The Voluntarily Childless Heroine

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Television & New Media 19–1 The Voluntarily Childless © The Author(s) 2018 Reprints and permissions: Heroine: A Postfeminist sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476417749743DOI: 10.1177/1527476417749743 Television Oddity journals.sagepub.com/home/tvn

Betty-Despoina Kaklamanidou1

Abstract In a neoliberal and postfeminist context, this article undertakes an analysis of the atypical instances of voluntarily childless heroines on contemporary U.S. network television from 2010 to 2015. Drawing mainly from Diane Negra’s and Angela McRobbie’s work on postfeminist popular culture, and specifically McRobbie’s concept of “double entanglement,” I argue that network television, with rare exceptions, not only avoids representations of female childlessness but also promotes pronatalism, which it associates with neoliberal principles of the market (as illustrated in everything from the booming surrogacy industry to the quest to enroll children at the best private schools, etc.).

Keywords childlessness, American network television, postfeminism, sitcom, pronatalism

“If I really wanted to have a baby, wouldn’t I have tried to have one by now? I wanted to be a writer, I made myself a writer. I want a ridiculously extravagant pair of shoes, I find a way to buy them.”

So says Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) to her friend Charlotte (Kristin Davis) about whether she wants to have babies or not, while they discuss how Carrie’s older boyfriend, Aleksandr (Mikhail Baryshnikov), has had a child in the past and afterward a vasectomy. Carrie’s line is delivered in Sex and the City’s (HBO, 1998–2004) episode 15 from season 6, aptly titled “Catch-38.” Carrie is 38 years old and has never actually thought of procreation. Across the ninety-four episodes of the series, Carrie

1Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Corresponding Author: Betty-Despoina Kaklamanidou, 21, G. Papandreou Street, Thessaloniki 54645, Greece. Email: [email protected] 2 Television & New Media 00(0) faces a pregnancy scare once (“The Baby Shower,” S1), and discloses that she had an abortion in her early twenties (“Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda,” S4). Sex and the City is the rare television show where the issue of voluntary childlessness is directly discussed. Neither Carrie nor Samantha (Kim Cattrall) ever expresses the desire to have children; in fact, the latter clearly articulates the opposite view, and they both remain without kids even in the two film installments of the franchise in 2008 and 2010. In a postfeminist era that views “feminism as rigid, serious, anti-sex and romance, difficult and extremist,” while offering “the pleasure and comfort of (re)claiming an identity uncomplicated by gender politics, postmodernism, or institutional critique” (Negra 2009, 11), voluntary childlessness has arisen as “the final female taboo” (Rainey 2013). The increasing recent rejection of motherhood—as will be soon discussed—is both a personal and complex decision and a political one (Day 2013). Pronatalism emerges as a powerful discourse not only at the level of official politics but also as a dominant “theme” in media and celebrity culture. Laura Carroll (2012a, 16) observes how U.S. governmental policy “operates as a social control to reward reproduction through” state, federal, and corporate policies. Carroll (2012a, 15) also notes how,

Celebrities, coupled with our status-driven culture, have taken the baby-craze to new heights, . . . Like the best Prada bag, their number of homes, and their glamorous lifestyles, their perfect children help them show the world that they are at the top of the success heap.

