This piece originally appeared on the Ms. Magazine Blog.

Susan, a 53 year old camp director, babysat from the time she was 12 years old. She always assumed she’d have kids one day—but during college, she worked in a department store where watching impatient parents with their children inspired her to radically change the path she’d planned for herself.

Vladimir Pustovit / Creative Commons

“They’d yank them by the arm, pull them around, yell at them, and make them sit down. It just wasn’t right.” Susan took the experience to heart and began to think more deeply about how she could make a positive difference in children’s lives. “I had a lot of experience at being with children at various stages. And I enjoyed it, I loved it, but I said to myself, ‘There are way too many kids out there that don’t have someone to look after them and don’t have someone to be an advocate for them.’ I felt that I could be that person.” She became a teacher and then a camp director and hasn’t looked back since.

Making a difference in children’s lives is what Susan felt destined to do. In addition to working with children in her career, Susan says she’s extremely close to her nieces and nephews. They enjoy weekend visits at her home and she has the financial security to help their parents with expenses. Susan loves giving to them. As she put it, “When they visit me, I take excellent care of them, I lavish them, we have fun, and they have everything they want.”

We know from our interviews with hundreds of childfree women, some of whom appear in Maxine’s forthcoming film, TO KID OR NOT TO KID, that Susan isn’t alone. For these women, being a parent isn’t required for making a positive difference in a child’s life. Non-mothers’ roles as advocates, mentors, and friends to children are well documented. A survey of 1,000 non-mothers inspired by Savvy Auntie Melanie Notkin found that children play an active role in the lives of 80 percent of women who don’t have children of their own. Another study found that it’s common for aunts to spend money on the children in their lives and assist kids’ parents financially. In fact, in 2012 aunts spent an estimated $387 on each child in their lives. Three-quarters of them spent more than $500 per child. Despite aunties’ significant investments in children, and the New York Times’ feature last year on this segment of the market, advertisers have been slow to catch on.

Maxine is trying to rectify this. As a commercial director and filmmaker, she’s made the first Aunty commercial, released on April 17. The advert features Aunties who serve as “other mothers” to their nieces and nephews and celebrates the role of aunts in our community.

We hear proclamations all the time that it takes a village to raise a child and we know from childfree people’s own accounts that they are an important part of that village. As feminist writer Jessica Valenti notes, “ we need to start thinking about raising our children as a community exercise.” Non-parent figures are an essential part of that exercise. Research conducted for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America shows that having caring adults who are not their parents involved in their lives improves kids’ confidence, grades and social skills. Non-parents also provide needed support for parents.

Today, 15 percent of women in the U.S. will reach their 40th birthdays without ever having given birth. While these women may not have given birth, they have given to the children in their lives in significant ways, both emotionally and financially. Childfree Aunties’ contributions should no longer go ignored.

Maxine Trump has directed documentaries for TV networks from Discovery to Sundance and is author of the forthcoming book “Diving Into Documentaries” (Focal Press, 2018). Her previous feature film Musicwood was a New York Times Critics’ Pick. Maxine is in full production on TO KID OR NOT TO KID and is seeking a brand to sponsor her new Aunty commercial.

Amy Blackstone is a co-founder and guest author at Feminist Reflections and a sociology professor at the University of Maine where she studies childlessness and the childfree choice. Her work can be found in academic outlets, in media such as Ms., Broadly, CNN and TIME, and on the blog she co-writes with her husband Lance, we’re {not} having a baby!.

 

As a feminist, I recognize power in the structures and symbols that regulate society. I see how intersecting privileges and lack thereof operate to allow some communities more access to opportunities and others less. I know that while power and privilege may be firmly entrenched in ways that systematically marginalize large swaths of society I also know that people have agency. Feminists challenge power imbalances in the spaces we frequent most; in my case, the academy. Mentoring women of color and non-traditional students in their research prevents scholarship and the resultant status from producing it, from remaining the domain of the privileged. I believe that student researchers from marginalized populations challenge the racial/ethnic, class, gendered, and sexualized hierarchies that shape undergraduate research arrangements and thus the academy more broadly.

