Childfree women by choice : emergence of a biosocial identity through sterilization

Abstract

The process leading to irreversible sterilization for nulliparous women can be a difficult but meaningful journey. This paper aims to understand how this experience is lived by childfree women as they navigate the Quebec healthcare system. I examine the administrative challenges and the emotional difficulties involved in this process and the means used to overcome these difficulties as they try to undergo a sterilization procedure. This research is based on the participation of thirteen women who wish to undergo tubal ligation despite not having children. I conducted semi-structured interviews using Internet videoconferencing platforms in the summer 2020. The results of the study demonstrate such women are often labelled as being on the margin of the social norms that define motherhood. This emerges as a form of biosociality and is linked to relations of biopower that emerge in interactions with physicians in the healthcare system. This research provides an anthropological analysis of the experiences of women who are childfree by choice as a result of irreversible sterilization, and it contributes to understanding the emergence of marginal identities in the context of medical practices.