A salpingectomy is a removal of the Fallopian tubes, and a woman who is very dear to me recently had this procedure done (and has made a full recovery, thank you for asking). She choose to have the surgery, not because she was under immediate medical threat, but due to personal reasons-the most important being the removal of any chance to have children. SO LET’S TALK ABOUT THE REACTION OF THOSE CLOSE TO HER.

Yesterday, her mother opened her bill which was sent to her permanent address. Ok, yes, I’m glad you noticed, there ARE several problems here. One, her mom opened her mail. Very illegal. VERY SHITTY. Also, she had called the office that performed the surgery as well as her insurance to insure that this bill was sent to her residential address where she lives (in another city). Her mom should have never had the chance to violate her trust and privacy this way.

Her mother acted totally betrayed. It was over the phone that my friend had to tell her mother what the bill was for, and before getting hung up on, her mother said, ‘I can’t believe you would do this do me. I need to process this.’ DOO DOOOO! Her mother claimed that the surgery affected her life is such a way to insinuate a betrayal. My friend’s body is her own. She made a decision which concerned her own health and no one else’s, not her mother’s, not anyone’s. This should be enough of an explanation for anyone, but on top of that, anyone who knows my friend knows that she was not made to be a mother. She would never have had children, surgery or not. Her mother’s life was no different than it was an hour before the fated phone call.

‘What if you change your mind?’ was another comment. As if my friend’s feelings about what she wanted in life could not be trusted, or worse, that ‘your’ ideas about what she finds satisfying in life are more correct than hers.

Her father’s reaction at the thought of her not wanting kids: anger. Dismissing the idea as so stupid that he refused to speak further on it. And here’s my favourite part: he told her that this was the greatest act a woman could perform. That being a mother was the peak of womanhood, her duty, her joy, her job. Which brings me to:

The labelling her life without children as having a lesser value than that of a woman who bears children. I’ve spoken briefly about life satisfaction-about wanting or desperately not wanting something. Let’s think for a moment about how strong a statement ‘I do not want this’ should be. And continuing on from that, that anything my friend does in her life will never be of the awe-inspiring importance that having a child could be. That these people saying this to her are telling her that having dreams that don’t include a child are less important, less fulfilling, less valuable. If she bears no children, her life is incomplete and she has denied her life’s purpose. That everything she does will be compared against motherhood and will be found wanting.

WHAT THE FUCK

Because this isn’t just my friend. This is happening in motherf*****g 2018, women are being told this shit. There are people, real people who will see my future PhD and any other accomplishments as inadequate compared to being a mother. NO! NONONONO!

I really hope you didn’t need me to say this, Oh Faithful Reader, but this is not belittling motherhood. At all. This is what I truly believe of feminism: it’s not condemning feminine things, it’s fighting for a world in which a woman who chooses something else, whatever that something else may be, isn’t demonised/ridiculed/made fun of/ etc. Motherhood is amazing, but ‘what is right for one soul is not right for another’. I don’t remember who said that, but it applies here so, so perfectly.