, "well, isn't it good that you're not a New Zealander!"

Making progress, or not?

One of my very early posts (in fact, it was my fourth post here) talked about the common statement, "as a mother ..." and bemoaned the fact that normal human compassion is so often qualified to that of a mother or more generally, a parent. I'm pleased to say though that recently I heard someone say (one of the presenters on the afternoon show of our national radio) "as a human being." I think he might have even started to say, "as a father," but stopped himself, and used the more inclusive term. I was gratified, and amazed - maybe times are changing?

A post a few weeks later raised the idea of media training for all of us, so that we could learn how to dodge intrusive questions, just as politicians do. Unfortunately, even politicians struggle with this, as we found when just a week or two ago a young (37) woman was appointed leader* of one of the two major political parties here. Seven hours later, she was asked (by the same presenter mentioned above, but in his television role) the first question about having children (she has said in the past she would like to), much to the discomfort of the female journalist sitting next to him, and we indulged in joint eye-rolling at the question, crushing my hopes for continued progress for women. However, the resulting public furore about this (and subsequent discussions in the media) made me more hopeful that society is changing, and that it is no longer acceptable to always see women as walking wombs first.


*Both parties have previously had female leaders and Prime Minister

 

The Handmaid's Tale

Mel and Loribeth* have both written about The Handmaid’s Tale, and over the weekend I did too, on A Separate Life – They can’t do that, can they?  I was surprised by the level of rage and distress I felt over both the book (which I hadn’t read before) and especially the TV series, at the same time being delighted that it had been written/made so brilliantly. Initially, when I knew it was based around a story of fertility/infertility, I was a little put off. But afterwards, analysing my thoughts about it, I realised that my reactions were and are not influenced by the infertility angle, although admittedly I felt a few twinges about some of the nuances of the monthly-waiting, the questions being asked, the blame of not conceiving, the feelings of the infertile Wives, and my tribe of the unseen and rarely spoken of “Non-Women,” who are mentioned in the book but I am not sure they’re mentioned in the series.

Ultimately though, I have concluded that my strong reaction to The Handmaid’s Tale is all about feminism, and women’s status in society being reduced to their bodies. I think too this is why I continue to write, to defend the position of women without children, to talk about our legitimate but frequently invisible place in society, simply because we haven't produced children. Feminism is perhaps why I feel these injustices and ignorance so strongly, as along with the very personal context I have with infertility and life without children, I also view them in a much broader social context. Feminism is, after all, just about equality and justice, and surely that's what we all want?

*    If I've missed your post on The Handmaid's Tale, I apologise, and ask you to leave a link in the comments, as I'd love to read it.