I teach at the University of Washington Bothell, an institution that greatly values the professor-student relationship. Our student body is very diverse: 42% students of color, 46% first generation college students, and 60% on financial aid. Many of the students I teach have life experiences meant to keep them out of college. For example, one Chicana student shared with me that her high school guidance counselor told the Latinas that there was no need for them to try in high school because they were just going to get pregnant and drop out anyway. This hateful, racist, and sexist message from a woman paid to be a mentor! Feminist mentoring of undergraduate students is a post-intervention, of sorts. Here I want to share the successes of five of my students; all five of whom represent communities of underserved populations.*

In May of this year I saw a CFP (Call For Papers) for an author of an encyclopedia entry about Chicana feminism. I had an idea for three of my undergrad students to work together to research and co-author the entry, with my close mentoring. The editor agreed, I asked the students, who enthusiastically and proudly said yes. I know these three students very well; they were in their third and fourth classes with me, have done research papers in my classes, and worked on group projects together. They are all excellent students but I knew the project was going to take a lot of my time, regardless. And it did: six iterations amidst an already hectic quarter. I knew I wanted these students to have the opportunity to write the essay; an opportunity typically not available to the demographics they all represent.

Donning their Latino/a Student Union shirts, Alejandra Pérez, Elizabeth Huffaker, and Jessica Velasquez
From left to right are co-authors Alejandra Pérez, Elizabeth Huffaker, and Jessica Velasquez. Alejandra and Jessica are seen in their Latinx Student Union shirts.

Alejandra is a Guatemalan born, 1.5 generation, undocumented immigrant and first generation college student. Alejandra, her brother, and mom came to the US in 2006 and were just reunited with her father after 8 years. Her mother works as a nanny and her father a construction worker. Alejandra is financing her education through scholarships and working; additionally, Washington state recently passed SB6523 which makes financial aid available to undocumented students. She does spectacularly in school, on top of her being an activist with a job. If given the chance she will eventually become anything she aspires to be. Or her parents may be picked up by the INS or ICE and deported to Guatemala. Her future is anything but certain.

Jessica has also overcome odds. She too is a first generation college student. Jessica is a Chicana, born to immigrant parents. She was raised in Eastern Washington (home to most of the state’s agroindustry) where her father works as a laborer and her mother a sorter for a produce company.

The final co-author is Elizabeth; a white mother/grandmother/ great grandmother from the Midwest. Elizabeth returned to college at the age of 65 after a 22-year hiatus when she worked as an accountant and a single-mother of six. Together these three rock stars rejected the social messages that tell them the privileged class in the academy has no room for them and in 2016 their names will appear in a prestigious encyclopedia as co-authors of an essay I will eventually assign in my classes.

shayne hires 2 revises.inddThe next two rock stars worked individually on pieces that now appear in my edited collection Taking Risks: Feminist Activism and Research in the Americas (SUNY 2014). During the revisions my editor asked me to write introductions to each of the three sections of the book. I loved the idea but had no idea where I was going to find the time. I called upon one of my undergraduates, Jessica (a different one) that I have a long history with, starting with her first quarter of college. I asked her if she was interested, she said yes, we found her a small stipend, and I handed over the unpublished manuscript and asked her to make sense of each section. Once she did, she wrote the introductions in a concise way to communicate the overarching themes. Jessica did an amazing job. Her accomplishment was also personally important as her family was not pleased with her choice or majors (not-Business) or her recent coming out as a lesbian. Jessica is a proud mixed Brazilian who has been in the U.S. since 2010. She is pursuing her dream to be an academic and will no doubt serve as a role model and mentor to queer and straight women of color.

Finally, Mahala. I have known Mahala the longest of all of these students. She took a Latin American studies class with me which required a research paper, and then another and unable to stop, eventually a directed study so she could keep researching. Her paper ultimately became a chapter in Taking Risks. Mahala is a white woman in her mid-twenties. She returned to college after a 5 year leave, while raising her 2 and 4 year olds, largely alone. She worked and single-parented full time, and quietly excelled in all of her classes. I saw her brilliance in her first very short paper for me and sought her out. She was always silent in class and was oblivious to her intelligence. I worked hard to get her to present her papers, get fellowships and anything else to make her realize her competence. I eventually asked her to transform her paper into a chapter for my book. Jessica and Mahala didn’t end up in my book because I was doing them a favor; my name is on the book so I needed to feel good about their work and I absolutely do.

