US vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s 2021 comments about “childless cat women who are unhappy with their lives and the choices they have made” have put the cat amongst the pigeons. Well, not so much amongst the pigeons, but certainly amongst a lot of women who have come out breathing fire that he dared to make such a derogatory comment about women who don’t have children. They have criticized his misogyny, his contempt for the choices women make, and his portrayal of women without children as joyless creatures who try to fill their empty lives with their cats. (Clearly, Vance thinks a purring cat fits his vision of a miserable childless woman more than a barking dog).
Vance’s comment was, of course, a political one, aimed at demeaning female leaders in the liberal Democratic bloc — for example, women like Vice President Kamala Harris — who don’t have biological children. Yet, there’s no doubt that it stemmed from his deeply held belief that women who don’t have children are lacking in something. That they are incomplete, incompetent, socially isolated, and therefore unworthy of respect.
Only disdain, pity for childless women
Sounds familiar? Of course it is! We Indian women are very familiar with this belief system. So much so that we might wonder why Vance’s comment is being made into such a hue and cry. Hey, the man expressed his belief in the most aggressive way possible, but isn’t this hostility exactly what childless women face in our society? Which makes one wonder if Vance’s supercilious opinion about childless women is also fueled by his Indian wife Usha, who is a serious fertility advocate and has three children.
But we must not speculate. We must stick to the facts. And the fact is that every Indian woman who has not borne a child – whether by choice or because of medical problems or for some other reason, whether rich or underprivileged, living in an urban high-rise or a rural slum – is treated with scorn, pity and, in some cases, deadly cruelty. (We are talking about married women here, because, poop poopNo one expects unmarried women to have children. Also, single women face a different kind of ridicule.)
‘Born as a woman, had to suffer like a woman’
Of course, having children is a perfectly natural life choice. But for some strange reason, not having children is considered monstrously unnatural. Try telling your nosy aunt or overly friendly female neighbour that you have seen the suffering and exhaustion of your friends who are new mothers, their eyes hollow from lack of sleep; you have seen them give up their careers for their children, or suffer from guilt as they return to their jobs. And, no, thankfully, that life is not for you – you would prefer to be childless and carefree. Aunts and neighbours will be horrified by your perversion, your unfeminine rejection of the reproductive instinct. You were born a woman, hey, you should have a good time with the pain of being a woman!
If you want to shock them even more, you can say that you like to spend your earnings on yourself, go on vacations, and live a better lifestyle than you could when you had children. After this blatant expression of sinful self-centeredness, they may turn away from you completely.
As a childless woman, I can tell you that if you don’t want to have children, your reproductive years will be marked by: first, benign questions from female relatives about when you will give them the “good news.” Second, less benign questions about why the “good news” is not coming. Third, reassurances that you still have plenty of time to become a mother – and if you know that’s the problem, why not check with a fertility doctor. And finally, the stage when friends and relatives realize that you really have no intention of reproducing and, even if it’s unlikely, they are happy with the choice you have made.
If anything, childless women should get tax breaks
But wait, not having children does not mean that you will be free from pitying glances and accusations that you are an unfortunate woman who has failed to achieve true fulfillment of her womanhood by not having a child. Depending on your social, cultural and economic environment, reactions can range from being dismissed as a Infertile (infertile woman), melting sympathy at your so-called misfortune, to intense outrage, if you are brave enough to declare that you are not sad that you are childless, that you enjoy your unencumbered status and thank your fortune that you do not have to spend a lot of money sending your child (or children) abroad to study, nor abandon them in a world heading towards climate disaster.
With the steep decline in birth rates in the West (the number of adults under 50 in the US who do not have children and are unlikely to ever have children has risen from 37% in 2018 to 47% in 2023), one could argue that some people there need to worry that more and more women do not go down the path of having children. But there is no such problem in India. True, the total fertility rate is declining here too, but we are still a long way from reducing our population burden and reaching a point when, say, 2 crore people would not apply for 60,000 railway jobs. In fact, what childless women should get in this country is not hostility, but tax breaks for not increasing the population!
But that’s very unlikely to happen – even if the current finance minister is replaced by someone else. Still, people like Vance in this country have to get used to the idea that as women achieve higher levels of education and financial independence, many will choose not to have children. Yes, it’s fun to blame women for everything they do or don’t do, but we’re fast reaching the stage when we don’t care.
In the meantime, hold on to my uterus – I’m off to the pet store to get myself a cat.
(Shuma Raha is a journalist and author)
Disclaimer: These are the personal views of the author
