If you watch TV dramas or movies, read fiction, follow celebrity gossip, read women’s magazines, or pay attention to how products aimed at women are marketed, you wouldn’t think there was a woman alive who wasn’t dating, trying to conceive, pregnant, married, a mother or a grandmother!
Read moreDear Media
Dear Media, We humans need to see ourselves reflected in other people. It’s how we build a sense of belonging.
Read moreThe Glossy Mags
Childlessness in the media. Where to start?! Well, I love a glossy magazine, so I’ll start there.
Read moreAunt Brandy
“There's something Aunty Brandy wants more than anything... but she can't have it, and there's not really anything anyone can do.” I cried.
Read moreHappy, sad and everything in between
Up until a few years ago, most films, most books, most TV showed a childless person as emotionally damaged, as envious, as searching for something to make up for being childless, as leading a poor and lonely life.
Read moreControlled Triggers
I used to love Rom-Coms. Now I can only watch them alone when I'm ready for a good cry and well enough to not seep into a depressive episode.
Read moreEvil, psychopathic sexual deviant - just another childless woman in the movies
Hollywood - have you heard? There’s a new leading lady on the scene! ‘Spoiler alert’, she’s living a fulfilling, meaningful life - and she’s childless.
Read moreForever Stereotyped or Invisible
In the 1980s, when I was just starting to make my way in the world, there was a real freedom for young women. Our lives did not have to be defined by our biology.
Read moreInvisible at the Playground
I’m so happy that this is one of the World Childless Week themes for 2023. It’s a topic that I have often felt is extremely under-represented or worse yet, completely incorrectly depicted.
Read moreIn the absence of something that never was
‘In the absence of something that never was’ is an ongoing project investigating the spiritual and philosophical aspects of what it is to be a woman who is not a mother and the experience of an absence around something imagined.
Read moreMissing or Misunderstood?
A woman stands at her kitchen island, deep in thought. Her partner walks in and places his arms comfortingly around her waist. Soon after, three children enter the room.
Read moreChildless on screen: When (stigmatizing) media portrayals have very real consequences
This piece makes the point that the way the media portray childless individuals matters beyond the screen, to the way we live our lives.
Read moreThe 'Empty Nest' comes in all shapes and sizes
At this time of year it can be hard to escape media articles about the “Empty Nest” that are designed to help prepare parents for the impact of their teenagers heading off to university or elsewhere to start a new stage in their life after leaving school.
Read moreHidden in Plain Sight
Walking down the supermarket aisle my eye caught a cover line on a well-known magazine – “3 women share their emotional stories of their infertility journeys”.
Read moreStorytelling and childlessness
Watching television when you're childless, not by choice, might seem like a great idea. Much like reading, it's a pastime where we can forget about the world. Yes? No, not always.
Read moreThe backlash of writing from a childless perspective
I wanted to write because I was tired of coming across pregnancy tropes in nearly every book I read.
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