From left to right are Shayne's colleague and co-author Kristy Leissle, author Julie Shayne and student authors Mahala and Jessica.
From left to right are Shayne’s colleague and co-author Kristy Leissle, author Julie Shayne and student authors Mahala and Jessica.

The results with these and other students I don’t have space to write about here energizes me to keep pouring my all into my undergrads and mentor them to go out and be confident social justice and feminist advocates in whatever professional sphere they choose. As feminists, especially those of us with status and privilege to mobilize, we need to undermine the power imbalances in the spaces to which we have access and in my mind, working with the aforementioned researchers is a small but important move in that direction.

* The students mentioned in this essay all read and edited it before I sent it to the editors at Feminist Reflections.

Image of Julie ShayneJulie Shayne is author/editor of three books: Taking Risks: Feminist Activism and Research in the Americas (editor), They Used to Call Us Witches: Chilean Exiles, Culture, and Feminism, winner of the Pacific Sociological Association’s 2011 Distinguished Scholarship Award, and The Revolution Question: Feminisms in El Salvador, Chile, and Cuba. She is a Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell and Affiliate Associate Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies & Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Washington Seattle.

Links:                                  

My personal webpage http://www.julieshayne.net/

Taking Risks http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5884-taking-risks.aspx

They Used to Call Us Witches https://rowman.com/ISBN/0739118501

The Revolution Question http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/product/Revolution-Question,2223.aspx

Please enjoy this re-post of we’re {not} having a baby!‘s interview with sociologist Gillian Ayers on her research on childfree women.

“I could be a father, but I could never be a mother”: Research on Childfree Women in Canada

We here at w{n}hab! love us some research. Especially when it’s sociological (have we mentioned Amy is a sociologist?). So when we came upon an article last summer describing findings from Gillian Ayers’ research on childfree women, we knew we wanted to know more.

Sociologist Gillian Ayers

Gillian Ayers is a Sessional Lecturer at the University of Lethbridge. Her Master’s thesis is entitled “I could be a father, but I could never be a mother”: Values and Meanings of Women’s Voluntary Childlessness in Southern Alberta. Here we chat with Gillian about why she chose to study women in particular and her most surprising research findings.

Q&A

w{n}hab! – How did you get interested in the topic of childfree women?

G.A. – I became interested in the topic of voluntary childlessness during my undergraduate studies in sociology. The courses I took on sociology of the body, gender, deviance, and feminist theory all challenged my world-view and made sense to me on a personal level as I started to figure out what direction my life would take. I eventually started to question the imperative to mother in my own life, and when I applied to graduate school I decided to explore the topic further through a formal research project. During my research I spoke with 21 women in Southern Alberta who identified as childless by choice.

w{n}hab! – Why study women in particular?

G.A. – Social expectations for women and men are very different. I knew fairly early on in my research project that I would only be speaking with women, as women face particular scrutiny when it comes to domestic life and childbearing decision-making. However, it’s important to note that my study takes for granted the belief that men and fathers are viewed as less involved in childbearing decision-making and childrearing more generally, and the social pressures for them are less. Consequently, women are often the ones who are held responsible for the decision to remain childless, regardless of whether or not the decision was made with a partner. As a result, I was most interested in speaking with women about their experiences of voluntary childlessness.

w{n}hab! – Which of your findings most surprised you? Why?

G.A. – I was most shocked by the “ick” factor explained by many of the women I spoke with regarding pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. This was not an idea I had really thought much about before this research and it truly surprised me because I think many people consider pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding to be beautiful, wonderful, and joyous experiences. In contrast, several women I spoke with were repulsed by these prospects and spoke about wanting to avoid the pain of childbirth, the weight gain, and the feelings of being “hijacked” by a foreign entity during pregnancy. In sum, it was not just the notion of childrearing that women rejected, but also the physical aspects of childbearing.

w{n}hab! – You’ve said that the concept of intensive motherhood was relevant to your research. How so?

G.A. – Sharon Hays (1996) developed the concept of intensive motherhood, which includes methods that should be “child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive.” I found that the voluntarily childless women I spoke with often took up the tenets of intensive motherhood and held motherhood in high esteem. For many of the women, if they couldn’t mother the “right” way, they weren’t going to do it at all. This belief became apparent to me when, for example, 20 of the 21 women I spoke with cited financial reasons for remaining voluntarily childless. Many women viewed intensive motherhood ideologies as an impossible standard, and instead chose to reject motherhood altogether.

w{n}hab! – What’s next for you in this research? What questions remain?

