The childless woman – a monster

"Caroline Hainer about how women who are not mothers are portrayed on film"

"This is a kulturartikel which is a part of Aftonbladet's opinionsjournalistik."

"Hollywood is not kind to the childless woman. In the Avengers: Age of Ultron gather a bunch of superheroes to save the world yet again. One of them is the timid scientist, dr. Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who becomes the green muskelknippet the Hulk when he's angry. In a tender moment with the film's only female super-heroine Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) regrets he says that he is a monster, a freak. But the Black Widow counters with telling her that she can not have children. She noted, with ”do you Think still that you are the only monster in the group?”. "

"the Black Widow wins, of course, what could be more monsterlikt than a woman without children? Such a has lost his place in the world, and with it his sanity. For what she can anchor her life around if not mammarollen are there? She is simply crazy and confused. Or, in the Black Widows case, a death-defying super-heroine because she has something to live for."

"there have been many movies about infertility and sympathisers are many. Coen brothers show the involuntary non-modern heating in the comedy Arizona Junior despite the fact that Holly hunter's character wants so much to have children that she orders her husband to snatch a couple of pieces. Her madness is the entire premise of the film. In Girl on a train is the involuntary infertility as the basis for huvudfigurens Rachel's alcoholism. ”I can't have children, I am worthless,” she says. "

"The most common is that these films end in happiness – the child will. If it does not, as in Love story, for example, so is it because of a bully, and fully understandable disease. "

"the Same thing applies, of course, the mothers who lose their children. Even when the grief makes them insane, they have both the viewer and filmskaparens understanding, as in the british mini-series the Evil anticipations which can be seen on SVT Play. To live a life of denial is of course not good but it is understandable. What is a mother without a child? A monster, if you ask the Avengers manusskrivare. "

"There are other examples."

"In sagoberättelsen The Huntsman: the Winter war the queen has been deprived of his infant and, therefore, explains the film, ”she rose a fortress of ice around his heart. If she could not raise a child she would raise an army”. She is not just crazy, she becomes a warlike despot."

"To voluntarily opt out of the child and family, on the other hand, is harder to fathom. It indicates the instability or uncaring karriärhunger at best and evil at worst. Just imagine how it would look if the -previous female monarchs the world over had chosen infertility? The whole fabric of society had clapped together."

"We see the horror of this scenario in the soon bioaktuella ”Mary Queen of scots” in which Elisabeth, In which reigns over all of England feels threatened by her cousin, Maria. Not that she has a larger army (she has not) or a claim on the throne (she has not, for a start) but for her ability to breeding."

"Contemporary rulers live, of course, not under the same pressure. But it is not completely gone. Australia's former prime minister Julia Gillard and Germany's Angela Merkel, have both received the experience that their infertility has been used as doubt about the suitability of them as politicians and the list can be made longer. During the election of the leader of the conservative party in the Uk said Theresa Mays competitor Andrea Leadsom that she as a mother had more was at stake than Theresa May who do not have children and therefore should be selected as the leader. There is a view that a childless woman can't understand other people, especially parents. She lacks the empatiförmåga, she is uncaring."

"Yes, the voluntary infertility, is still the political and Hollywood does not help to change it. In the day resting, something glamorous and luxurious of family life. We have a lot in the maternity industry with mammayoga, luxury children's clothing that also match the mother's wardrobe, high-end and expensive strollers and shops for motherhood as a lifestyle. "

"It goes hand-in-hand with bröllopsindustrin where a designer wedding is a status symbol. This is despite the fact that the statistics are showing that more and more women and couples in the western world choose not to have children. Many do it because they like the lifestyle they already have."

"where is the fear of the childless woman? A theory could be that the woman long been defined on the basis of the undeniable female: the ability to bear children. How then is a woman who does not give birth? Perhaps is also a question of man's role in this. What should the woman with him if she doesn't want his seed?"

"the Question of the voluntary infertility has been discussed in books like Sheila Hetis Motherhood, where the author weighs the one against the other. Something that feels like an old idea but actually is quite new. We have seriously dared to discuss the disadvantages of children?"

"In the book, Otherhood, the author proposes Melanie Notkin another word for voluntarily childless, which doesn't sound like a negation, or a state of emergency."

"How you discuss the topic, and how resilient than Hollywood seems to be on the show without children, women without mental health problems, the issue of infertility is active. Thus, you can opt out of the child, you can choose to be child-free. We rarely speak about choosing parenthood. But why are we not doing it? "

"If we turned on the question, and without judging actually searched the interior and completely honest answer as to why we have children so I think seriously that the world would be nicer and less räddhågsen. If we saw beyond the perfunctory response ”to children is wonderful” and it's not actually correct ”to bring humanity forward” – what can we find?"