In an aspirational culture, people are increasingly “motivated to emulate this picture of perfection” (Carroll 2012a) even when they do not possess the necessary capital to do so. As Carroll concludes, this tendency “has taken the pronatalist norm to new heights . . . because now more than ever before, parents can use their children as a tool for status achievement and recognition” (Carroll 2012a). Although the 2010s have witnessed a significant increase in both sociological research regarding childless women, and media attention that highlights the cultural and societal implications of the issue, television fiction remains rather voiceless on the subject. There have also been to date relatively few academic studies that address representations of childless female characters on television shows and/or films. Julia Moore and Patricia Geist-Martin (2013, 246) have already observed that, “one area that is severely lacking is analysis of the fictional representation of women who choose childlessness in books, television, and film.” Although Moore and Geist-Martin add that relevant “representations are limited,” they underline the importance of scholarly examination to “understand how voluntary childlessness is framed in popular, contemporary media” (Moore and Geist-Martin 2013). Anthea Taylor associates childlessness with singleness, noting that contemporary popular texts demonize single women “in a narrative that . . . works . . . to mourn their manlessness, but more importantly, the childlessness that this state implies” (Taylor 2012, 43). Taylor’s association of singleness and childlessness is significant; first, it reveals the close relationship, albeit not obligatory, of the two statuses, and second, it Kaklamanidou 3 allows scholars to revisit older representations of single and probably childless heroines. Third, it also explains how the female heroine from the late 1980s and 1990s— Taylor uses the protagonists of Fatal Attraction (1987), Basic Instinct (1992), and Disclosure (1994) as her main examples—have come to represent figures “of abject horror, harbouring barely sublimated rage, murderous urges and profound jealousy towards those living the patriarchal nuclear familial dream” (Taylor 2012, 53). Another vital aspect of female childlessness is noted in Susan Berridge’s (2015, 113) analysis of celebrity culture and ageing and particularly on Jennifer Aniston, whom she considers “one of the most important discursive sites for anxieties around gender, age and chronological propriety.” Berridge examines Aniston’s interviews as well as coverage of the star in both U.S. and U.K. magazines, and notices that Aniston is frequently targeted as a celebrity who has not had a baby, which according to the author is one of several “particular gendered life goals [one has to achieve] by a certain age” (Berridge 2015, 117). Such was the extent of this scrutiny that Aniston herself addressed the media in a Huffington Post blog post in July 2016, where she unambigu- ously stated that “We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete. We get to determine our own ‘happily ever after’ for ourselves” (Aniston 2016). It is in the same neoliberal and postfeminist context as Taylor’s and Berridge’s work that I undertake here an analysis of the atypical instances of voluntarily childless heroines on contemporary U.S. network television. Drawing mainly from Diane Negra’s and Angela McRobbie’s work on postfeminist popular culture, and specifically McRobbie’s (2009, 12) concept of “double entanglement,” that is the “co-exis- tence of neo-conservative values in relation to gender, sexuality and family life . . . with processes of liberalisation in regard to choice and diversity,” I argue that network television, with rare exceptions, not only avoids representations of female childlessness but also promotes pronatalism, which it associates with neoliberal principles of the market (as illustrated in everything from the booming surrogacy industry to the quest to enroll children at the best private schools, etc.). I focus on network television because I want to assess those representations that reach the widest possible audience. Despite the decline in network ratings, due mainly to cable and streaming television services, the traditional American networks still manage to attract a considerably higher viewership than their rivals. For instance, season 9 of the sitcom The Big Bang Theory (2015–2016) averaged 20 million viewers (Maglio 2016) whereas acclaimed dramas such as Mad Men (AMC, 2007–2015) and Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008–2013) averaged respectively 2.27 and 5.4 million (Kissel 2013, 2015 respectively). Almost by definition, network television is more conservative than cable and/or online television, and it still remains a key representational arena of societal discourse, because of the number of viewers it draws. Thus, it is into this vast representational arena that the cultural researcher must delve because television remains, after all, a powerful “window to broader social issues, whether by estab- lishing norms of identity categories like gender or race or by framing political agendas and perspectives,” and can as such influence and even change viewers’ beliefs (Thompson and Mittell 2013, 4). Finally, despite network television’s production of rather traditional and middle-of-the-road narratives, it is there where two significant 4 Television & New Media 00(0) cases of childless heroines appear. After all, it is this mainly conservative landscape that gave viewers same-sex marriages since the mid-1980s1 and two paradigmatic models of childfree women in the mid-2000s and 2010s, namely Cristina Yang in Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 2005–present) and Robin Scherbatsky in How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 2005–2014).2

Research Contexts and Internet Communities Although this article does not aim to provide a historical examination of voluntary childlessness, a brief context is to elucidate its televisual representations or scarcity thereof. Historically, of course, there were always women who had no children in the course of their lives; yet, there is no study of their numbers. The 1970s witnessed the first effort to give voice to individuals and couples who consciously chose to lead a childless life. In 1972, Ellen Peck and Shirley Radl established the National Organization for Non-Parents (NON), today known as the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood to protect the rights of childless individuals3 (Healey 2016). The percentage of those who are voluntarily childless in the United States has historically fluctuated; from 5 percent to 9 between 1982 and 1995 to 7 percent between 2002 and 2006 (Hollander 2007). Jane Lawler Dye’s study (in Kelly 2009, 157) esti- mates that, in 2005, “20 percent of women were childless near the end of their childbearing years.” Based on current studies, Maura Kelly (2009, 157–58) hypothesizes that “younger cohorts of women are more likely to remain childless.” Kelly views voluntary childlessness as a reflection of a number of social “trends” from “access to contraception and abortion, women’s increased opportunities for education” and work, and “changing attitudes toward mothering” (Kelly 2009). As the second decade of the new millennium draws to a close, data confirm that women bear children later in life, as according to Park (2016), “The average age when women had their first child increased from 24.9 in 2000 to 26.3 in 2014.” This threat- ens the growth of the U.S. population, which may by slower but “is still expected to increase” (Park 2016). The relevant academic literature includes mostly sociological research from the last three decades that uses criteria such as age, race, ethnicity, nationality, marital and socioeconomic status to examine the reasons behind voluntary childlessness. In her review of the main research data and drawing from feminist theory, Kelly views motherhood as closely associated with hegemonic ideas of femininity and considers whether voluntary childlessness can be linked with nonfeminine ideals, such as the rejection of motherhood, selfishness, and lack of femininity. Yet, the quali- tative research she examines shows that irrespective of the fact that some female sub- jects were aware of patriarchy’s modes of discourse and particularly its discourse on the sanctity of motherhood, their reasons for being childless were varied and highly personal. As Kelly (2009, 158) underlines, “many people’s perceptions of their childlessness as ‘choice’ or ‘circumstance’ are complex and subjective.” Indeed, online interviews, blogs, and opinion pieces reveal that the prevailing reasons behind voluntary childlessness are many and include career choices, comfort (Scott 2017), physical Kaklamanidou 5 and emotional conditions, and social and cultural circumstances (Koehler 2014), as well as awareness of overpopulation in the context of environmental issues and sus- tainability (Gies 2015). Web 2.0 marked a turning point in media creation and consumption in the 2000s, and witnessed the advent of “childfree”4 digital communities: childfree.net, childfree. livejournal.com, werenothavingababy.com, thechildfreelife.com, thenotmom.com, childlessbychoiceproject.com are just a few examples of online sites, blogs, and fora created to bring together childless individuals, not to mention the numerous Facebook pages and social media accounts dedicated to this specific community. It can be argued that the usual accusation childless women face—of selfishly refusing the patriarchal maternal imperative—have led to the creation of online safe spaces that, according to Moore and Geist-Martin (2013, 245), are “central to the identity construction for many” in this particular community. As with every societal issue, media response to the voluntarily childless has varied. Conservative writers, such as Harry Siegel (2013), have openly expressed hostil- ity toward women perceived to risk the future of humankind or at least the future of specific nations, and even Pope Francis publicly remonstrated “couples who choose not to have children, saying the decision is a ‘selfish’ act” (Kirchgaessner 2015). Other writers have offered a more nuanced and evenhanded reflection on the choice not to have children (Wayne’s 2015 article “No Kids for Me, Thanks”), while there are those who overtly defend this choice (Baum’s 2015 “Some People Don’t Want Kids—Get Over It”). Irrespective of the for or against or even the “I’m not sure” position of each writer, the fact is that voluntary childlessness is the subject of an increasing number of opinion pieces, articles, and blogs in leading news outlets both online and in print in the last five years. Yet, it can be said that American television, always keen to capitalize on societal trends and concerns in both direct and indirect ways, has failed to represent the voluntarily childless in that same period. Even in the rare cases—that I discuss below— where female characters get to voice their decision not to bear children, their story arcs change in surprising ways. The stigma attached to women without kids, that, according to Leslie Ashburn-Nardo’s (2017) study, can be best summarized as rooted in moral outrage against childless women in real life, seems to be transported on to television.