G.A. – Future research could more fully examine the experiences of voluntarily childless First Nations, Métis, or Inuit women, as well as women who are visible minorities. Both these groups have higher than average birth rates in Canada, and they may have different expectations regarding childbearing. Of course, future research could also include speaking to voluntarily childless men about their experiences.

A couple of weeks ago, Gayle posted a wonderful review of Kris De Welde and Andi Stepnick’s new co-edited book, Disrupting the Culture of Silence: Confronting Gender Inequality and Making Book CoverChange in Higher Education. I am delighted to be a contributor to the book, together with my co-author Susan Gardner.

In our piece, entitled “Confronting Faculty Incivility and Mobbing,” Susan and I aim to understand how faculty experience mobbing and, in particular, to understand how mobbing manifests in a public institution with striving aspirations. Mobbing, defined as “a ganging up on someone using rumor, innuendo, discrediting, humiliation, isolation, and intimidation in a concentrated and direct manner,” affects as much as 15% of the working population in the United States.

In addition to mobbing, we were interested to know how differently gendered faculty may experience organizational culture differently. In recent years, the institution where we collected data has worked hard to improve its US News and World Report rankings and to increase research and grant activity. The consequence of these efforts has been a shift in culture that seeks a faculty more focused on research and less focused on teaching. At the same time, state support of higher education has dwindled. The result is an environment in flux, where expectations of faculty seem to be increasing while resources dwindle. We wondered how this organizational culture might shape faculty experiences.

Our findings are based on our analysis of data collected at one institution where we conducted two faculty satisfaction surveys and interviews with 30 women faculty. We examined faculty members’ experiences with a set of questions focused on mobbing (e.g., “I am treated with respect by colleagues” and “I feel excluded from an informal network in my department”) and another set focused on organizational culture more generally (e.g., “The department is supportive of family leave” and “I am satisfied with the promotion and tenure process”).

Our survey results reveal significant differences between men and women in their experiences of mobbing. In particular, women were far more likely than men to report being excluded from their department’s informal network and to feel that their work is not formally recognized by their department. Women were also more likely than men to report feeling isolated in their department. These experiences include two of the most common mobbing tactics: isolating colleagues and discrediting their work by not formally recognizing it.

We also discovered gender differences in how faculty experience the organization’s culture, though these differences were less pronounced than those in our mobbing items. Significantly more men than women reported feeling that their department is supportive of family leave and that there is a strong fit between the way that they approach their research, teaching, and service and the way that their department evaluates these items. As noted, however, these differences were far less pronounced than differences on the mobbing questions.

Our interviews with women faculty suggest that the striving culture may create a campus climate where mobbing is not only common but too often overlooked. With the institution so diligently focused on raising its status, “housekeeping” matters such as nurturing a positive workplace climate may inadvertently shift out of focus.

To combat mobbing on campus, we recommend clear and unambiguous policies that delineate mobbing behaviors from sexual harassment, which is regulated under federal law. This and other recommendations, along with complete details about our data and findings can be found in our chapter, Confronting Faculty Incivility and Mobbing,” in Disrupting the Culture of Silence: Confronting Gender Inequality and Making Change in Higher Education.

I spent a good portion of the ‘70’s curled up around my parents’ record player, listening to Jim Croce croon about the Roller Derby Queen he’d fallen in love with – a woman whose fans called her Tuffy and friends called her Spike. Tuffy/Spike raised eyebrows, she was a woman loved for her strength, one “built like a ‘fridgerator” who “knew how to scuffle and fight.” As a girl I never wanted to be a princess. But this roller derby queen thing? This was the sort of royalty I wanted to become one day.

Figure skating - another of my failed attempts at finding my passion.
Figure skating – another of my failed attempts at finding my passion.

Because roller derby was an option only in my dreams, I tried other outlets that might fulfill my penchant for pushing myself, for raising eyebrows, and for playing to a crowd. My career as a ballerina was cut short after my mother heard one too many complaints about my itchy tutu. My dreams of becoming the next Ian Anderson were dashed when my flute teacher told me I’d have to give up having friends or a life if I really wanted to be a professional musician. In college I tried my hand at broomball and rugby but I hadn’t yet developed the courage needed to leave it all on the rink or field. And though I ran a few marathons in my 30s, I’m skeptical of anyone who claims to really enjoy distance running. I mean, come on. Runner’s trots and bloody nipples? How are these things fun?

