Why is it always men who are upset by women not having children? In the past week we’ve heard that Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, declared in 2021 that the United States was being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too”. Last month, an opinion column in Newsweek headlined “Taylor Swift Is Not a Good Role Model” stated that at the dusty age of 34 “Swift remains unmarried and childless”. The fact is she is be-millioned with both dollars and fans apparently counts for nothing.
Then who could forget newly elected Kildare councillor Tom McDonnell expressing concern that Irish women weren’t “breeding” enough, and endangering the future of Ireland in the process.
Those are just the comments from public figures. Check the inboxes or the replies on X to any woman who has the audacity to express their opinions in public without a few rugrats running around. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been called a bitter spinster or a barren feminazi, I could afford to give up work, log off the internet and live harassment-free. Happily ever after.
Overwhelmingly these insults seem to come from men. Men who at some point have decided that all women want is to get married to them and have their babies – so much so that the ones who don’t achieve this lofty goal must get really upset when you point it out.
Ah men, the group that historically is fantastic at knowing what women want, and is all too ready to tell them what would make them happy, whether that’s not having the vote, getting equal pay or having control over our own reproductive rights. If we listened to a certain archbishop who was sticking his nose into places it firmly did not belong, we would have stayed clear of the corrupting force of tampons. That’s where it all went wrong for women: when we were freed from wearing stodgy menstrual pads that felt like wearing a slice of bread down your shorts.
There are husbands who put their hobbies first at the expense of their family’s goals or happiness over and over
The first time a man told me I would never be truly happy until I married and had children, I was 20. He wasn’t my only co-worker to tell me this. But considering he was also having a very public affair with a woman who was not his wife, I took his opinion with a fistful of salt.
Funnily enough women with children and husbands almost never tell me that my life is incomplete without marriage or kids. We respect the pros and cons of each other’s life choices. They admire my weekend sleep-ins, while I think it would be nice to hear little feet pound down your hallway before they jump into your bed for a cuddle.
But as I get older I’ve begun to spot a trend, especially among my single and childfree-by-choice female friends. I’ve yet to meet a woman who has regretted not getting married. I’ve met plenty who have regretted getting married. As women have fewer children and at an older age than previous generations, we’re beginning to find out that becoming a “lonely cat lady” is just an empty, gender-based bogeyman, like turning on the light and realising the axe-murderer in your room is just a pile of clothes on a chair.
I’ve yet to meet a woman where a man has improved her life beyond the boundaries of what she could have achieved for herself. I have met brilliant couples who complement each other, who push each other and who have strived together in equal partnership. However, I have also seen so many good women drained by men who could not or would not meet them at their level.
There are husbands who put their hobbies first at the expense of their family’s goals or happiness over and over. They’re the kind who stomp their feet and cry about “not being allowed to have a passion” when they have been asked to cut back on the marathon training or golfing just a little because their pursuit has robbed their partner of the headspace to consider what her interests might be as she picks up the slack at home.
They’re the men who tuck into their meal at a restaurant while their wife juggles two children in her lap, picking off her plate like a seagull as she tries to restart the iPad for the fifth time.
And sure, not all men. We know. But there are enough of them out there for us to have seen the above examples at least once. That’s why the Korean 4B movement – where the group members refuse to date men, get married, have sex with men or have children – and the TikTok videos about “decentring men” have gone viral.
There’s a growing understanding that being alone is not the worst fate to befall women. It’s spending your one precious life submitting your time and talents to the wrong man.