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You have number of adcovates for childlesness: Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Aniston, Helen Mirren and many more. You have people promoting DINK lifestyle, there is large number of feminist journals and magazines promoting childlessness.
This doesn't sound like a an advocate for childlessness:
At what age did Aniston start trying to get pregnant? From what I recall, she was already in her late 30s, early 40s when she started. I get why she chose to put it off, but it speaks to the broader issue here where women are told (whether implicitly or explicitly) that motherhood can wait.
This speech from Michelle Williams represents a not-so-small percentage of the modern Western woman, and, as someone who's always been begrudgingly pro-choice, I have a visceral reaction to it every time I see it. I get that it's the Hollywood bubble who is applauding here, but for a lot of people these are the role models for young women in our society. Also, take a quick guess at who's applauding in that video at the 1:59 mark.
To be fair, the current incentive structure makes childlessness materially more rewarding. You have fewer responsibilities, more freedom, and more status. That being said, there is just something so disgusting to me about the unapologetic self-worship that comes after the willing sacrifice of their own flesh and blood. The celebratory nature of it, how what happened to her body "wasn't a choice", and how her child was effectively nothing more than a stepping stone to success. It's not so much the facts of her story, but the philosophy behind it, that seems to resonate with millions of women, that is just vile.
Agreed. Actually the first link about Oprah contains another 22 celebrities promoting childless lifestyle. This push definitely exists.
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Or this:
All of these are precisely framed in the sense of being a reaction to a society that generally expects women to have children at some point. I don't get why this would be much of an argument.
Except that every single number you can think of related to marriage or motherhood is going to shit. Just name it: divorce rate, support of abortions, childlessness rate, age at marriage/first child, rate of single mothers and everything else. I can even grant you that "society expects" something from women - except they don't listen and do their own thing apparently. No role models involved, women just adopted these changes from ether.
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