Thank you, Nesrine Malik, for your article (The right’s obsession with childless women isn’t just about ideology: it’s essential to the capitalist machine, 2 September). I have two points to add. First, some gentle sensitivity from people would help women to come to terms with their infertility. It is often not a choice. Blanket criticism of all women who don’t have the benefit of children is hurtful and harmful. Second, why do men not get the same level of intolerance if they choose not to procreate? Or, indeed, are themselves infertile?
Catherine Colvin
Watton, Norfolk
• Nesrine Malik makes many good points, of course, but she oversimplifies by stating that “a woman who does not bear children … is less likely to extend her caregiving to elderly relatives”. Much depends on the nature of individuals’ work and the geographic spread of a family, but sometimes the childless/free are seen as, and may genuinely be, more easily available. As the childless one of three adult siblings, I took the greater share of care commitments for our elderly mother in her later years.
I was able to do so, but it was noticeable that this was the expectation – especially from the sibling with younger children. Now I’m the one who’s moved in with my sister when she developed early onset Alzheimer’s, because her adult children cannot reasonably be asked to spend their 30s in a small village. So please don’t assume that childless women (or men) don’t contribute to and support their wider families – or, indeed, society.
Name and address supplied
• I have been following the commentary about childless politicians, as with Nesrine Malik’s article, with some interest, being a childless man now in his 70s. Some years ago, I appeared on a lunchtime TV discussion about this issue. On the one hand, the childless (I prefer “childfree”) participants were berated for being “selfish”, which is a distillation of much of the rightwing argument against us. On the other hand, we were then berated for having nobody to look after us in old age. How utterly selfish it felt to me in that moment, to want to produce possibly unwilling children just to service one’s dotage.
Graham Mullan
Bristol
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