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Cutting Out Motherhood: Childfree Sterilized Women

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Gender, Identity & Reproduction

Abstract

In Britain and America, in particular, some women say openly that motherhood does not attract them. There is a proliferation of ‘childfree’ chatrooms and websites, such as ‘NoKidding!’ and ‘ChildFree’, and the childfree stance has received some publicity and a reception that ranges from outrage to incomprehension. As well as often hostile media attention, women who are childfree by choice have been an increasing focus of research and publications over the last three decades (Peck 1973; Veevers 1980; Burgwyn 1981; Campbell 1985; Marshall 1993; Bartlett 1994; Morell 1994; Condy 1995; McAllister 1998; Burkett 2000; Gillespie 2000). My own research in this area conducted between 1994 and 1997 (Campbell 1999) focused on voluntarily childfree, electively sterilized women, an unresearched and relatively new social and medical phenomenon.

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© 2003 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Campbell, A. (2003). Cutting Out Motherhood: Childfree Sterilized Women. In: Earle, S., Letherby, G. (eds) Gender, Identity & Reproduction. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522930_12

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