2021 US vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s comment about “childless cat ladies who are miserable about their own lives and the choices they’ve made” has put the cat among the pigeons. Well, not so much among the pigeons, but certainly among the pigeons. many women who have come out and breathed the fire that he dared to make such a disparaging comment about women who don’t have children. They have dismissed his misogyny, his contempt for the choices women make, and his portrayal of women without children as invective. joyless creatures trying to fill their empty lives with their cats (Vance clearly thinks a meowing cat fits his vision of a pathetic childless woman much better than a barking dog).
Vance’s comment was obviously political, intended to disparage female leaders in the liberal Democratic circle — women like Vice President Kamala Harris, for example — who have no biological children. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that this arose from his deeply held belief that something is missing in women who are childless. That they are incomplete, incompetent, socially distant and therefore not worthy of respect.
Only contempt, pity for childless women
Sounds familiar? Of course it does! We Indian women are all too familiar with this belief system. So much so that we could be forgiven for wondering what the fuss over Vance’s comment is about. Heck, the man was just expressing his beliefs as offensively as he could, but isn’t this hostility exactly what childless women in our society are exposed to? One wonders, then, whether Vance’s sincere views on childless women were also supported by his Indian wife Usha, who is a serious procreator and has produced three children.
But let’s not speculate. Let’s stick to the facts. And the fact is that every Indian woman who has not had a child – whether by choice, or because of medical problems or for any other reason, whether she is wealthy or underprivileged, lives in an urban high-rise or a rural slum – is being treated with contempt, pity and, in some cases, murderous cruelty. (We’re talking about married women here, because: chhi chhino one expects unmarried women to have children. Furthermore, single women face another level of ridicule).
‘Born as a woman, suffer as one’
Of course, having children is a completely natural life choice. But for some strange reason, not having a child is considered monstrously unnatural. Tell your pushy aunt or overfriendly neighbor that you have seen the misery and exhaustion of your friends who were new mothers, their eyes hollowed out by insomnia; you’ve seen them give up their careers for their children, or be wracked with guilt over returning to work. And no thank you, that life is not for you – you prefer to be child-free and carefree. Said aunt and neighbor will be shocked by your perversity, your unfeminine rejection of the reproductive instinct. You were born a woman, damn it, you might well have to endure the pain of being one!
If you want to shock them even more, you could say that you would rather spend the money you earn on yourself, go on vacation, and afford a better lifestyle than if you had a child. After this brazen display of sinful self-centeredness, they will probably avoid you altogether.
As a woman without children, I can tell you that if you don’t want to have a baby, your reproductive years will be marked as follows: First, friendly questions from female relatives about when you are going to tell them the “good news.” Second, less friendly questions about why the ‘good news’ is not coming. Third, the reassurance that you still have plenty of time to become a mother – and why not see this fertility doctor, just in case, you know, that’s the problem. And finally, the stage where friends and relatives realize that you really have no intention of reproducing and, however unlikely it is, are happy with the choice you have made.
If anything, childless women should get tax breaks
But wait, staying childfree doesn’t mean you’ll be free from pitying looks and insinuations that you’re an unhappy woman who failed to achieve the true fulfillment of your femininity by not producing a baby. Depending on your social, cultural and economic environment, reactions can range from being dismissed as a jobjh (barren woman), to melting pity at your so-called misfortune, to seething resentment if you were so bold as to declare that you do not regret being childless, that you enjoy your unencumbered status and thank your lucky stars that You don’t have to spend an arm and a leg sending your child (or children) abroad to study, nor do you have to abandon them to a world heading towards climate catastrophe.
With birth rates in the West falling dramatically (the share of American adults under 50 who have no children and will likely never have children has risen from 37% in 2018 to 47% in 2023), you might say that some people there reason to worry that more and more women will not follow the path of reproduction. But in India there is no such problem. It is true that here too, overall fertility rates are falling, but we are still far from reaching a point where, say, 2 crore people stop applying for 60,000 railway jobs. What women without children in this country should really get is not hostility, but tax breaks because they don’t increase population growth!
But there is a good chance that will happen even if the current finance minister is replaced by another. Still, people like Vance in this country will have to get used to the idea that as women achieve higher levels of education and financial independence, many more women will choose not to have children. Yes, it’s fun to blame women for everything they do or don’t do, but we’re quickly reaching a stage where we don’t care.
In the meantime, hold my uterus – I’m going to a pet store to buy a cat.
(Shuma Raha is a journalist and author)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
