When it comes to addressing the sorry state of the world, there’s been a huge shift of responsibility away from governments and corporations
Nothing in this world can be said to be certain except death, taxes and that women will regularly be told they should not forget to have children. That badgering, a favourite of the press, particularly a rightwing press that trades in moral panics about modern life and its liberties, came round again last week in the form of reports about a women’s college at the University of Cambridge, where students have been warned not to leave it too late to have a baby, and will be having lessons on fertility.
It is a trope so old that pop culture satirises it in variations of a cartoon where a woman in distress says: “I can’t believe I forgot to have children!” The joke, of course, is that women can’t “forget”, because there are subliminal and overt reminders everywhere. Not having children is either a conscious decision, or the result of uncertainty and circumstance. For many women, “forgetting” is not absent-mindedness but, in fact, a constant malaise of ambivalence, a general sense of foreboding. It’s a prickling awareness that the introduction of a child into the wobbly equilibrium of your life will come with huge costs, in the absence of decent state support for childcare and mental health services, and flexible working hours. This state of “forgetting” is also a paralysis triggered by circumstances – a less than ideal partner or no partner, fertility issues that need more support than the NHS or employers are willing to provide.
Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist
