The article, “Rethinking the Biological Clock: Eleventh-Hour Moms, Miracle Moms, and Meanings of Age-Related Infertility” addresses some of the concerns and controversies surrounding the notion of biological clock and age-related infertility, which poses challenges to a woman’s reproductive life. This article brings an insight of how the ideologies, attitudes, experiences and circumstances with respect to pregnancy are different for biological and miracle moms. In addition, it also states about the role of certain assistive reproductive technologies (ARTs) that changes women’s conceptions of motherhood and of the body, thus constructing certain mythologies regarding age-related infertility. Henceforward the article mentions some vivid studies and questionnaires that were carried out, which contradicted and disproved them. The studies also concluded as to how the door to such technologies and techniques allowed large numbers of women to voluntarily postpone child bearing, thus increasing the danger of infertility, leading to the rise of forthcoming problems in their life.
Biological clock determines a time frame of fertility between a woman’s late teens and late thirties, after which she is considerably less able to become pregnant and bear children. Being a certain time frame when the woman can become pregnant, the biological clock poses challenges to a woman’s life. According to the article, the two very important milestones that the biological clock confronts a woman’s life are: the equal opportunity in the workplace – as it interferes and competes with a woman's fertile years and the reproductive choice.
The authors presented two large data sets, one was a widely publicized report from Fran...
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...olden times, women were bound ‘only’ to do the domestic work, whereas men were entitled to do the foreign work. But now time has evolved, and women are indulging more in the professional arena. The pursuance time of the career and that to starting a family conflicts. Women have their priorities of pursuing their career first to acquire financial stability similarly like men and then settling down in the institution of marriage. Some women delay marriage and parenting because some of them are single girl child or are sister siblings so they have their own household and family responsibilities to look after. So they want to ensure a quality life for their parents and themselves. But there is a ‘ticking clock’ that places an additional burden on those wrestling with some important life decisions one of them being the most essential – the right time to have children.
Instead these life decisions are primarily influenced by an individual’s personal limits, beliefs, and morals. Though sexism and pay discrimination still exist there are so many regulations and penalties in place that such behavior has become very uncommon. Dorment creates a new scene where he asks women to not only take on the same sacrifices men past and present have all while realizing that men are doing the best that they can. I believe that this scenario created is key to realizing that women can only take on leadership roles or progress in their careers if they are willing to make sacrifices. They can’t expect special treatment or think that being successful doesn’t come with downsides when the thing they are fighting for is equality. According to the Pew Research Center 60 percent of two parent homes with children younger than eighteen consist of dual-earning couples. This study explicitly shows how men are no longer the sole provider, but instead that women are taking on careers while giving up the stay at home role. In addition, despite men typically spending a little less time at home than women it is become increasingly normal for the home work load to be more evenly divided in dual-earning households. As Richard Dorment mentions, this raises the question “Why does the achievement gap still exist?” Men and Women are increasingly splitting the home work load between each other yet men still appear to be achieving more in the workplace than women. Though the opportunities available to each are the same it is the personal motivation and limits that are resulting in the gap. Women value family time over work time greatly while men are much more willing to sacrifice personal time for work because they feel it is for the good of their family. The difference in personal importance is one factor that contributes to the gap and
Reproducing is a decision that is irreversible and produces masses of major responsibilities and changes. However large the decision may be, there are many women who decide that they are ready too late in their lives. The delay in becoming pregnant may occur for a variety of reasons, many of which include financial or career stability, mental stability, or pregnancy through outside means, such as in vitro fertilization. Women are expected a stop in the ability to become impregnated with the arrival of menopause. In the book State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett, a woman named Marina Singh travels deep inside the Amazon jungle in the hopes to find Dr. Annick Swenson, a doctor who is developing a drug for pregnancy in post-menopausal women. Dr. Swenson herself has become the first non-native test subject. Marina struggles with the ethical and moral aspects of the activities that are being done on the native cultures. She soon learns that although there are cultural practices that may lead to optimistic advances into post-menopausal pregnancies, there may be no use bringing them back into modern society. Women should not be allowed to reproduce when they have passed natural menopause and the stop in ovulation.
At what point does work life start interfering with family life to an extent that it becomes unacceptable? Is it when you don’t get to spend as much time with your family as you would like, or is it the point where you barely get to see your family due to long hours at work? Is it even possible to balance work with family life? Anne-Marie Slaughter, the author of “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”, believes this balance is impossible to achieve in this day and age. In contrast, Richard Dorment, the author of “Why Men Still Can’t Have It All”, believes that there will never be a day when someone will have it all, certain sacrifices will always have to be made. Both of these articles are similar in the respect that they both examine balancing a demanding career with raising children. The two authors’ views on the subject differ greatly, especially regarding how gender roles have a significant impact on our society.
