My So-Called Selfish Life rejects the societal expectation that all women should have children – Chicago Reader

Award-winning filmmaker and activist Therese Shechters new documentary My So-Called Selfish Life is a gripping film that spotlights societys expectations on women to produce children, and the horrifying limits women face in pursuit of bodily autonomy. The Columbia College graduate and longtime Chicago residentnow based in New Yorkcreated an eye-opening film that exposes the roots behind the promotion of reproduction, known as pronatalism, and reveals the medical hurdles women go through to secure multiple forms of birth control. Whether you identify as a woman or as a human being with either set of reproductive organs, this film will have you rethinking what having children means to you.

My So-Called Selfish Life, which just completed a run at the St. Louis International Film Festival, focuses on a culturally diverse group of women and their personal experiences with the stigma associated with having no interest in childbearing, being compared to old maids or spinsters. This same stigma also pushed many to view child-free women as disliking or even hating children, known as antinatalism, though this is usually never the case. The women in the film charismatically recall their journeys toward feeling confident and aware of their decisions.

My So-Called Selfish LifeDir. Therese Shechter, 78 min. Currently screening at festivals with a wide release planned for 2022.

The documentary introduces terms to add to your ever-growing progressive vocabulary. If you identify as child-free then you have made the deliberate choice to not have children, biologically or through adoption. Childless is defined as desiring to have children but not being able to because of myriad circumstances including lack of partner, economic hardship, or infertility. The redefined term for family can consist of partners with children, partners without children, adults with pets, or a group of friends, sometimes called chosen family.

One of the child-free women interviewed is a young genius, world traveler, and aspiring physicist whose biggest challenge has been finding a doctor who is willing to perform a hysterectomy on her, by choice. Regardless of her reasons for wanting to be sterilized, many doctors refused to perform the legal surgery because they believed she would regret it. Like our young genius, many women have been denied the right to have basic bodily autonomy, defined as control over your own body. Sterilization is legal in all states and anyone who is over the age of 18 can receive that procedure willingly.

In contrast to seeking sterilization is the practice of forced sterilization, created during the nightmare known as the eugenics movement. During times of slavery, eugenics fueled racial biases, determining which ethnicities should produce and which should not. Eugenics, admired by Adolf Hitler, and pronatalism were tools used by white supremacists to justify keeping control over marginalized communities.

In the documentary, Shechter presents clear examples of systemic sexism and generational conditioning. She shows how lack of information and parental/societal conditions give many people who would otherwise choose to be childless the urge to reproduce. From start to finish, My So-Called Selfish life is visceral and entertaining. I would definitely recommend watching before the holidays.

It seems common knowledge that women need to be protected and seen as human beings with basic human rights like bodily autonomy. Women make up half the populationthey should get a say in their own lives. Shockingly, women are still being viewed as just a womb, a simple way to produce. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed, an article ran stating RBG was a caring mother and wife before mentioning she was a Supreme Court justice. No offense to her kids and faithful husband, but I dont think they were making her decisions in the courtroom. Ultimately, living a child-free life is a choice that any human being has the right to make for themselves, without judgement from others.

To find out more about Shechter, her passions and successes, and the team behind @MySoCalledSelfishLife, RSVP to the My So-Called Selfish Holidays event, How To Survive The Holidays As A Childfree Person: A Virtual Gathering, December 2 at 7 PM through Eventbrite, $15.

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My So-Called Selfish Life rejects the societal expectation that all women should have children - Chicago Reader