Recently, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez revealed that she was freezing her eggs during the August recess. In fact, in a very AOC move, she documented the entire process on Instagram, and used her videos to speak directly to her followers about her decision, the experience of freezing eggs, and policies she believes could provide childbearing people with more options for planning their families. Predictably, MAGA mockery and backlash ensued. AOC was accused of using her fertility for a campaign stunt – and, still worse, tricking normie women into believing they could put career first and still have kids.
In this episode, we discuss the contours of these two backlashes and what they say, individually and together, about the right's view of fertility, pregnancy, and women's rights. We talk about the puritanical disgust for women's bodies – and pregnant bodies – evinced by the freakout over Hathaway's bump photos, and the reactionary belief that pregnant people are inappropriate for public view. We also get into the frequent conspiracy theories about celebrity women's baby bumps, and the underlying attitudes about what kind of woman can be a mother. And, of course, we dig into the far-right pronatalist outrage at women having children after 35 – at least, women who aren't tradwives and don't already have 10 children. Plus, we look at how the increasingly punitive and rigid pronatalist ideology being advanced by male conservatives is deepening a rift between men and women on the right.
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