Conversation 1
A: “Do you want children?”
B: “No, not really.”
A: “Ah well. I guess it’s not for everyone.”
Conversation 2:
A: “When you have your own…”
B: “…Actually, I’m not having children.”
A: “You don’t want any? I don’t know…You’ll change your mind one day.”
The difference between these conversations?
Conversation 1 is a typical conversation between anyone and a male. Conversation 2 is a typical conversation between anyone and a female. Both conversations myself and my fiancé have encountered countless times since we got engaged.
Why is it when a man is asked about children it’s posed as a perfectly rational response that he may not want any?
Why is it when women are asked, and offer their honest response, they are regarded as immature in their thinking and told they will change their mind? I suppose it’s inevitable considering we have hormones that control our desires.
Note the sarcasm.
I was actually told by someone quite recently that I would definitely change my mind owing to the tick-tock of my ‘biological clock.’
I don’t take this personally. In fact, I am more curious as to why this is the case for many women who have decided that motherhood is not for them.
The reality of inequality.
I once read an article about a 29 year old woman who was adamant she did not want children. She would purposefully seek partners with similar values to avoid potential wannabe Dad’s and disappointment for both parties later on in the relationship. She went so far as booking a GP appointment to ask for tubal ligation (i.e. the fallopian tubes are cut or sealed to prevent pregnancy.) The doctors refused time and time again. Why? Because she would change her mind.
In the Western world, women have access to things that our female ancestors fought for. In 2016 we have education, birth control, and access to legal abortion. Surely the belief of inevitable motherhood is outdated?
We don’t have to look back too far to discover this idea is deeply embedded and taking an awfully long time to shift. As far back as the nineteenth century, once the industrial revolution had successfully severed the domestic and working spheres, women were regarded as the moral guardians of the home. This is practically engrained in societal thinking through our attitudes and actions. Women rear children, men win the bread. Small shifts might be happening, but peel back a layer or two and the belief persists.
This way of thinking also harms men. At time of writing, Statutory Paternity leave is either one or two weeks consecutive leave which cannot begin before the child is born. On the other hand, statutory Maternity leave is fifty two weeks. This is optional; two weeks can be taken as a minimum or, in factory work, 4 weeks are granted as a minimum. Women are also entitled to 11 weeks off prior to her due date. [1]
The origin story.
If women are the child-rearing type, I can only hazard a guess that a refusal to have children produces discomfort in that we are refusing our role as a woman. We’re destroying the very foundations of a functional society. Obviously.
This pervading ideology – that women do not know their own minds well enough to determine their futures, that they cannot trust themselves to be certain because of their biological clock, that their wombs will inevitably determine their fate and not their minds – has historical roots.
We’ve all heard the comment about the woman who was ‘hysterical’ – and not in the funny ha-ha way. Hysteria is a term we usually reserve for uncontrollable laughter or emotional outburst that is beyond the expected response of the situation. It is defined as ’emotional excess that is uncontrollable.’ However, the word itself has Greek origins where it can be translated to ‘uterus.’
Back in the day, hysteria was very much a woman’s problem caused by her womb. In fact, hysteria was diagnosed as ‘wandering womb’ as Greek physicians identified the womb as the pivotal mental and physical difference between a man and a woman. Aretaeus of Cappadocia considered the womb to be ‘an animal within an animal.’ Furthermore, Aristotle stated that a woman was a ‘deformed male.’ [2]
“Aristotle’s characterization of woman as a ‘deformed male’ and ‘a mutilated male’ is well known, as is its persistence in Western culture. However, Aristotle’s biology may be seen as only one manifestation of the classical Greek belief that women are both fundamentally different from, and inferior to, men.”
(King, 1993: 17)
Wandering Womb was the belief that the womb would literally move around the body, causing other ailments, due to dryness. What was the solution? Other than scents to be placed within the cervix, “the writers of Hippocratic texts […] intercourse and pregnancy rightly belong to the domain of pharmacopoeia…all disorders of women may be cured by intercourse and/or childbirth, to which marriage and pregnancy are the necessary precursors.” (King, 1993: 24)
Basically, the cure all for hysterical women was marriage, sex, and pregnancy. I’d like to see that on a modern day prescription.
