The media, by parroting pro-natalist religious rhetoric and by unique ways of its own, has greatly contributed to the stigma child-free folks face and the pressures to reproduce more broadly. In their analysis of media, Anna Gotlib (2) finds evidence of a variety of pressures in print and television media which serve to normalize childbearing and stigmatize the childless. They note patterns in magazine headlines which suggest that childlessness has ill effects, as well as implications that motherhood is medically redemptive. One article was titled “Childless Men and Women May Die Sooner” despite the data the article draws on considering only involuntarily childless folks. In addition to framing childless individuals as a physical danger to themselves, Gotlib found pro-natalist culture frames child-free folks as an economic danger to society by causing threat to the collective consumer-taxpayer balance of the U.S. economy. In television ads, Gotlib noted that women were rarely depicted in commercials without being shown as mothers, and happy childless couples almost strictly consisted of elderly couples. Participants in another study discuss how commercials on T.V. encourage women to have children, specifically by portraying children as bringing joy to one’s life (1). A different media analysis found hip-hop music contains messages shaming women for using birth control, framing them as promiscuous for doing such (3). On one Spotify forum, women report being flooded with child and mother related ads, specifically after turning 30 (4).
All the above results are all particularly relevant given the recent finding that one’s desire to have children can be affected for several days as a result of situational cues. In a study of 1093 young adults, exposure to positive images of parents and children yielded a greater participant desire to have children both immediately and 3 days later (5). These findings indicate that the high prevalence of mothers and couples with children in television ads has likely affected young adult consumer’s desire to have children positively on average. While studies like the one exploring effects of positive parent-child media have not specifically examined the effects of framing childlessness or contraceptive use as negative media, it seems unlikely the prevalence of media shaming childlessness and contraceptive use, especially towards women, has no effect on consumers. Across a variety of media types, the message was that people, especially women, have children, and those who do not or try not to are othered; they are outsiders who bring harm themselves and society. These pressures violate reproductive autonomy by encouraging or even coercing women to have children. They leave those who do not have children, by choice or not, to confront these messages that they are wrong, dangerous, and outsiders.
References
[1] Ainsworth, V. E. (1995). Women displacing reproductive identity: Childfree baby boomers confront the motherhood mandate (Order №9603559). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (304254389). http://ezproxy.msu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/women-displacing-reproductive-identity-childfree/docview/304254389/se-2
[2] Gotlib, A. (2016). “But you would be the best mother”: Unwomen, counterstories, and the motherhood mandate. Journal of bioethical inquiry, 13(2), 327–347.
[3] Jaworski, B. K. (2009). Reproductive Justice and media framing: A Case‐study analysis of problematic frames in the popular media. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society, and Learning, 9(1), 105–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681810802639830
[4] [lilynoga]. I turned 29 and the ads are 100% about having a baby. Spotify. (2021, June 16). Retrieved October 30, 2022, from https://community.spotify.com/t5/Other-Podcasts-Partners-etc/I-turned-29-and-the-ads-are-100-about-having-a-baby/td-p/4787559
[5] Nelson-Coffey, S. K., & Cavanaugh, L. A. (2022). Baby fever: Situational cues shift the desire to have children via empathic emotions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 28(2), 438–450. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000381