Roller derby re-entered my life just as I was wrapping up my 39th year and staring down the barrel of the big 4-0. As much as it pains me to fess up to something so trite, I suppose I was facing the proverbial midlife crisis. I’d gained weight. New gray hairs had sprouted. I worried that I’d given too much to my job and not enough to the people I loved or to myself.

I’d received tenure a few years before and was feeling restless, not sure what to do now that the chase of the thing I’d been chasing since what felt like forever had come to an end. Sure, there was the next promotion but I longed for something other than work to fill my time and to occupy my mind.

Yet I had no real passions. No hobbies. Other people I knew loved reading voraciously, building furniture, knitting sweaters, climbing rock walls, running marathons (or so they said). I wanted to have something I loved, something that was mine but that wasn’t the next paper or presentation or promotion. Something that harkened back to my life-long desire to raise eyebrows and to try scary, challenging things.

An invitation from a former student who had become part of a growing movement of women looking to bring flat track roller derby to my area led me to find myself covered in protective gear and hugging the wall at my local roller rink. I had laced up a pair of skates and was going to give it my best shot. As luck would have it, I fell. Hard. I got back up. I fell. Again.

Skating as Wined Up, #13abv
Skating as Wined Up, #13abv

For the next few years, I continued to fall and continued to get back up. More than 30 years since Jim Croce first sang to me about the adventures of his Roller Derby Queen in my parents’ basement, I’ve taken a great many spins round and around the track myself. I became my own version of Croce’s “meanest hunk of woman” I’d ever seen. And, just as Croce described, I learned how to scuffle. I reveled in the realization that being “built like a ‘fridgerator” was a good thing, a royal thing even.

To become this sort of royalty requires determination, a willingness to scuffle, and grander-than-princess aspirations. It requires an interest in what, in my humble opinion, is one of the coolest darn things some of the coolest darn women in the world give their heart and their soul to in order to be a part of something bigger than themselves, something that challenges them to be their best selves.

Popularized in the 1960’s, the derby of 50 years ago was typically run by male business owners for a largely male spectator audience. Today, roller derby is run by and for women. As a feminist sociologist of gender, I love the diversity of gender expressions that are allowed and encouraged in derby. I love how derby simultaneously embraces and challenges normative expressions of gender. I love the contrariness of it all, the eyebrow raising-ness of it all.

Most of the sociological research on roller derby comes from fellow gender scholars who are interested in how roller derby challenges what we think about gender, how we think about gender, and how we “do” gender. As sociologist Jennifer Carlson put it in her 2010 article in the Sociology of Sport Journal, “Roller derby provides an aggressive, high-contact environment in which to interrogate femininity.”

Carlson, like other sociologists who study derby, is especially interested in the balance that derby members strike between their athleticism and the sport’s theatrical edge. It is perhaps because of the theatrical liberties allowed by the sport that derby players are so successful at both calling our attention to our cultural biases when it comes to representations of gender and forcing us to question those biases.

Travis Beaver, who wrote about derby in the Journal of Sport & Social Issues, argues that the “do-it-yourself” philosophy of today’s roller derby is a crucial value of derby’s revival. Doing it themselves ensures that the skaters – the women athletes – retain control over their training, their organizations, and the future of the sport.

While derby players may have grander-than-princess aspirations in common, one clear finding to emerge from the sociological research on derby is that players are by no means a homogenous group. Kylie Parrotta, a sociologist at Delaware State University, wrote her dissertation on tensions between sub-groups of derby participants based on differential investments in the identities “rollergirl” versus “athlete.” She also explores how skaters balance work and family obligations with their commitments to the sport – not an easy task! Parrotta says that skaters’ athletic careers may be shaped by other aspects of their identities that are linked to gender, such as motherhood.

While the sociological research raises questions about the extent to which roller derby is or can be transformative in terms of gender, I think sociologist Adele Pavlidis put it best when she wrote, “Roller derby smashes through dichotomous thinking that ranks and privileges men over women, but only if we let it. Right now there is an opportunity not to be missed, an opportunity for women to be watched and admired … on their own terms and with their own rules.”