It’s hardly surprising that the dominant definitions of being female are The Virgin or The Whore. The Whore – a woman who is sexually active – is frowned upon and distrusted. Perhaps this fear stems from the fact that sexual intercourse was a solution to a female psychiatric disorder. For example, the trial of Amanda Knox was a media frenzy once her sexual history became public knowledge. Nicknamed ‘Foxy Knoxy’ and painted as a sexual addict, it was obvious that a woman with such a ‘loose’ sexual preference would have the ability to murder, surely? [3]
Are we uncontrollable unless tamed? The notion is Biblical; Paul of Tarsus, the alleged predominant author of the New Testament texts, was born of a devout Jewish family. Tarsus, heavily influenced by Greek language and culture, allowed Paul to be exposed and educated in classical Literature, philosophy, and ethics. He drew upon stoic philosophy in his letters to help Gentiles understand the concept of Jesus and God. Stoicism itself was founded in the Greek capital of Athens and you can hear the Hippocratic sentiments echoed in 1 Timothy 2: 15 – “But women will be saved through childbearing – assuming they continue to live in faith, love, holiness, and modesty.” Thus, the very salvation of a female would be as a result of reproduction – it is a moral obligation. On the other hand, “[t]he childless woman, due to lack of spaces in her body in which moisture can be stored, above all if she abstains from the ‘moistening’ activity of sexual intercourse […] the abdomen legs, and feet will swell: Death is imminent.” (King, 1993: 18)
The role of ‘Mother.’
Let’s be honest – the concept and lived role of motherhood can be challenging. In the past women were “to be a good wife, a good mother, and an efficient home-maker […] women’s expected role in society was to strive after perfection in all three roles.” (Wolf, 1990: 63) Of course, women now work – but that 37+ hour week is in addition to those social roles. Being a mother means being a chef, counsellor, nurse, live-in nanny, driver, house cleaner, tutor….the list goes on. In fact, a recent article determined that a mother should be earning £159,137 annually for these roles. [4]
“[I]n child-rearing, nurturing and housekeeping – their actions are not seen as defined and delineated because they are described as natural and inevitable. If it is natural you must do it. If it is natural it does not count.”
(Orbach, 1978: 71 – 72)
Ironically, “while considered the essential figure in the infant’s daily life, the mother is not considered expert on child rearing” (Orbach, 1978: 73) and will often have her opinions undermined by those who are ‘experts’.
Whilst the home is slowly becoming a place of equality in duties and roles (emphasis on slowly), there is always another ideology to replace it and keep women confined. “Of the women’s culture of the 1950s, [Betty] Friedan lamented that ‘there is no other way for a woman to be a heroine’ than to ‘keep on having babies’; today, a heroine must ‘keep on being beautiful'” (Wolf, 1990: 66). So, when she does have children, she must be a MILF and is celebrated for the ‘snap back’ to a pre-pregnancy body.
It seems that on both sides, there are expectations that are largely rooted in historical constructs of what it means to be a woman and a Mother. The shift is happening, but we may need a wait a long time before history (herstory?) is re-written.
References.
1 Maternity Pay and Leave and Paternity Pay and Leave. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/paternity-pay-leave/overview and https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave/overview [Accessed 12 November 2016]
2 Simon, M. (2014) ‘Fantastically Wrong: The Theory of Wandering Wombs that Drove Women to Madness.’ Available at: https://www.wired.com/2014/05/fantastically-wrong-wandering-womb/ [Accessed 12 November 2016]
3 Amanda Fox Documentary [Accessed 10 November 2016]
4 Goldhill, O. (2014) ‘How Much is a Housewife Worth?’ Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/11164040/How-much-is-a-housewife-worth.html
King, H. (1993) “Once Upon a Text: Hysteria from Hippocrates” in Gilman, King, Porter, Rousseau, and Showalter (1993) Hysteria Beyond Freud, Oxford: University of California Press.
Orbach, S. (1978) Fat is a Feminist Issue, Great Britain: Paddington Press Ltd.
Wolf, N. (1990) The Beauty Myth, London: Vintage Books
She Uncensored 