Network Television and the Voluntarily Childless in the 2010s Two online magazine articles notably focus on the issue of the representation of the voluntarily childless woman (Grose 2011; Hill 2014). Both authors open their dis- cussions referencing The Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS, 1970–1977), the feminist sitcom prototype of the 1970s, where the central heroine, Mary Richards, begins and ends her fictional journey as a working, single, and childless woman. Grose and Hill then move to two shows of the 2010s after referring to Sex and the City. Both writers lament the scarcity of childless television heroines, wondering if motherhood is the 6 Television & New Media 00(0) only narrative stratagem for a sitcom to move a female-oriented plot forward (Grose 2011), while wishing for more childless female characters on American television (Hill 2014). So, what are the 2010s television shows that include childless heroines among their protagonists? While there are definitely signature examples of this kind of heroine, it may be more helpful to catalogue a comprehensive list, to highlight specific categories of these kinds of characters as well as to offer some broader conclusions about the representation of childless women. Based on weekly programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, the CW, and Fox since 2010, I compiled a corpus that includes scripted dramas and sitcoms, excluding police proce- durals (such as CSI [CBS, 2000–2015], NCIS [CBS, 2003–present], and their spinoffs) whose narrative center is criminal enigmas. The drama/dramedy section of the corpus includes eighteen shows and the sitcom category forty-two shows.5 Eleven out of the eighteen shows (61.1%) of the drama/ dramedy category are female-driven series, that is, Madam Secretary (CBS, 2014–present), Desperate Housewives (ABC, 2004–2012), Mistresses (ABC, 2013– 2016). Motherhood seems to follow all the female characters irrespective of age and/ or specific personality characteristics while childlessness does not become an issue. The examples abound; in Parenthood (NBC, 2010–2015), for instance, the matri- arch Camille (Bonnie Bedelia) has two daughters and two sons. Both her daughters are mothers, and even her teenage granddaughter, Amber (Mae Whitman), becomes a mother toward the end of the show in season 6 (2015). Smash (NBC, 2012–2013) also culminates with a main character’s pregnancy, as does Mistresses, a prime-time “soap” that follows the lives of three vibrant and creative women, and ends with all three heroines as mothers by the finale, even if the characters had expressed no pre- vious interest in having a family. This begs the question: is motherhood an inescap- able element when writing the finale of a show that includes female characters of childbearing age? In the overwhelming majority of network TV shows, the answer is yes. Even in Damages (FX, 2007–2012) and How to Get Away with Murder (ABC, 2014–present), two shows that star complicated female lawyers past their childbearing years, the female protagonists have to deal with losing a child in the past. Damages’ Patty (Glenn Close) has a teenage son but it is also revealed that she had a miscarriage in the past. Annalise (Viola Davis) in How to Get Away with Murder is not a mother but in season 2 (2016), we learn that she actually lost a baby in a car accident when she was eight months pregnant. The loss of their children, however different in nature, haunts the protagonists’ present and allows the viewers rare glimpses into Patty’s and Annalise’s vulnerable side. The use of a “motherhood lost” thematic is clearly a form of postfeminist double entanglement as it implies that the loss of a child combined with the absence of motherhood is not simply an unfortunate or even tragic event but an anom- aly that resulted in Patty’s and Annalise’s eventual professional power and “monstros- ity.” In other words, the narratives suggest that if both women had brought their children into the world, they would have been fulfilled and would probably not need to validate themselves through their careers. Kaklamanidou 7

