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Free talk for International Women’s Day (8 March) “Introducing the Nomos”

March 6, 2012 Jody Day 6

Introducing the #Nomos (the not-mothers) Talk + Q&A with Gateway Women Founder, Jody Day Thursday 8th March 2012: 17:00-17:45 HubWestminster, 80 Haymarket, London, SW1Y 4TE Places are free but numbers are limited. For reservations please click here. SPINSTER  OLD MAID  SELFISH  WEIRDO 1 in 5 women are now reaching the menopause without having children – the largest cohort of childless women in the UK since the ‘man drought’ following World War I. Yet our culture’s idea of what these women ‘are for’ is similarly stuck in the past…   Whether a woman has chosen to be ‘childfree’ or finds herself […]

[Watch now] Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen on ‘Renewal’: Solstice 2022: Wed 21 December

October 26, 2022 Jody Day 1

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice on/around 21 December is the shortest night of the year and is celebrated as such by our ancestors. They knew it presaged the return of longer days and shorter nights, the return of the ‘Sun/Son’. It was a festival of rebirth and renewal at the promise of another year of warmth and food to come.  This conversatation was recorded live on 21 December 2022 and you can watch it here now. You can watch past sessions here and sign up to Jody’s mailing list for future sessions here. Filmed on Wednesday 21 December […]

[Audio + Transcript] The Menstruality Podcast – Episode 54: Finding Hope and Meaning When You’re Childless-not-by-choice with Jody Day [15 September 2022]

September 22, 2022 Jody Day 0

The Menstruality Podcast – Episode 54: Finding Hope and Meaning When You’re Childless-not-by-choice (Jody Day) 15 September 2022. Sophie Jane Hardy from RedSchool.net interviews Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women. Click here to listen to episode or search ‘Menstruality’ wherever you get your podcasts. Full written transcript below.   ABSTRACT Jody’s personal journey through grief, denial, hopelessness to real acceptance of her life as a childless woman. The creation of Gateway Women and Jody’s mission to make the world understand childless women, and help women who are childless-not-by-choice to understand themselves. The ‘bingos’ that childless women hear all the time. Preparing yourself to answer […]

[Watch/Read now] Jody’s new TED talk, ‘Social Plankton: Why Single Non-Mothers Are The Fuel of The Future’

April 9, 2022 Jody Day 5

This talk is currently only available to watch on Facebook here whilst it is being uploaded to TED.com You do not need to have a Facebook account to watch. The talk is 13 mins long, followed by a 45min Q&A. My new TED talk with TEDxGateway is now live and available to watch. I wrote it to explore the negative bias against single non-mothers (both childless and childfree). Covering a broad sweep across depth psychology, fairy tales, modern media stereotypes and individual lived experiences, it will encourage you to open your eyes, your heart, your organizations and your communities to […]

‘It’s International Women’s Day, not International Mother’s Day’. Jody Day interviewed on New Legacy Radio [March 2022]

March 16, 2022 Jody Day 0

‘It’s International Woman’s Day, not International Mother’s Day.’ Jody Day was interviewed by Christine J. Erickson, founder of the New Legacy Institute on 8th March 2022. Listen here or search ‘New Legacy Radio’ wherever you get your pods and scroll to March 2022. And do connect/follows the New Legacy Institute on Twitter @NLInstitute and Instagram @newlegacyinstitute Click here to listen. Written transcript below.   Intro:  Welcome to New Legacy Radio with Christine Erickson. Are you someone who doesn’t have children by circumstance, choice or chance? This show is for our collective community. Are you someone who influences policy, DEI initiatives or  […]

Watch the #NomoCrones as we discuss ‘Childless vs. Childfree: Does Age Soften this Distinction?’ [Recording now available]

February 24, 2022 Jody Day 1

Watch our March 2022 Equinox Session of Fireside Wisdom:‘Childless vs. Childfree: A false binary that ageing without children subverts?’ Recorded live on Sunday 20th March 2022 Join some of our regular #NomoCrone childless panel, plus some very special childfree elderwomen guests to discuss the ways that ageing without children impacts our identity and lived experience of non-parenthood. We’ll also discuss the difference between being a childless vs. childfree stepmother/stepgrandmother; whether childless/childfree are helpful terms or whether we need to think of it more as a spectrum; about what can be challenging in opening dialogue between childless/free women and SO MUCH […]

Jody Day interviewed by Sally Garozzo for ‘The Menopause Mindset’ podcast [Dec 2021]: being childless at Christmas; dismantling negative stereotypes; fetishization of motherhood and the childless menopause!

December 16, 2021 Jody Day 0

In this episode of Sally Garozzo’s podcast ‘The Menopause Mindset’, Jody Day covers:  Being childless at Christmas Childlessness and childfree as a spectrum Disenfranchised grief The healing power of grief Having a language to describe your experience Unconscious bias towards parenting (pronatalism) Dismantling the stereotypes of childlessness women (Cruella De Vil) Yearning for motherhood as a last-ditch attempt to feel normal Reclaiming the childless life (or not) The fetishization of motherhood The cultural fear of childless women (the deviant) Ageing without children To listen, go to: sallygarozzo.com/podcast and click on ‘Episode 84’ or search ‘The Menopause Mindset’ wherever you get […]

‘The Childless Menopause’, still the missing story on #WorldMenopauseDay #IncludeMyMenopause

