Childless Cat Ladies and Other Women Without Children

In today's episode I speak with Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, a professor of history at the University of Chicago, and author of "Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother." There has been a long history of women without children being stigmatized, pitied, reviled, envied, and ignored. Within today's political climate - especially with the upcoming Presidential Elections - we have also seen examples of the trope of "the child-less cat lady" being rallied against so-called "non-mothers." With time, understandings and practices of Mothering are shifting to increasingly narrow definitions, where a Mother, today, is understood as a woman who can give birth to her own biological children, "naturally," and within the confines of a nuclear family. As we see unfolding before our eyes, with women being denied access to abortions in the United States, the government has always been interested, implicated, and often times, directly involved, in the decisions women make about their reproductive choices. In my conversation with Peggy Heffington, we dive into some of the historical, cultural, ecological, and socio-political reasons women today -as in the past -are not having children. Indeed, many of the reasons are not new: "history is full of women without children, some who chose childless lives, others who wanted children but never had them, and still others - the vast majority, then and now - who fell somewhere in between."

 

Here's a link to Rachel Treisman's article: https://www.npr.org/2024/07/29/nx-s1-5055616/jd-vance-childless-cat-lady-history

To learn more about Peggy Heffington and follow her work, check out her website: https://poheffington.com/