Swimming against the tide: resistance strategies and agentic skills used by childfree women

Abstract

In pronatalist societies, the decision to remain childfree creates a conflict-laden scenario. This article explores how childfree women confront social hostility and defend their reproductive autonomy through resistance strategies and tactics. With this aim, the results of a feminist research, positioned from feminist Standpoint theory and digital ethnography, are presented. The researcher conducted biographical-narrative interviews with sixteen voluntary childless women from Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Spain, and the United Kingdom, all of whom were members of a childfree Facebook group. This research revealed that there is a persistent tension between societal pressure placed on these women in pronatalist societies and their exercise of reproductive autonomy. This tension compels them to adopt four resistance strategies: questioning socialization and societal expectations surrounding motherhood; coping with social pressure; assuming a transgressive identity; and projecting a positive future. Each one of these strategies entails specific tactics employed by the participants. This paper highlights the connections between these strategies, their associated tactics, and the agentic skills involved.