In kilner’s case study “Having a baby the new-fashioned way”, present a story that can be relatable to a lot of families struggling to have a child. This is a dilemma that can be controversial and ethical in own sense. The couple that were discussed in the case study were Betty and Tom. Betty and Tom who are both in their early forties who have struggled to bear children. Dr. Ralph Linstra from Liberty University believes that “Fertility can be taken for granted”. Dr. Ralph talks about how many couples who are marriage may run into an issue of bearing a child and turn to “medical science” to fix the issue. He discusses that “God is author of life and he can open and close the womb”. That in it’s self presents how powerful God.
...d had no evidence to back them up. With interviews, Ranson (2005) provided views from different women, but by using a small sample size the opinions still appeared to be biased. She also solely focused on the effect children would have on the women’s careers but failed to mention the financial penalties children would have on the women as well. This review considered the strengths and limitations of stating that motherhood is barrier to women’s careers, critiqued the methodology of the article and stated different approaches the author could have taken.
explains that the cost of having a child is much more of a burden for the women of the
Susan E. Klepp is the author of Revolutionary Conceptions , a book that is about the life of women during the 18th Century. She describes how pregnancies took an important place in women’s life and how it affected them. The author defines every aspect that is disturbed by pregnancy in the life cycle of women. She does not focus on a special group of women; she included the rich and the poor, the slaves and the freeman and the rural and urban women. Overall, Susan Klepp argued that from the American Revolution, women gained power and authority in their life through the control of their pregnancies.
Since the world began women have always been expected to bear children for their husbands. The thought of having children can be scary to women because their whole life they have been working to look beautiful and start a career. More and more women these days are deciding to put themselves first and deciding to wait to have children or not have them at all. In the book, Future Girl: Young Women in the Twenty-first Century, Anita Harris states, “The ‘girls with the world at their feet’ are identifiable by their commitment to exceptional careers and career planning, their belief in their capacity to invent themselves and succeed, and their display of a consumer lifestyle. They are also distinguished by a desire to put off childbearing until ‘later’”(Harris). This implies that it is very tough for women who have a successful and demanding career to have children and be focused on their family. Having a child takes a lot of time and patience, and a woman who is focused on her career might not want to take time away from that to have a child. Women feel that they are constantly making sacrifices in order to please everyone else but themselves. This common theme is described in the article “A Mother’s Day Kiss-Off” by Leslie Bennetts. Bennetts says “Her retreat seemed like a powerful metaphor for the ways in which women sacrifice parts of themselves that they shouldn’t have to give up” (Bennetts). In
to the conclusion at one point that the whole thing was hopeless because it is a biological fact women have babies and that is always a career breaker. I end this paper rather disappointed that now, as it was centuries ago,are allowing their lives to be run by male views and stereotypes. The world is moving forward but unless women stop allowing
The author indicates that along with positive feelings and thoughts about parenthood, there is a degree of anxiety about the changes this life experience will bring about. Chodorow (2003) also supports this concept of ambivalence. The author describes how a constellation of fantasies and defenses that are unconscious, can delay childbearing. Women, who use feminism or career-based reasons for delaying motherhood, do so based upon their psychic realities and the behaviors these realities have generated. Anxiety around uncertainty of roles, career delays, and how the quality of significant relationships in their lives will be affected by the arrival of a child, can unconsciously lead to a delay in preparing for motherhood (Wischmann, 2003). Women feel that the struggles they are experiencing with becoming a mother and those who may be hurt in the process (spouse and/or other family members) is their
Teitelbaum, Michael S., Jay Winter. “Low Fertility Rates - Just a Phase?” YaleGlobal Online. Yale Global, 9 Jul. 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.
Furthermore, women are still expected to give up their job pursuits for children. Men, when they get married tent to earn more power. However, women lose their power or even have to give up everything that they had been working toward their whole life to bear the child who will keep the lineage for her husband’s family. “It is not false that today, almost half of infants’ mothers are employed” and the percentage of working moms has risen much over recent years. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that it is unfair for women to have to be pressured by both work and children.
In the past, many people believed that women’s exclusive responsibilities were to serve their husband, to be great mothers and to be the perfect wives. Those people considered women to be more appropriate for homemaking rather than to be involved in business or politics. This meant that women were not allowed to have a job, to own property or to enjoy the same major rights as men. The world is changing and so is the role of women in society. In today’s society, women have rights that they never had before and higher opportunities to succeed.
This journal was useful for me because it gave me the background details on why women are opting for delayed motherhood by the age of 30 or 40. Accordingly, I was able to build up my points on how it will affect the health conditions of both baby and mother and also the risk of taking that challenge.
Young marriage has an impressive number of disadvantages and bad repercussions that can be observed in most of the early wedded couples’ lives. While most boys have a say in when and who they marry, and what they do once they are married, many girls do not get the chance to make these decisions. Husbands of young wives are often older men who expect their wives to follow traditions, stay home, and undertake household and child-care duties; or non mature irresponsible young men who consider themselves able to pull such a burden. Early marriage involves huge responsibility from male, especially financial support. Combining job and education is not an easy case to deal with. So, early marriage has a high possibility of putting an end o...