Southbank Centre WOW

WOMEN OF THE WORLD FESTIVAL

6—10 MARCH 2013

Why is there a taboo around childless women?

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Why is there a taboo around childless women?

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Trudy Healey-Potter

a great many of our attitudes to life were formed in our earliest history when children and their survival was very important to the survival of the family/group. Then as we moved on to an agrarian society and city dwelling and a dip in human health many children were born both as a result of a change in life style and a desperate need for labour and a secure old age. Though as we still see in many societies and our own (until the advent of effective birth control) too many children become a terrifying prospect both for the chances of the survival of both mother and children. So when our friends are cooing over the cradle WE are the ones who need to to stop saying when are you going to be a mum? Admittedly because of the nature of motherhood we do cross the rubicon and it does make a real difference to who we spend time with and we do want our friends to be in the same club so that we can stay in touch.
Sarah Stamp

I think that it is to do with the perceived role of women in society. Even if women have careers and do may other things in their life, it is still the general expectation that they will also have children. Because that is what women do. This expectation comes from both men and women possibly for different reasons. Women are supposed to be carers when they reject that role it brings into question all other pre determined roles for both men and women. Mothers are still in the majority compared with childless women. I think that most women who do have children are so consumed by it (understandably) the can’t remember or imagine any other way of life. They love their children unconditional. So perhaps mothers asume that women who do not chose to have children have something missing and are not able to give this love and are therefore missing out.
Sue Wilson

We don’t fit into the expected, common role of women so people are not sure how to handle us!
mary ray

There is an element of fear of the women who appear to be surviving without the ‘burden’ of motherhood. This of course is a perception and not the reality, nevertheless, fear leads people to shun and hold them in contempt relatively speaking.
http://twitter.com/redspringsmedia Sharon Clews

Sadly many of the taboos come from other women. If you’re not a mother, you can’t possibly understand the “burden” of being a parent. Nor are we supposed to understand the joys of children. Many of us just don’t want to. Some see it as a failure on our part, some see it as our loss. We just want to be seen as making a choice like any other – golf, red shoes, short hair..
http://www.facebook.com/susan.broom.35 Susan Broom

Probably because they force women who have had children to question why they had them. Childlessness – for women who always thought they’d have children, and didn’t – is a much bigger taboo. It’s the grief that dare not speak its name.
http://twitter.com/Kirsten4Flowers Kirsten Hey

Because patriarchy has decreed women’s role is childbirth and childcare. It keeps us dependent, vulnerable and unable to SMASH PATRIARCHY.
Erin

Childless women are ‘taboo’ because we’re dangerous! We have the time, energy & sometimes the money to make the world a more woman-friendly place. If we reach critical mass who knows what might happen
Amy

Outmoded survivalist instincts and fear of the unfamiliar.
Also jealousy of our “free time”… and the kick-ass bodies we retain without having given birth
Heather

The majority of women seem to be programmed to want children and prioritise this in their life. Some women don’t, for many valid reasons, but are regarded as eccentric and possibly abnormal. Generally, motherhood is associated with “good’ qualities such as nuturing and selflessness. Perhaps there is a underlying fear of women who choose not to be mothers, maybe they are seen as lacking something and being lesser people.
http://twitter.com/leechalmers Lee Chalmers

Though I think the right wing media has a view against childless women, being one myself I have never experienced any problem or negative comments from people. Sometimes people ask and I say “I didn’t want the job of being a mother, I wanted to do something else” and that stops them in their tracks.
Joanna Penn

I’m childfree – by choice.
Lucy

There lies a silent gulf between the mother and the childless woman. The woman becomes a mother or the woman becomes childless. We lose our sisterhood and drift apart. The conversations we used to have disappear and are replaced by silence.
http://twitter.com/K_IngalaSmith Karen Ingala Smith

Because patriarchy tries it’s hardest to reduce the role of women to that of incubator and carer. Revolution sisters!
Guest

Because patriarchy tries to restrict the role of women to incubators and carers. Revolution sisters!
Bernie Folan

I agree with Susan Browne below. I’m a mother and openly question why I did it at times and you can hear a pin drop. Those who aren’t but expected to be are not often heard from. It’s all too much wrapped in stigma, expectation and cliché. And wrapped so tight none of it can breathe much less speak.
http://profiles.google.com/denisejoynes Denise Joynes

I didn’t realise there was a taboo in general. I’ve met some women who like making catty remarks about ‘selfish’ childless women, but I thought they were. perhaps, feeling a bit jealous about my apparent freedom. I thought it was just sour grapes. None stopped to wonder why I was childless, and none ever directed similar remarks at my partner. Some women like being catty to other women, I suppose. If it wasn’t about not having kids, it’d be about something else like my dress sense, or my politics, my vegetarianism, my qualifications etc. All these have been the butt of cattiness too.