On an individual level, roller derby has without a doubt been transformative for me. It has challenged my own too-often dichotomous thinking. It has pushed me to figure out my own terms and my own rules – and to live by them. It was my passion at a time when I very much needed one and it is an experience for which I will be eternally grateful.

The childfree version of Baby New Year? Image via Flckr CC
The childfree version of Baby New Year?
Image via Flckr CC

It’s that time of year. Babies in top hats don sashes and people everywhere resolve to begin anew, to start fresh, to do things differently or more wisely or somehow better.

I rang in the New Year in much the same way many do – a little too much drinking, some singing, and of course the obligatory New Year’s kiss. But I’ve always been averse to New Year’s resolutions. Why wait til the New Year to do something you should be doing now?

I’ve got a resolution this year, though. This year I resolve to walk the childfree, feminist talk I’ve been peddling for the last couple of years. You see, my partner Lance and I launched our blog about the childfree choice, we’re {not} having a baby!, in early 2013.

Our goals were simple: to celebrate our choice, celebrate that we live in a time and a place where we have a choice, and challenge the many unfounded myths of those of us who choose not to have kids.

These goals are reflected in our w{n}hab! manifesto.

w{n}hab Manifesto Image-Sidebar

You can see from our conclusion that celebrating is indeed a top priority.

Beyond celebrating, we wanted to challenge myths. And while I think we’ve done that through a variety of posts including some on challenging the idea that we’ll change our minds and others on the mistaken belief that we must hate kids, I’m not sure that I’ve challenged myths in my day-to-day life to the extent that I’d like.

So, this year I resolve to:

  1. Apologize less

I admit that I do what I have criticized others for doing: I sometimes apologize for my choice not to have kids. Not directly but implicitly. No more. I made the choice that’s right for me. I don’t need to apologize for that choice.

  1. Balance more

Over the last few months I’ve put in an average of about 75 hours of work/week. That’s nearly double what I’d like to be putting in but when push comes to shove and someone has to do it, I tend to fall on my sword and pick up slack that I might not if I had kids waiting for me at home. But I have a life and a partner at home, both of whom I adore, so I resolve to stop putting work before life. I resolve to take the advice I give to others and just say no when work creeps into the life side of the work/life equation. I didn’t choose a childfree life so that I could work more. I chose a childfree life because I value solitude, quiet, my partnership, and a zillion activities that I’ve given up in favor of work. No more.

This year, more than ever before, I will celebrate my choice. I will celebrate by actually living my life, the life I chose and the life I want to live. I will continue to advocate for work/life balance for all – parents and the childfree alike. And I will celebrate that I have a choice. I will celebrate that I have a choice by not apologizing for my choice. And I will do what I can to support efforts that ensure that all people have a choice. Now that will be walking my childfree, feminist talk!

I’ll drink to that!

Another version of this post was published at we’re {not} having a baby!.

woman scientist
Image via Flickr Creative Commons

At a time when 26 percent of women scientists report being sexually assaulted in the field, the authors of a new study boldly claim that “times have changed” and women’s “claims of mistreatment” in academic science are “largely anecdotal.”

As much as I’d like for this to be true, the claim is founded more on the authors’ fundamental misunderstanding of sex discrimination and oversimplification of gender than on any version of reality.

The authors of “Women in Academic Science: A Changing Landscape”, published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, examine the career trajectories of women and men in math-intensive fields, finding that women fare as well as men when it comes to invitations to interview for tenure-track faculty positions, job offers, and promotions.

They interpret these findings as follows:

“We conclude by suggesting that although in the past, gender discrimination was an important cause of women’s underrepresentation in scientific academic careers, this claim has continued to be invoked after it has ceased being a valid cause of women’s underrepresentation in math-intensive fields.”

Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci, two of the study’s authors, wrote about their findings in an October 31st New York Times op-ed. The response on Twitter was swift and skeptical. Critiques of the study have rightly focused on the author’s “wide-sweeping statements” and “self-contradictory observations and internal inconsistencies.”

Sex, Discrimination, and Oversimplification

Adding to these critiques, the authors’ claims that sex-based discrimination is a thing of the past reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of sex discrimination in the United States and an oversimplified understanding of gender.