Perhaps the most complex and culturally informed depiction of voluntary childlessness on contemporary television is to be found in the character of Cristina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 2005–present). Cristina is a brilliant, dedicated surgeon and one of the most complex female characters on television. She has two significant relationships during her ten-year tenure on the show. For the first three seasons, she is involved with Dr. Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington) and suffers a miscarriage. Although it is a difficult experience, she does not seem heartbroken. After Washington’s exit from the show, Cristina finds love again with Dr. Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd), a trauma surgeon, and they get married. However, this time, when Cristina gets pregnant again, she openly voices her desire to remain childless. In episode 22 of season 7, titled “Unaccompanied Minor,” Cristina and Owen have a fight over her desire to have an abortion:

Cristina: I don’t want to be a mother.

Owen: Cristina, do you love me?

Cristina: Of course I do.

Owen: Do you trust me?

Cristina: Yes.

Owen: You’d be a great mother. I know you don’t believe me, but it is true. Just sit with this for a little while—this terrible idea that you might love a baby, for me just . . .

Cristina: Did you hear me? Why would I do that?

Owen: Because you love me—that’s why.

Despite Owen’s desire for a baby and her love for him, Cristina does go ahead with the abortion with Owen by her side. Yet, the couple can never be the same, as the narrative does not forget that Owen has always wanted to become a parent while Cristina has the exact opposite desire. Thus, staying true to the characters’ personalities and despite serious misgivings about including a baby in Cristina’s narrative arc, as Shonda Rhimes—creator of the show—has revealed,6 the writers opted to honor Cristina’s choice. Cristina’s abortion is soon followed by an outburst from Owen. During a party in season 8’s episode 12 (titled “Hope for the Hopeless” and broadcast in January 2012), the two have a fight about a work problem. However, Owen brings up the abortion, and in an angry tirade, accuses Cristina of “killing their baby.” This foreshadows the couple’s eventual breakup at the end of season 9 despite some efforts to salvage their relationship. Cristina leaves the show at the end of season 10, having accepted a highly coveted position at a Swiss hospital, thus, continuing the life path she has always chosen and indicating that she has opted to focus unapologetically on her extraordinary abilities as a doctor. 8 Television & New Media 00(0)

Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw), another character on the show, has also served as an example of a childless female. Arizona became a cast member in the show’s fifth season and entered into a relationship with Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez). Before the two women got married, Callie expressed her desire for children only to be met with Arizona’s firm rejection of the idea. The issue was resolved when Callie became unintentionally pregnant by a colleague, and Arizona found herself raising a child. To com- plicate matters even more, season 12 saw the couple engage in a long custody battle over their daughter, which was surprisingly not won by the biological mother but by Arizona. In other words, a career woman who wanted to be childless was turned into a model of motherhood. Although Arizona finally decides to have the child brought up by Callie in another city, her raising the girl for five years during the relationship and marriage means that her decision to be childless can be easily overturned. However, season 13 (2016–2017) finds Arizona single and flirting again with a new doctor with only one mention of visiting Seattle, the new home to Callie and their daughter. It is true that some narrative choices on a show that is approaching its fourteenth season in September 2017 depend on actors’ decisions to pursue other career choices and are not entirely contingent upon the creator(s)’ exact vision. It is also a fact, however, that Grey’s Anatomy has opted for a rather sentimentalized depiction of motherhood for both its regular cast and many patient cases over its long run. Thus, Arizona’s return to singledom and childlessness is, at least, a refreshing representation of a form of particular female identity customarily neglected by Grey’s Anatomy and the overwhelming majority of television series. The sitcom category can be understood as generating a plethora of female character types. The prevailing representation, however, is that of the loving, compassionate, self-sacrificing—however tired, imperfect, and confused—mother. After all, twenty- six out of the forty-two sitcoms (61.9%) in my sample fall under the label of the “family sitcom,” and revolve around the traditional patriarchal model of the nuclear family, despite adding some new “twists.” Despite a plethora of female protagonists in the last five years, only Whitney (Whitney Cummings) in Whitney (NBC, 2011–2013), Robin in How I Met Your Mother, and Bernadette from The Big Bang Theory (CBS, 2007–present) actually articulate their desire to remain childless. In all three cases, this decision is upended through ensuing problematic narratives that assuage the characters’ “extremist” antinatalist views. In the Emmy-awarded and very popular How I Met Your Mother, where three young men and two young women navigate life in New York, Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders) portrays a no-nonsense aspiring journalist from Canada, who moves to New York to build the career she has been dreaming about. In season 7’s episode 12 (“Symphony of Illumination”), broadcast in December 2011, after unintentionally ending up in bed with Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris), an unapologetic twenty- first century Don Juan, she fears being pregnant. Robin and Barney are good friends, so they discuss the situation in their favorite bar; Barney says he would love to be a dad but Robin’s opposing view is crystal clear:

Robin: I don’t want kids. I’ve never wanted kids, and never, in a million years, will I ever want kids. Kaklamanidou 9

