Why We Don’t Talk about the Shame Around Women and Fertility
Is marriage worth the sacrifices women make for men’s infertility?
Sophie has been trying to conceive for the past five years since she married. She tried every traditional and English medication to help her conceive, but all were in vain.
She lives in shame and depression from her in-laws because they blamed her for being infertile. Her husband’s tradition believes infertile woman eat up their child. For a Hungarian married to an African tribe, imagine the pressure and humiliation she felt.
Recently, Sophie found out that her husband was sterile due to a condition called Azoospermia, where men have no sperm. It happens to about 1% of all men and 15% of infertile men.
Sophie was both relieved and devastated. Her husband never consoled her when she cried out, expressing her innocence. He acted like a complete stranger when his family mocked her.
Sophie tried to hide her pain to protect her husband’s problem from circulating in the community. She was more worried about destroying her husband’s ego than protecting her sanity.
Yet while she masked her pain, her in-laws treated her husband like a bereaved king.
His friends and family, the few that knew the truth, treated him more special and supported him emotionally as if he was the one who got humiliated and blamed for not having a child all these years.
Still, my friend Sophie stayed with him. She didn’t want to leave and give people the impression that she abandoned him at his worst. She wanted them to get through the nightmare together.
But whenever an argument ensued, he acted like the victim. He never realized the emotional trauma my friend had been enduring for the past five she married him.
Eventually, my friend had enough. By the time her husband agreed to marriage counseling, she had already given up on the marriage.
The witch that ate her child
In the 15th century, medieval Europe believed that witches and demons were the cause of infertility, or that childless women were witches themselves.
While some said barrenness was punishment for the woman’s sins.
Due to religion, myth, and tradition, women were expected to please the gods and receive permission to give birth.
Women desperate to be pregnant agree to repeat treatments that are expensive and complicated. The ancient rituals in the name of fertility sound at their worst and most terrible.
Women who couldn’t get pregnant were shamed for having bad character.
Today, in some African countries, men can divorce their wives on the grounds of their inability to have children. Divorced women are less likely to remarry and face both economical and social challenges.
Too often, women are blamed for infertility issues.
Women get blamed because we live in a patriarchal society. Men are seen as the stronger specie. And children are the symbol of a man’s fertility, strength, and virility.
However, social construct makes a man feel inferior when he doesn’t have a child, therefore, they blame the weaker, dependent gender for the man’s infertility. Even educated women often take the blame as the man is too egotistical to accept the fault is his.
Women are also blamed for not birthing a male child. How naïve of people to believe women produce the Y chromosome and have the capacity to reject the Y and accept X. Only men carry the Y chromosome, so if the woman is birthing only female children, then that is what the man pumps into her.
Women endure prenatal (miscarriages) and postnatal child death accusations because we are ill-fated to eat up our children.
A woman keeps quiet because she doesn’t know her body, her rights, or the laws, and for fear of raising a stepchild from another woman.
Society feels it is up to the woman to catch the sperm and ensure they fertilize her egg, even if men are too lazy to ensure they have fertile sperm.
She must ensure conception, consistent growth, regular checkups, and full-term safe birth. This is besides whether she gets good nutrition, care, exercise, and love at home or not.
The man’s job ends with impregnating the woman. His name comes out for praise only in the birth cert. And when the children produce good results or fame for the family. Then immediately, he remembers he is the great, blessed father.
Infertility is a couple’s problem, not just the woman
Women are not the only ones responsible for fertility problems, they have been the only ones suffering from them since centuries ago till now.
According to a recent study, male infertility is a major reason 20% do marriages are unfruitful. In the US alone 15% of men are infertile. Despite men being responsible for more than half the cause of childlessness, women suffer the consequences more.
Infertility is a two-way stream. It’s the woman’s problem as much as the man’s. Both partners are affected by the pain of misconception.
The human body, remarkable as it is, is highly complex and sensitive to factors such as stress and anxiety, especially when it comes to reproduction.
Many factors can affect reproduction, including painkillers for period pain, headaches, backaches, and migraines, alcohol and
In men, alcohol decreases sperm quality and libido and can result in impotence. While in women, it leads to an irregular menstrual cycle.
Although male infertility is on the increase, men must consider the role their lifestyle plays, too. They can learn to be accountable for their role in reproduction.
And women need to relax a bit more and take the pressure of childbirth out of their minds.
Women should give up the pursuit of becoming that perfect wife — the one who can provide her husband with offspring.
If you would like to get updated with stories like this in your inbox, subscribe to my newsletter. You might want to become a premium member, for as low as $5 you get the chance to read unlimited stories on Medium. Check out more of my health stories here.