October 18, 2021 Jody Day 0

Back in 2014 I wrote a blog called ‘The Childless Menopause’ here on the Gateway Women website that got a LOT of comments. It seems that I’d hit a nerve in being open (who me?!) about something many of us were experiencing (or would experience in the future) and yet which nobody was talking about – what it’s like for those of us who are childless to make sense of our menopause when all of the available literature, support and messaging seemed to presume that everyone experiencing menopause was also a mother (and a white, middle-class, well-resourced, heterosexual and partnered […]

Jody Day interviewed by Dr Karin on her ‘Love and Life’ Podcast: ‘When You’re Not a Mother, But Wanted to Be’ [Audio & Full Transcript]

September 16, 2021 Jody Day 1

[September 2021] Jody Day, the founder of Gateway Women is here interviewed by Dr. Karin Anderson Abrell for her ‘Love & Life’ Podcast. Karin is the author of ‘Single is the New Black: Don’t Wear White ‘Till It’s Right‘ and her work mainly focuses on the experience of women who are single not by choice. Karin herself is a childless stepmother. In this conversation, as well as discussing World Childless Week 2021, we explore how one of the unintended consequences of second-wave feminism has been an increase in circumstantial childlessness and my frustration that involuntary childlessness is a topic absent […]

World Childless Week 2021: Free Fireside Wisdom Webinar with the #NomoCrones: ‘Leaving a Legacy’. [Recording now available]

August 18, 2021 Jody Day 0

RECORED ON WEDNESDAY 15TH SEPTEMBER 2021, 8PM UK TIME: CLICK HERE TO HEAR ABOUT FUTURE SESSIONS! Since we first came together for World Childless Week in 2021, the #NomoCrones (nomo = not-mother and crone is not an insult!) have been meeting each solstice and equinox for a series of informal online zoom gatherings called ‘Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen‘. And we got the band back together again, with an even BIGGER lineup of  amazing childless elderwomen World Childless Week 2021 to discuss the often tricky issue of ‘Leaving a Legacy’ as a childless person, as part of a whole day […]

If you’ve ever wanted to have a productive conversation about childlessness with your friend, colleague or HR Director and found it too hard, listen to this brilliant interview by Doryn Wallach @It’s Not a Crisis Podcast – and maybe even share it with them? This is bridge-building in action.

July 26, 2021 Jody Day 4

You can listen to the clips above by clicking on them and find the full interview here or by searching ‘It’s Not a Crisis podcast’ wherever you get your podcasts. The full transcript is below. In this interview with Doryn Wallach, who is a mother in her 40s (as are most of her audience) we talk about the challenges of being childless in a world full of parents, how pronatalism operates, about how the whole ‘As a Mother’ thing works against childless/free women, about the difference between childless & childfree, about the complexity of childlessness after abortion, about what NOT […]

The next time someone suggests to you, ‘Why not have a baby on your own?’, like it’s an easy option, ask them to read ‘The Mother of All Dilemmas’ by Kathleen Guthrie Woods

July 23, 2021 Jody Day 6

When you’re a single and childless-by-circumstance woman approaching the event horizon of your fertility, still hopeful that somehow partnership and children might happen for you, one of the most common pieces of ‘helpful advice’ (and I use those quotes advisedly!) you might hear is, ‘Why don’t you just have one on your own?!’ It can also be phrased in the past tense, once you’re a little older, accompanied by that pitying head-tilt… These enquires are usually delivered as if this were (a) something that hadn’t ever occurred to you and (b) slam-dunk easy. When Guthrie Woods found herself in exactly […]

About normalizing how hard it can be for parents and non-parents to have the ‘hard conversations’; the deep unconscious roots of society’s discomfort with childless women; the gifts of grief and what envy can teach us… Jody interviewed on the Sara Avant Stover podcast, June 2021

June 21, 2021 Jody Day 6

You can listen to the full interview by following the links here, or search ‘Sara Avant Stover’ wherever you get your podcasts. The full transcript is below. In this interview with author, yogi and feminine spirituality teacher, Sara Avant Stover, we go deep into the experience of involuntary childlessness – both my story and, at a much deeper level, the archetypal ‘stories’ that attach to childless women and perhaps lead to much of some people’s evident (and mostly unconscious) discomfort with us. I also talk about what it will take for us to begin to ‘normalize’ that having honest conversations […]

Guest post by Andy Harrod for Father’s Day 2021: ‘Free floating: Who am I if I’m not a Dad?’

June 20, 2021 Jody Day 1

Who am I if I’m not a Dad? This is a question that has and still does haunt me. Of late the hauntings have lessened, but a recent loss has raised again the question of meaning and purpose. Who am I and what kind of life am I trying to live on a rock hurtling around a ball of hot gases? I once read existentialism as there is nothing so I can be anything. I am well aware of the structural and societal inequalities, it was more about the limits I put on myself through the messages I had taken […]

Free Gateway Women Masterclass Webinar: ‘Owning Your Single and Childless Identity’ (Recording now available)

February 2, 2021 Jody Day 7

Hosted by Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women and author of Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Life Without Children (Bluebird/PanMac) with special guests Rachael Lloyd of eharmony UK and Melanie Notkin, founder of SavvyAuntie.com Click here to sign up to our list to hear about future free Gateway Women Masterclass Webinars. Sometimes being a single and childless woman can feel like a double-whammy in a society that privileges the rights of couples and mothers over the millions of wonderful women who are neither. And never has that felt more obvious than in this […]

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