Barney is, in fact, relieved, and after they both learn the next day that Robin is, in fact, not pregnant, they spontaneously perform a little dance in front of a surprised doctor who expected they would be sad over the news. However, Robin’s doctor informs her the next day that she actually cannot have children. The plotline then has Robin keep this secret to herself and mourn the complete deprivation of the freedom to eventually change her mind in the future. She then spends some time away from her friends until close to the episode’s end, when we see her in Central Park at night, sitting on a bench while it is snowing, drinking eggnog. A strong sense of melancholy and sadness per- vades the image of Robin finishing her drink and heading back home, while a proxi- mate voice-over reveals the following:

Robin: So I can’t have kids. Big deal. This way there’s no one to hold me back in life, no one to keep me from traveling where I want to travel, no one getting in the way of my career.

Despite the fact that her intonation in the above speech is not dissimilar to the confi- dent tone she used when she told Barney she would never want kids “in a million years,” the combination of the voice-over with Robin’s unsmiling face as she walks the New York streets to the park creates an obvious antithesis. Although her words and her image create doubts as to whether Robin is sad about her infertility or whether she actually questions her decision to remain childless, the episode ends on an optimistic note as the show’s narrator explains to his future kids that “Aunt Robin . . . did become a famous journalist, a successful businesswoman, a world traveler . . . But there’s one thing your Aunt Robin never was. She was never alone.” The ambiguity surrounding Robin’s voluntary childlessness presents another postfeminist double entanglement (McRobbie 2009) as it is punctuated by her physical inability to bear children. In other words, it does not actually matter if Robin desires to procreate or not because the fact is that she cannot. This being said, the creators of How I Met Your Mother did not or could not push the envelope further by having the issue of voluntary childlessness represented in all its complexity. Craig Thomas, one of the series’ creators along with Carter Bays, suggests that the character of Robin was formulated as a conscious subversion of the female television stereotype, a woman who wants a man who does not want to commit (Ryan 2006). Indeed, How I Met Your Mother puts Robin in the guy’s shoes as she is the one that wants to be free to pursue her career, and Ted (Josh Radnor) is the one who assumes the traditional female role of actively asking her that they be together. In the same interview, conducted before the end of the show’s first season, Thomas elaborates on the creative process and seems interested in providing viewers with a kind of authenticity that he finds lacking in the sitcom world. Having a childless female character would and did, indeed, provide a representation akin to real life, but in the end, the shows’ creators took a step back by having Robin come to terms with her medical condition. A popular network show that remains on the air season after season faces increasing struggles not only regarding how to represent the characters’ lives, but also online fan pressure, the cast’s potential demands, and the host network’s desires to perhaps “smooth” specific story- lines. Whatever the industrial and societal parameters (i.e., network influence 10 Television & New Media 00(0) on content, censorship issues, etc.), the fact remains that Robin’s childlessness was ultimately represented ambiguously rather than as a strong affirmation of the ability of modern women to choose whether to have children or not. I claim that Robin’s narrative journey is comparable with the course of Sex and the City (SATC) and Negra’s (2009, 10) observation about “the limits of putative postfeminist female empowerment and autonomy.” Negra perceptively remarks that while SATC is celebrated as an empowering feminist text, it “came to closure in a strikingly ideologically conservative fashion with the safe settlement of its four ensemble members into commitment and motherhood” (Negra 2009). Similarly, Robin may end up living the childless life she has always dreamed of, all the time knowing she could never have children if she changed her mind. Bernadette’s case in The Big Bang Theory is analogous to Robin’s insofar as her intention to remain childless is treated ambiguously. Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) clearly voices her intention not to have children to her fiancé, Howard (Simon Helberg), in season 5’s episode 12 (titled “The Shiny Trinket Maneuver”), which aired on January 12, 2012. While the couple is in the car after a failed party for Howard’s little cousin, Bernadette explains that she does not “like kids” because she knows how time-consuming and needy they are, having helped raise her brothers and sisters when her mom was working. Bernadette’s monologue is not only defini- tive, but is also in keeping with her character’s strong convictions, and leaves no room for Howard, who wants children, to react. Unlike Robin, Bernadette offers a reason for her voluntary childlessness that links her intention to her desire for a successful professional career; she admits that she does not want children because she would rather enjoy her life and work without having to spend time taking care of another human being. The next scene finds the couple in Howard’s room where Bernadette proposes a compromise to their problem.

Bernadette: Well, seeing as how I make way more money than you anyway, what if I work and you stay home with the kids?

Howard: Me?

Bernadette: Yeah. You know, you’ll watch Barney and pull Cheerios out of their noses and go on play dates, and I’ll work and have conversations with people my own age and enjoy my life.

Howard: Yeah.

Bernadette: Yay, so we’re good.

Howard: Yeah, we’re good.

