I have been following Ruby Warrington on social media for a few years, and have also read her other books. When she announced she was writing a book about Women Without Kids, I was instantly intrigued as I am a childfree woman. She was doing research and asked women to fill out a survey, when I did. I waited impatiently for this book to come out, and it finally arrived on NetGalley.

This is a complex topic, and many variables go into the childfree/childless decisions that are being made. Ruby covered so many of them with nuance and grace. She shared so much about her life and decisions she made along the way, and I related to a lot of it. The biggest takeaway from this book for me is that society needs to stop telling us what to do, and let us make the decisions that best work for us. Childfree people face a lot of pressure to have children, and I personally do not appreciate it. I don’t tell other people what they should do, and I expect the same courtesy, but for some reason people think they can tell others what to do reproductively. The things that have been said to me since I was a teenager are no less than intrusive, at best insensitive. I want everybody to read this book!

Thank you @netgalley and #soundstruepublishing for an advance copy of this e-ARC. This book will be out on March 28th.

This book is a fine read, but not as enjoyable as I hoped. I didn't find it upsetting or super engaging. From the introduction, I thought it would be a harder read, emotionally, but the book wasn't as deep as I expected. I am a woman in her 30s who has decided to not have kids, the target audience for the book. However, I feel like it didn't go quite as deep as I expected. This would be better for someone who hasn't yet decided or is trying to understand why others may not want kids.

The author’s experiences and thoughts are interwoven with the experiences, thoughts, and works of other women, as well as questions to get the reader reflecting on their own. This book explains why our capitalist society uses Motherhood as a marker of female usefulness and anyone who goes against it (willingly or not) is seen as less-than. This is a compelling, moving, and inspiring read. It ends on a hopeful note for the current generation and all generations to come to take back our female power to leave the world better than we found it.

My only criticism is that she incorrectly uses Autism as a linear spectrum (which it is not) but does so to compare it to her linear Motherhood Binary spectrum.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read the ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley, Sounds True Publishing, and author, Ruby Warrington for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review. Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood comes out on March 28, 2023. This book was my favorite Nonfiction read of 2022!

Since I received an arc, I cannot link my highlights - which probably would be half of this book. The author's voice was so strong and thought-provoking. I absolutely adored the book's discussion of feminism, environmentalism, sisterhood, and interviews with women. My only disappointment was Ruby's decision not to title the book "Selfish C*nt" for obvious marketing reasons :(

Here are some of my favorite quotes, though it was hard to choose:
-"At best, a woman who is not also a mother is seen as a strange bird, faulty goods. If she can’t have kids she is often portrayed as sad and damaged (“ Such a shame”); if she simply won’t (rarely is it that straightforward) she is either deluded, destined to regret it, or written off as cold-hearted, narcissistic, and career-obsessed. What a selfish c*nt."

-" Pronatalism is what tells us that it is selfish and narcissistic not to have kids. Pronatalism is what makes women feel like they have “failed” when they can’t get pregnant. Pronatalism is what denounces queer sex, and all non-procreative sex, as “perverse.” Pronatalism is what turns up the volume on our biological clocks; what gives other people permission to nose into our private business; and what gives politicians a say about what we do with our wombs. Pronatalism is also the reason there is still no specific, widely used terminology that validates the life-path of women without kids: we are non-mothers, women without kids, either childless or childfree, all of which emphasize the absence of a child."

-"A shocking illustration of this is the fact that marital rape was legal in the United States until 1975 and was only outlawed in all fifty states as late as 1993.9 The emotional inheritance of this? The belief that men are entitled to the ownership of women’s bodies."

-**"A woman’s mother used to be her first and most vivid role model, but many women without kids are more our fathers’ daughters. After all, it often looked like the better deal— didn’t it? Not all of our fathers have made the best role models in terms of their life choices, but while my mum remained tethered to the stove while struggling to earn enough to make ends meet (she did her therapy training once my brother and I had both left home), my father had always been free to travel, and write, and teach."

-"The underlying message (as in unconscious, and therefore all-powerful) being that a woman being wanted, taken, owned, and ultimately impregnated (by the right person, at the right time) was the natural order of things. And deeply interwoven with this was the notion that men (and society) were essentially entitled to women’s bodies as the means of reproduction."

Just like it has mentioned by the author herself, this is not a book about how to live a fabulous child-free life. Rather, it sends a powerful message to inspire people to realize that people end up childless for many different reasons and it is important for them to be heard.

For readers (mostly women) who have either chose to not become a mom or who are still struggling with a choice of being child-free, this is recommendable for you. You might find this reflective and/or empowering for you.

I have mixed feelings on this book. As a childless millennial (partially by choice), I had expected this to be more of a guide on how one rises and thrives in a society that otherwise shuns the idea of women without kids. To be fair to the author, she even explains early on that's not what the book was about.

This book didn't speak to me, which is why I rated it 3 stars - it was an interesting enough read, but I felt it missed it's mark.

Thoroughly enjoyed this. As a woman without kids, cancer took that from me , it was refreshing to read a book talking of this group of women not as eccentrics, or strange for being child less, more for being empowered. When you are not a mother, there is a sympathetic head tilt that comes your way as if to commiserate with you. People are shocked when you say…I dont want them.