Late last year some fascinating figures came out of Scotland: “31.2% of Scottish women born between 1960 and 1963 do not have children, and … if the current trend continues, 40% of women born between 1970 and 1973 will not have children.” It is estimated that only about 7 per cent of those suffer from medical problems that meant this wasn’t an active choice.

The article to which that link points is typical of the response – spluttering incomprehension, then an assumption that the women must have just stupidly “forgotten” to have children. People – or at least journalists, doctors and NHS officials – seem to have a lot of problems believing that women are adults who do make choices for themselves.

Dr Gillian Penney, who carried out the research, went back and double-checked the numbers. “I was very surprised to see these figures, I thought there must have been a mistake,” she says. “A third of women not having had a child seems so high. I would have thought around 10% would have been realistic. But more than 30%? I was very surprised.”
Even more puzzling for Penney was the women in the next age bracket she studied, those born from 1970 to 1973. “If that line keeps following the path it is on, it is quite startling,” she adds.
“One of the things that seems clear is that for the majority of these women it is not infertility stopping them having children: it is choice. Some have made that decision as a positive choice, but for others they will have thought to themselves ‘one day, one day’ and keep putting it off until it is too late.”

But that of course is an active choice. Not wanting to have a child “now” – women do know that may mean never, even if they won’t admit it to social researchers and friends because they will make a big fuss or express disapproval about it.

The comparable figure for the whole of the UK is about 20 per cent, and rising. I couldn’t find any figures – anyone know of any? – but I’m sure that would be considerably swayed by the high fertility rate of immigrant women. If you took the figures for women born in the UK (Scotland has relatively few immigrants) I suspect they’d be similar to the Scottish ones.

(There’s a summary of a sensible-looking study of the issue here, that makes the point this is by no means an “alternative” choice.)

I’m not in any way saying there is anything wrong with having children – at least a reasonable number of them – but it is really about time that it was recognised that childlessness is a reasonable choice that women are making, which should not be a cause for surprise or disapproval.

UPDATE: I forget earlier to add the comment that, while many don’t realise it, we’re actually heading back towards historical norms. The post WWII period saw historically extraordinarily high levels of marriage and childbearing, but it was these that were out of step with the general norm. For example, in London in 1911, 19 per cent of women in their mid-forties had never married (and it is reasonable to assume that nearly all of those had not had children). (S. Inwood, City of Cities: The Birth of Modern London, Macmillan, 2005, p. 11)

You might have had to wear ballooning bloomers and give a slip to your chaperone (the Chaperon Cyclists’ Association was formed in 1896, although it didn’t last long), but it sounds like being a female cyclist in Victorian London could be rather fun:

“The sight of a ‘young Amazon with the auburn hair and nicely-fitting costume’ cycling down Holborn on the wrong side of the road, as recklessly and fearlessly as a newspaper boy, ‘dodging in and out of the mass of cabs and carts’ and ignoring the policeman’s signal, thrilled Duncan Lucas in 1901. ‘Just when we think there will be a frightful accident she calmly crosses to the left, shaving the horses’ heads. Her sangfroid is astounding.”

But then again they did have extra protection: “Thomas Hardy asked a London omnibus conductor if the young women did not meet with accidents. He said: “Oh nao; their sex pertects them. We dares not drive over them, wotever they do; and they do jist whot they likes”.

And I couldn’t find a single thing about her on the web, but one of the famous cyclists of the era was Tissie Reynolds, 16, who raced from London to Brighton and back. She wore knickerbockers, as did Kitty Buckman cycling in the London suburbs. The latter wrote, however, in 1897 that: “One wants nerves of iron … The shouts and yells of the children deafen one, the women shriek with laughter or groan & hiss & all sorts of remarks are shouted at one, occasionally some not fit for publication. One needs to be very brave.”

Not much has changed, in any respect then, except I wouldn’t care to rely on the chivalry of a “omnibus” driver of today.

From Stephen Inwood’s City of Cities: The Birth of Modern London, pp. 148-9

From today all British Library reading rooms (not just rare books) are pencil-only. Pens are absolutely verboten. And the pencils in the shop cost 60p! each. (So it is worth remembering to BYO.)

I can see the argument – there was a woman prosecuted for persistently causing lots of damage last year, and no doubt they get the odd absent-minded doodle – but it is a real pain.

Working for a while in rare books – and trying to read my notes later – made me value Mr Bic a whole lot more.

Today is the final day to get in your nominations for the next Carnival of Feminists. Jenn has a range of suggestions. If you’re just getting back into the swing of work et al – here’s a great reason to do something else instead!

Some semi-good news on malaria in Africa – mosquito nets impregnated with long-lasting insecticide. As usual, of course, the problem is in distribution, and particularly fair distribution to the poor.

Then a couple of funnies to cheer you up. Now I’m a fairly militant atheist, although I think Jesus as a historical character probably did exist, but in Italy, the foundation of the Catholic Church, a judge isn’t satisfied about that.

AN ITALIAN judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed.

There’s been a lot of ill-explained claims about the decline of secularism lately (I’ve yet to see anyone give any figures or facts to support this claim), so let’s give the judge a cheer.

And instead of Tupperware parties (the social highlight of my Mum’s circle when I was a child), in America women are now apparently having DIY parties, at which they learn new skills. Sounds like a much more useful idea – a repaired wall will last a lot longer than a salad.

A cold night in an affluent suburb in Denver, Colorado. Inside a well-appointed, detached home a dozen women are gathered.
Aged mainly in their mid-forties, the excited talk among this group of female graduate professionals is of only one thing: tools. They have come here to debate the relative virtues of the V-notch trowel against that of its square-notched rival. Then there is the question of whether to stock up on a few more rolls of waterproof tarp, splash out on a new eight-inch adjustable wrench or invest in that state-of-the art, easy-action caulking gun they have set their hearts on.

Perhaps the most magical address in London is 18 Folgate Street in Spitalfields, otherwise known as Dennis Severs’ House. I wrote a piece about its Christmas display for The Times several years ago (unfortunately not now available free online), but I hope to write again about its “everyday” face soon.

In the meantime, I’ve been reading Severs’ own description of it and its (re)creation as a piece of living history, simply titled 18 Folgate Street. The book is as delightfully nutty and eccentric as the house in the flesh. (Although I have to confess I’m not entirely convinced by his naive-style collages.)

Yet it does explain the house very well. Indeed if I had to sum it up on one phrase it is in his definition of atmosphere as “the space between things. He created what might be called an imaginary theatre display – a whole family lives – eats, sleeps and breathes – in the house, but they’ve always just left the room before you entered – leaving a scent, a half-eaten apple, or other similar signs of their presence. READ MORE