Bernadette’s solution is rather implausible as it instantly negates the intention that she had so strongly articulated a couple of minutes before. It also poses a problem as it reduces motherhood to the time period of pregnancy and birth before the Kaklamanidou 11

woman is ready to go back to her life and career, leaving the child to be taken care of by her partner. It may have taken only a few minutes to negate Bernadette’s decision, but it took the writers four seasons to completely reverse it. Season 9 finds Bernadette pregnant with Howard’s baby, and, in season 10, she gives birth to their daughter. This development surprised fans and critics (see Lewis 2016) but writer/producer Steven Molaro did not address Bernadette’s sudden change of mind and stated that the pregnancy arc came up organically in the writers’ room (Goldberg 2016). Robin and Bernadette are the only two characters inhabiting widely popular sitcoms who do not want kids but do not get their wish. The former may end up without kids but learns that she is physically incapable of having them, and the latter abruptly gets pregnant. Whitney (Whitney Cummings) in the two-season and rather poorly reviewed sitcom Whitney (2011–2013) had a similar fate after confessing she did not want kids in front of her boyfriend and their relationship counselor; she nonetheless does not stand by her intention as revealed in a later episode in a discussion with her boyfriend, paving the way for eventual offspring. In a Slate article, Jessica Grose (2011) examines Robin’s and Whitney’s stories and observes that “in the context of a prime-time television schedule chock-full of parents . . . it’s hard not to wish that there were more women in prime time sitcoms who were childfree and proud of it.” Grose concludes by wondering if Parks & Recreation’s Leslie Knope is “the only hope” for the representation of a proud childless woman. However, Leslie, a paradigmatic female character, must have surely disappointed Grose when a flash-forward in season 6 reveals she will have triplets in the future. This flash-forward and the message it contains about how “having it all”7 must include a traditional family did not go unnoticed. Libby Hill (2014) traces the “dawn of feminist TV” to The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Maude (CBS, 1972–1978), two shows whose central female characters may have been different but they both embraced feminist ideals such as equality and labor independence, and fought for them in their own way. Mary and Maude paved the way for, among others, Murphy Brown (Murphy Brown; CBS, 1988–1998), Elaine Benes (Seinfeld; NBC, 1989–1998), and more recently Ally McBeal (Ally McBeal; Fox, 1997–2002), Liz Lemon (30 Rock), and Leslie. Yet, as Hill argues, “[U]nlike their ’70s foremother,” Ally, Liz, and Leslie end “up with (at least one) child by the end of their show’s run.” As the family sitcom subgenre is stronger than ever, the ubiquity of fictional births and motherhood leads to Hill’s (2014) question: “At what point will it be more acceptable for our feminist heroines to not choose children?” In some ways, this maneuver in contemporary sitcoms of having women, despite what they proclaim, end up regretting not having children or going ahead and having them anyway, reinforces the notion that has been articulated by Susan Faludi ([1991] 2006), Ariel Levy (2005), and other contemporary writers about the backlash in contemporary media against the gains of feminism. In this sense, current narratives on mainstream American television seem to promote pronatalism by upending women’s gains around their reproductive rights and by having them reverse their initial resistance and opting for parenthood, or regretting the fact that they were denied the opportunity to become a parent. 12 Television & New Media 00(0)

