“Désir d’enfant - devoir d’enfant”

Abstract

Based on two field surveys in sociology, one studying people who are voluntarily chil- dless and the other on the interrelationship of women’s professional lives with their re- course to medically assisted reproduction, the article attempts to question the role of the State and institutionalized medicines in exerting a social pressure to procreate that women bear the brunt of. Socially, symbolically, economically, and identitarily, they have to answer for the absence of a child. Focusing on the discourses of women who are not mothers, whether that results from a choice or reproduction difficulties, allows us to see afresh that children – whether they be present, absent, desired or dreamt of – remain a “woman’s affair”. Since maternity continues to be thought of as a constituti- ve stage in femininity, every circumstance contributes to those who are not mothers being relegated socially or taken charge of medically.

Keywords

• ageing
• health
• desire for a child
• social pressures to conceive
• the MAP option
• the gender system