Under the law, sex discrimination is not just about hiring and promotion; it includes sexual harassment, a form of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Research shows that workplace sexual harassment of women scientists is an ongoing and fundamental problem. Yet Ceci and colleagues completely ignore this reality and its consequences for the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women scientists.

Another problem is the Psychological Science in the Public Interest study’s confounding of sex with gender. While Ceci and colleagues cite male and females’ comparable rates of hiring and promotion to support their assertion that sexism in science is a thing of the past, they don’t seem to understand that gender is a fundamental dimension of power that shapes all social interactions. If women scientists are being harassed in the workplace because they are women, and we know that they are, then science surely has a sexism problem.gender quoteAs sociologist Zulyeka Zevallos notes in her cogent critique of the study, “An analysis of sexism in academia needs to seriously address gender as a social system, not simply document superficial differences between men and women.”

Understanding gender as a social system means recognizing sexual harassment as a gendered expression of power that privileges a singular version of masculinity above all forms of femininity and above alternative forms of masculinity. All women, particularly those who challenge the gender hierarchy, and any men who do not adhere to the privileged version of masculinity may be at risk for becoming targets of harassment simply by virtue of their placement in the hierarchical gender system.

In a study published in American Sociological Review in 2004, Chris Uggen and I found that women were across the board more likely to experience harassment than men. Women are targeted simply because they are women. We also found a correlation between men’s likelihood of experiencing harassment and the amount of housework they reported doing — one of our measures of egalitarian gender relationships. Our interviews with harassed workers revealed that men who challenge the gender hierarchy are targeted for doing so.

The hostile climate that women in STEM face was most recently documented by Kathryn Clancy and colleagues but their work builds from a long line of research documenting harassment in the academy and other fields and its harmful consequences for employee well-being, mental health, and other health and job-related outcomes.

Further, while Ceci and colleagues may have evidence that some women in STEM are being promoted despite the persistence of a chilly climate, my own collaborative research on the harassment of women in positions of power suggests that as women are promoted, they may be even more likely to face harassment. What better way, after all, to put women who challenge the gender hierarchy “in their place”?

To ignore that hostile workplace climates have a real, significant, and negative impact on women in academic science is not only irresponsible, it is wrong.

The tragedy is that the Psychological Science in the Public Interest study actually does offer some encouraging news: some women in some STEM fields are as likely as men to be interviewed, hired, and promoted. But its message is totally lost in the cacophony of voices rightly objecting to the authors’ claim that “academic science isn’t sexist.”

As much as I wish for them to be right, there’s too much evidence to the contrary to believe it. And they’ve done those who have experienced harassment and who fight every day to achieve gender equality in the workplace a disservice by purporting it.

meme_thoughtful choiceA few months ago, the research finding that many couples who don’t want kids reach the decision “after just one conversation” caught the attention of reporters. Many expressed shock and dismay, calling the decision a “snap choice” and referring to couples’ limited discussion about the matter “strange.”

Most reports poo-pooed the childfree who participated in the research, noting that the decision not to have kids deserves “further contemplation than whether to have pizza or Indian for dinner.”

Oddly, all of these reports seemed to overlook a crucial point: that the decision not to have kids is one often made by people who think deeply about their choice and then, hopefully, find mates who feel similarly. In my own study of childfree adults, I’ve examined how it is that people come to decide not to have kids.

Childfree? We Know the Why, So What’s the How?

By now, we know well why some people choose not to have kids – concern for the environment, the joy of having greater financial security, the desire for freedom in one’s everyday life, a strong commitment to existing relationships, disinterest in children… the list goes on. What we hear less about is how those of us who don’t want kids reach that decision.

As a sociologist, I study childfree people and I’ve learned that how we decide not to have kids can vary. For a few (just 2 of the 45 I have interviewed thus far), it isn’t really a decision at all — they just know they don’t want them. However for most others, the decision takes time, lots of discussion, and plenty of thought. While stereotypes of the childfree suggest that they are selfish beings who give little thought to their actions, my research shows that this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The childfree participants in my study note that choosing not to have kids is a decision they don’t make lightly. It is both a conscious decision and one that occurs over time.