For now, it seems the option for voluntary childlessness is largely the silent preroga- tive of the sitcom’s B cast or for sitcoms where early twenty- to early thirtysomething female main characters face mostly professional problems and are not in a committed relationship (for instance, 2 Broke Girls, The Odd Couple). In the forty-two sitcoms of the corpus, I counted eighty-three A and B cast female roles without including the roles of preteen, teenage, and young adult daughters and found that forty-eight of them, that is 57.8 percent, were fictional mothers. The percentage may seem low, but one should take into consideration that it also includes secondary female characters about whom the viewer has no information in regard to their parenting status. For instance, Beverly (Beth Grant) in The Mindy Project, and Marjorie (Mimy Kennedy) in Mom are two regular series characters past their childbearing years but the viewer never learns if they have children. The percentage might increase if we had more information on the B cast; suffice it to say that the overwhelming majority of leading female characters are or become mothers in the course of the series’ development. The above points to an undoing of feminism in a twenty-first-century popular culture McRobbie (2009, 11) characterizes as a postfeminist era where the “feminist gains of the 1970s and 1980s are actively and relentlessly undermined.” McRobbie (2009) argues that “through an array of machinations, elements of contemporary popular culture are perniciously effective in regard to this undoing of feminism, while simultaneously appearing to be engaging in a well-informed and even well-intended response to feminism.” Arizona from Grey’s Anatomy, Robin from How I Met Your Mother, and Bernadette from The Big Bang Theory are represented as young, inde- pendent women, enjoying all the advantages that the second feminist wave fought for and gained; mainly, their right to choose their profession, the right to excel at it, and the right to be financially well-off in their own right. Yet, their professional success must come at a price. Despite vocalizing their desire for childlessness, the female characters discussed above either end up with a kid (Arizona, Bernadette) or become infertile (Robin). Female professional excellence seems to be accepted only if it is later accompanied by the creation of a traditional family, which is the last piece of the puzzle of what patriarchy regards as female “completion.” Even in the radical case of Cristina (again in Grey’s Anatomy), where the female character finally gets a life without children, she does so outside the fictional world of the show as the actress decided to leave the series, thus perhaps allowing the writers to let her live the life she chose. In contrast, the writers opt to have Cristina become an expatriate, relocating her to Switzerland, rather than having her fearlessly lead her childless life in the United States. This narrative choice diminishes Cristina’s childlessness, at the same time implying that America’s pronatalism is safe and sound. Writing about singledom and SATC, Ashley Nelson (2004, 84) remarks that, in 1869, single women were considered “diminished goods,” in the 1920s “vicious and destructive creatures,” and were even accused of “race suicide” by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. More than a hundred years later, feminism has clearly accom- plished a reversal in terms of how the modern patriarchal state—at least in its official discourse—views the single woman. Yet, “spinsterhood” still remains part of popular discourse mainly through media representations, and flourishing particularly in Kaklamanidou 13 celebrity culture, and pronatalism is evident on both fictional and social levels. Robin, Bernadette, Cristina, and Arizona are textbook examples of McRobbie’s double entanglement. They share professional ambition and achievement as well as excep- tional abilities in their chosen fields, afforded by a neoliberal postfeminist agenda. Yet, they are not afforded the choice of becoming mothers or not. Alison Horbury (2014) notes women may seem to have freedom and power contingent upon their compliance with other aspects of patriarchal rule, such as motherhood. Thus, heroines’ voluntary childlessness signifies a violation of patriarchy’s and neoliberalism’s directives. Yet, their nonconformity leads unfortunately to their punishment for “dis- obedience”; Robin is forever away on business at the end of How I Met Your Mother, and Cristina is “exiled” to Europe in Grey’s Anatomy. Bernadette is the only heroine who “survives” as a cast member on The Big Bang Theory, but only after she suc- cumbs to motherhood. If motherhood seems like the only narrative option for a female character in a popular television show that lasts for several seasons, this not only betrays lack of imagination by writers and a mundane narrative path but also a strong and well-rooted patriarchal obstacle and one that it is high time for industry personnel to tear down. Regrettably, neither cable nor Internet television presents more female childless characters or more progressive representations. Robin Wright’s Claire Underwood in House of Cards (Netflix, 2013–present) is the first childless heroine that appeared long after Cristina Yang explicitly stated she did not want to be a mother. Claire is the devoted wife of Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), the better half of an evil super power-couple that aims successfully at occupying the Oval Office. By the end of season 5, Claire is the first female president of the United States, and a childless one. The couple has discussed how they never wanted babies, who would interfere with their plan for power. In a memorable scene during the presidential race in season 4, the wife of Frank’s opponent asks Claire, the First Lady, if she ever regretted not having children. Claire, always composed and detached, looks at her directly and without hesitation replies, “Do you ever regret having them?” Her calm and unex- pected retort may be liberating to childless viewers but it is uttered by a female character who possesses no positive qualities except for her unconditional love for her husband—which comes to be questioned by the end of season 5. Thus, Claire’s childlessness cannot be seen as a positive representation as it is the trait of a thor- oughly malevolent character. In fact, it may even be argued that Claire’s choice not to have children adds to her abject female identity as patriarchy dictates that motherhood is a natural instinct. Another, more upbeat paradigm of childlessness is found In Grace and Frankie (Netflix, 2015–present), where Brianna (June Diane Raphael), a member of the B cast, enjoys her life as a successful career woman without a per- manent sexual partner and no kids. Nevertheless, because her character is not central, the issue of childlessness is not dealt with, at least until the end of the third season, in depth. Cable and Internet television are usually associated with “quality” narratives that negotiate issues such as sexuality, violence, morality, and gender in graphic and authentic terms. Yet childlessness has not emerged as a theme while motherhood remains a dominant narrative feature. 14 Television & New Media 00(0)

Carroll (2012b) opines that “American culture can’t accept the reality of a woman who does not want to be a mother. It goes against everything we’ve been taught to think about women and how desperately they want babies,” while Jessica Valenti (2012) echoes the sentiment by writing that “If we’re to believe the media and pop culture, women—even teen girls—are forever desperate for a baby.” The angst about the decrease of the U.S. population, followed by related concerns in other western, developed coun- tries, leads to “anxieties about power: national, military and economic, as well as sexual” (Michael S. Teitelbaum and Jay M. Winter 2014). One of the most acclaimed dramas of 2017, The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu, 2017–present), based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel, masterfully explores these concerns in a nightmarish future universe where women have lost all civil and human rights and are blamed for the infertility that plagues their world. At the same time, those few who can still have children become “enslaved breeders” (Weigel 2017). Although, as Weigel (2017) observes, the show was conceived before Donald Trump was even nominated for president, it was finally streamed in an era that witnessed “men in power who speak the language of overt misog- yny, . . . use religious concerns to justify restrictions on the lives of women,” and “. . . take an increasingly avid interest in controlling reproductive rights.” In this bleak sociocultural context, voluntary childlessness remains an aberration in both real life and television fiction. However, people can be educated and come to understand that motherhood and childlessness are two equally acceptable decisions for contemporary women. Popular media narratives play an important role in shaping our views and should incorporate stories about the rich life a childless woman can have without resorting as a matter of course to the fall-in-love/marriage/have kids scenario. At the same time, serious discussion is needed at a political level to distinguish the reasons behind the stigmatization of female childlessness and also to plan for a solid social struc- ture that will incorporate the voluntarily childless, rather than marginalize them.

