The terms “mother nature,” “lady justice,” and “mother tongue” convey a certain gendered innateness about them. In other words, they are feminizations of natural and social concepts. These terms, among many others, are used to signify nurturing and naturally occurring phenomena, paralleling the way motherhood has been constructed and reciprocated as innate to womanhood. They reveal the ways in which the idea of the nurturing mother is deeply intertwined with not only American society but global cultures as well.
This rhetoric has a poignantly deep resonance given the recent outcome of the U.S. presidential election—the new Trump administration has dangerous implications and consequences for reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, and the right to choose. Although often centered on abortion, conversations about the female body––often connoted with “marriage and family” by the new presidential administration––capture more broadly what it means to have the right to make choices.
The Trump administration has done us the favor of succinctly gathering their perspectives on motherhood, marriage, and the U.S. family in Project 2025. These domineering narratives about the female body are not limited to this election or presidential administration. In fact, praising reproduction and motherhood are globally subjugating narratives. They are not confined to a geographic space or time. They strike a chord with all women, necessitating a new concept of the non-mother as a human right.
Beyond staunch ideals of the female body as destined to reproduce, there still exists a vehement culture of forced motherhood worldwide. The decision to be a mother is often viewed less as a choice but rather as an assumed purpose that a woman eventually fulfills. A woman’s choice to have children is rarely questioned and typically celebrated in good spirits. A woman’s choice to not have children, on the other hand, is often confronted with a question: Why? Or, rather, a childless woman is framed as a mother-to-be, one who has not had children yet.
Whether for economic, health, or ethical reasons, many women cannot have children. Still, being a non-mother is often an intentional choice. This culture of assumed motherhood has allowed pronatalist policies and rhetoric to pervade our everyday lives, often rooting women’s value in both their capacity and decision to reproduce. The non-mother is othered, becoming a deviant simply via her existence and exertion of human rights.
We often laugh at or even celebrate young girls who talk about how many children they want to have. I’m sure many of us know women––including ourselves––with a list of baby names in their phone that they pull up to admire or add to when talking about the future. These small everyday acts are intertwined with our culture, hence, young girls who talk about not wanting children are often met with saddened and disappointed looks, or the all too familiar, “You’re so young, you may change your mind!”
There exists a wild contradiction in our culture, rooted in the underappreciation and objectification of women’s bodies. When women and girls choose to have children, they are seen as in control of their bodies and sure of themselves. On the contrary, when women and girls express an active desire to not have children––or to be a non-mother––they are questioned and doubted in their certainty. To not have children is just as much a choice as to have children; it is not a lack of choice, but an active decision and an autonomous claim over one’s body.
Globally, there are countless pronatalist policies: tax incentives, cash benefits, and family-friendly employment options for those who have one or more children. The choice to have children is incentivized and rewarded. Beyond material benefits, it is culturally celebrated. Pronatalist policy is not inherently bad—arguably, these policies have positively assisted many countries around the world. But pronatalist policies push objectivity onto the “goodness” of motherhood, uplifting it as a “solution” to other problems. If a right is an entitlement to something, then everyone should have a right to non-motherhood, meaning there should not be any material disincentives to not having a child.
Regardless of the moral foundation they are built upon, human rights are generally celebrated across the globe as something “good” and as something to be protected. We have rooted ourselves in systems of human rights; not in the innate or natural sense, but the politically and structurally bound sense. The failure to consider the choice to become a non-mother as a human right will continue to economically and socially stigmatize women who choose to become non-mothers.
With the prospect of Project 2025, non-motherhood faces a new level of political interference, jeopardizing ideas of political institutions as protectors of human rights. The first promise of the project is to “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children,” implying the “family”––and therefore the mother––as the pinnacle of a successful society. Recognizing non-motherhood as a human right protects the non-mother from government policies that may infringe upon social or economic success. On a human level, nobody should be punished or rewarded for the choices they make about their body.
