Squeamish Bikini
  • Home
  • Squeamish Features
  • Squeamish Reviews
  • Squeamish News
  • Squeamish Contact
  • About Squeamish

Fertility, Fertility, Fertility

3/6/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Hi! Are you a cis woman? Quick, yes or no. OK if you can concentrate over the deafening sounds of your biological clock (tick tock) answer this: fertility of career? Quickly, quickly you haven't got all day. Or all your twenties even. Oh yeah if you're over 27 you're disqualified from that question, your decision was made for you and we hope you like your job, you career gal you. Bit selfish though. Yeah someone else has gone on the record suggesting women have babies as early as acceptably possible. This time it's Location, Location, location's Kirstie Allsopp. But is that really what she said? As a childless woman who, in Telegraph and Daily Mail years, is fast approaching barrenness and regret I'm regularly pitted against women who had babies in their twenties. Fertility doesn't have time for career building, we're regularly told, but is this a question of the fertility clock or capitalism's time table? 

Kirstie Allsopp was 35 when she gave birth to her first child and had her second child at 37. She also has two stepsons. When discussing her lack of desire to marry her partner of 10 years with the Telegraph Kirstie said she would only marry because it's "the world's greatest tax dodge". However she wished to assure the Telegraph she still held other views that be interpreted as more conservative when it comes to women and children: "Women are being let down by the system. We should speak honestly and frankly about fertility and the fact it falls off a cliff when you’re 35. We should talk openly about university and whether going when you’re young, when we live so much longer, is really the way forward."

What would Kirstie advise her hypothetical daughter (which, at 42, we all know she is too old and wizened to have) do? Kirstie would say: "Darling, do you know what? Don't go to university. Start work straight after school, stay at home, save up your deposit - I'll help you, let's get you into a flat. And then we can find you a nice boyfriend and you can have a baby by the time you're 27."
Of course, hetero Kirstie Jr would have to find a willing boyfriend who wanted to have a child with her at 27 - but this is all hypothetical. But why has this been leapt upon as such dreadful advice?

The approved window in which to have a baby is very small from 27 to, oh say, 28? 

In her advice Kirstie does not rule out university, so much as going when you are going to get something out of it (and can more likely afford it) "Don't think 'my youth should be longer'. Don't go to university because it's an 'experience'. No, it's where you're supposed to learn something! Do it when you're 50!"

In the Guardian Kirstie's remarks were quickly written up as patronising, getting Helen Fraser, chief executive of the Girls' Day School Trust to comment on the advice, which she called a: "throwback to the 1950s... "University education is incredibly important for girls...we would be extremely disappointed if girls left school at 16 and tried to find a flat funded by their mother and waited for the nice boyfriend to turn up.

"People deserve to aspire to having both a fulfilling career and a happy family life. That's what men take for granted and girls who leave university at 22 should not be told by anybody that they have to decide between a career or a relationship and children."

This is true. However Helen Fraser's opinion is as clear as Kirstie's. Just as there is concern trolling over women who either want to establish themselves professionally before babies or simply haven't met someone they want to share genes with, the women who decides university isn't for her and motherhood beckons has similarly unsolicited questions over regret, combined with dismissal and intellectual snobbery. 

The young mother with no qualifications runs the risk of ageism if and when she enters the jobs market or higher education, just as the 'career women' risks infertility. And all because we insist on either/or. 

The fertility window in which to have a baby is pretty wide, from menarche to menopause, wider than many women are led to think as reported on here. The approved window in which to have a baby is very small from 27 to, oh say, 28? Mother Nature might not be a feminist but society's a bitch. 


Squeamish Kate
submit to reddit
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

    Categories

    All
    Books
    Booze
    Cinematic
    Dress Up
    Educating Sue
    Educating Sue
    Friday 5
    Friday 5
    Geekery
    Gender Agender
    Gender Agender
    Glitter And Twisted
    Glitter And Twisted
    History Repeating
    History Repeating
    How To
    Just A Thought
    Just A Thought
    Let's Get Political
    Let's Get Political
    Music
    Nom Nom Nom
    Nostalgia
    Tellybox
    Why You Should Love

    RSS Feed


Squeamish Bikini

About
Contact us
Write for us

Newsletter

Picture
     Copyright © 2013