Appendix

Table A1. Scripted Drama Shows on Network Television (2011–2016).

Desperate Housewives (ABC, 2004–2012) Glee (Fox, 2009–2015) Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 2005–present) House M.D. (Fox, 2004–2012) How to Get Away with Murder (ABC, 2014–present) Madam Secretary (CBS, 2014–present) Mistresses (ABC, 2013–2016) Parenthood (NBC, 2010–2015) Private Practice (ABC, 2007–2013) Scandal (ABC, 2012–present) Smash (NBC, 2012–2013) The Good Wife (CBS, 2009–2016) This Is Us (NBC, 2016–present) Ugly Betty (ABC, 2006–2010) Kaklamanidou 15

Table A2. Sitcoms on Network Television (2011–2016).

$#*! My Dad Says (CBS, 2010–2011) 2 Broke Girls (CBS 2011–present) 30 Rock (NBC, 2006–2013) A Man with a Plan (CBS, 2016–present) About a Boy (NBC, 2014–2015) American Housewife (ABC, 2016–present) Bad Judge (NBC, 2014–2015) Black-ish (ABC, 2014–present) Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox, 2013–present) Cougar Town (ABC, 2009–2012, TBS, 2013–2015) Cristela (ABC, 2014–2015) Don’t Trust the B—— in Apartment 23 (ABC, 2012–2013) Grandfathered (Fox, 2015–2016) Growing Up Fisher (NBC, 2013–2014) Happy Endings (ABC, 2011–2013) How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 2005–2014) Jane the Virgin (The CW, 2014–present) Kevin Can Wait (CBS, 2016–present) Life in Pieces (CBS, 2015–present) Mike & Molly (CBS, 2010–2016) Modern Family (ABC, 2009–present) Mom (CBS, 2013–present) New Girl (Fox, 2011–present) Outsourced (NBC, 2010–2011) Parks & Recreation (NBC, 2009–2015) Raising Hope (Fox, 2010–2014) Rules of Engagement (CBS, 2007–2013) Sean Saves the World (NBC, 2013–2014) Speechless (ABC, 2016–present) The Big Bang Theory (CBS, 2007–present) The Goldbergs (NBC, 2013–present) The Good Place (NBC, 2016–present) The Grinder (Fox, 2015–2016) The Michael J. Fox Show (NBC, 2013–2014) The Middle (ABC, 2009–present) The Millers (CBS, 2013–2015) The Mindy Project (Fox, 2012–2015, Hulu, 2015–present) The Odd Couple (CBS, 2015–present) The Real O’Neals (ABC, 2016–present) Two and a Half Men (CBS, 2003–2015) Up All Night (NBC, 2011–2012) Whitney (NBC 2011–2013) 16 Television & New Media 00(0)

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes 1. See Chelsea Mize’s (2015) article on the history of same-sex marriage on network television. 2. One could also make the case that Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is a childless heroine in Scandal (ABC, 2009–present). However, other than the representation of her abortion in the winter finale of season 5 (2015), Olivia has not actually voiced her desire to remain childless explicitly. Her abortion can be read as an empowered act in that Olivia is in control of her own body but her decision to end her pregnancy does not a priori foreshadow a childless life. 3. For more on the evolution of National Organization for Non-Parents (NON) and its influence on reproductive choices in American society, see Jenna Healey (2016). 4. A clarification about the terms “childless” and “childfree” is useful here. Most individuals that opt not to have children prefer the second term as it best underlines that not having children is their own choice. As Kelly (2009, 159) notes, however, “childfree” may suggest “a denigration of the choice to mother,” while “[T]here is no term that suggests that both mothering and choosing not to mother are equally acceptable options.” Indeed, while the suffix “-less” in “childless” designates a lack that people who do not wish to have children do not necessarily feel, the suffix “-free,” also insinuates that freedom is a kind of “enhancement” that accompanies the decision not to have children. I find both terms problematic and like Kelly, I choose to use the term “childless” in this article not only to follow the relevant literature but also because I find the suffix “-less” of a lower polemical nature and more of a neutral character than childfree. 5. The two tables with the titles of the shows and their years of broadcast can be found in the article’s appendix. 6. See Rhimes’s interview with Willa Paskin (2011). 7. “Having it all” is a postfeminist myth about women achieving success in both public and private spheres. As Taylor (2012, 17) also claims, it “is a highly gendered discourse . . . as the negotiations it invokes are seen to be solely the province of women.”

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Author Biography Betty-Despoina Kaklamanidou is a Fulbright scholar and an assistant professor in Film and Television History and Theory at Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece. She is the author of The “Disguised” Political Film in Contemporary Hollywood: A Genre’s Construction (2016), Genre, Gender and the Effects of Neoliberalism: The New Millennium Hollywood Rom Com (2013), and two books in Greek on adaptation theory and the history of the Hollywood rom com. She is also the coeditor of Politics and Politicians in Contemporary U.S. Television (2016), The Millennials on Film and Television (2014), HBO’s “Girls” (2014), and The 21st Century Superhero (2010). Her articles have appeared in Literature/Film Quarterly, Celebrity Studies, and The Journal of Popular Romance Studies.