1. It is a conscious decision.

The overwhelming majority of people I have interviewed say that their decision was well thought out. These people emphasize the deliberate nature of their choice not to have kids by comparing their decision to that of people who do opt to become parents. When I interviewed Bob (all names are pseudonyms to protect study participants), he put it this way:

“People who have decided not to have kids arguably have been more thoughtful than those who decided to have kids. It’s deliberate, it’s respectful, it’s ethical.”

Sarah said,

“I actually think that most people who have children don’t even think about it, they just have them. I think there’s more thinking to decide to not have children.”

Interestingly, when describing the conscious nature of their choice, men tended to mention the activities and acquisitions that wouldn’t be possible if they had kids. Women, on the other hand, more often described their concern for the environment and concerns about bringing children into a world where inequality, poverty, and violence persist.

2. It is a process that occurs over time

For many, the decision not to have kids occurs as a process rather than as a singular event. As April explained,

“It’s not a decision where you’re like, okay, ‘today’s the day that I don’t want kids.’ It’s a working decision.”

For some, the process of deciding not to have children began quite early and then developed as they grew older.

Kim shared that she had been thinking about not having kids from an early age:

“I was a very environmentally conscious child and my big thing at the time was population control, so that was kind of a forming quality of my decision not to have children.”

Here too there are some gendered patterns. While men tend to describe the process by which they chose not to have kids as an internal one, something they thought about on their own over a period of time, women describe reaching their decision by talking through it with significant others, friends, family members, colleagues, and others.

However a person comes to decide that kids aren’t for them, the data show it’s a decision that isn’t made thoughtlessly. Childfree people are a diverse bunch — just as the why behind our choices may vary, so too does the how.

This blog post was originally published at Insufferable Intolerance and we’re {not} having a baby!.

“I don’t know why women need to have children to be seen as complete human beings.” —Marisa Tomei

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image from chasingthegerberdragon.blogspot.com

In sixteen short words, Marisa Tomei sums up pretty much everything I think about having kids. It’s not for me but I understand it’s a choice that has meaning for lots of people. Whatever any woman’s choice, Tomei is right: it has nothing to do to with our completeness as human beings.

Tomei isn’t the only celebrity who’s been asked to account for her status as a non-mom. Last month, Cameron Diaz made headlines by sharing her thoughts about (not) having kids. Diaz explained,

“It’s so much more work to have children. To have lives besides your own that you are responsible for — I didn’t take that on. That did make things easier for me.”

Other celebrities too have been asked to explain their childfree status. As a person with an embarrassingly sizable wine glass collection, I especially appreciate what Ellen DeGeneres has to say about her and Portia de Rossi’s choice.

“We thought about it. We love to be around children after they’ve been fed and bathed. But we ultimately decided that we don’t want children of our own. There is far too much glass in our house.”

I think I understand the sentiments behind Diaz’s and DeGeneres’s remarks. They also make me cringe a little every time I read them.

Both do what many childfree do. They apologize for their choice. I’ve been guilty of the same thing. I know how they feel. They want their choice to be respected but they don’t want people to get the wrong idea; they’re human! In fact they’re complete humans!

Though the choice not to have kids may be “outside the norm,” it is normal in that it is not freakish or strange.

I call the Diaz and DeGeneres versions of apology the Parents are Saints & I Kinda Suck” and the “I Love Kids But” apologies. By explaining their choice in this way, they call into question their own and other childfree women’s completeness as human beings. I’m certain that’s not what they intend but it is a consequence of their remarks.

Kim, a teacher in her early 40s and a participant in my study of childfree women and men, put it well when she declared,

“Am I less of a woman because I don’t have kids? I don’t think so.”

Right on, Kim!

The sad truth is that we do sometimes think of women who don’t want kids as less than, as not complete. We’ve been taught to fear – even hate – women who don’t want kids. As feminist bloggers Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Holly Baxter say, childfree women are looked upon as “dangerous oddities.”

Though it’s still not the most common choice, the fact is that more and more women are choosing not to have kids. In the U.S., the percent of women in their forties who don’t have kids has nearly doubled over the last forty years. Estimates suggest that about half of those who never have kids are childfree, meaning they’ve made the choice not to have them.

One of the (great many) gifts of feminism is that it offers us choice – choice about how we live our lives and with whom we live our lives. Childfree women have simply chosen a life without kids. And they are complete without them.