Pronatalism Archives - Gateway Women

[REGISTER NOW] ‘Celebrating OUR Light!’ on Saturday 13th December with the NomoCrones!

November 30, 2025 Jody Day 0

FREE, LIVE & RECORDED: Click here to register Join Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women & Gateway Elderwomen and her #NomoCrones for a bumper edition of Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen as we ‘Celebrate our Light!’ With Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah, Diwali, Kwanzaa, and other December festivals of light occupying social and cultural space at this time of year, it can often lead to those of us without children, and many without partners too, feeling left out. This year, maybe it’s time to celebrate OUR light? The light of our essential worthiness as women, as human beings. The light of our […]

[WATCH NOW] World Childless Week webinar: ‘Childless, Old & Worthy!’ with the NomoCrones

September 20, 2025 Jody Day 0

A FREE WEBINAR HOSTED FOR WORLD CHILDLESS WEEK 2025. Watch all the webinars for WCW25 here. Sign up for the WCW newsletter here Sign up for Decemeber’s session – Celebrating Our Light In the English language, the only term of respect for a woman over sixty is ‘grandmother’ – all the other descriptions are insults. So it seems that, as we age as childless women, added to the already challenging judgements of pronatalism and sexism, comes ageism. However, beliefs are not like the laws of gravity; we don’t have to obey them. And learning to identify and push back against […]

[WATCH NOW] Gateway Women Masterclass: ‘Single, Childless, Feminist: a discussion of Fabiana Formica’s book ‘Childless’ with Y.L. Wolfe & Fabiana Formica

July 13, 2025 Jody Day 0

‘Childless’ is self-published via Amazon and is available as a hardback, paperback and Kindle in most countries, including: USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Italy (in English). I was honoured to be able to review the book ahead of publication and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since, hence bringing together the author, Fabiana Formica and Y.L. Wolfe, one of the finest thinkers and writers about the single, childless experience I know, for what was indeed a fascinating and meaningful discussion. For too long, the feminist aspects of the single-not-by-choice and childless-not-by-choice have been neglected in mainstream discourse, with […]

[WATCH NOW] ‘Life After Menopause. Yes, it exists!’ – Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen, Sat 28 June 2025

June 1, 2025 Jody Day 0

For the last few years, menopause has been having a moment. Thank goodness. A flush of books, TV programs, magazine articles and podcasts, as well as governmental and organisational initiatives, are making secrecy around the ‘M Word’ a thing of the past. However, surprise, surprise, the menopause narrative tends to ignore the experience of women without children, with the notable exceptions of: Hagitude by Dr Sharon Blackie; Still Hot! by Kaye Adams & Vicky Allen, and Cracking The Menopause by Mariella Frostrup & Alice Smellie—all books that include interviews (or snippets) from me. I’ve also discussed it on podcasts such as The Hagitute Sessions and the Red School’s Menstruality Podcast. […]

[WATCH NOW] Gateway Women Masterclass: Navigating Mother’s Day as a Childless Woman, with Katy Seppi and Jody Day

April 28, 2025 Jody Day 0

RECORDED LIVE ON 10 MAY 2025 Katy Seppi and Jody Day talk Mother’s Day and More Mother’s Day takes place in May for most of the world, earlier in the year for the UK & Ireland. But whenever it lands for you, it’s rarely inconsequential for those of us who are childless not by choice. The day can be tricky for many intertwined reasons on top of our own thwarted motherhood, including mourning our own mothers and/or managing our challenging relationships with them; insensitive family members, colleagues and the wider culture; the exaggerated visibility of our difference on Mother’s Day […]

[WATCH NOW] GATEWAY WOMEN MASTERCLASS WEBINAR: AN AUTHOR INTERVIEW AND BOOK GIVEAWAY WITH LANA MANIKOWSKI

March 30, 2025 Jody Day 0

In this conversation, recorded on 12 April 2025, Jody Day, the founder of Gateway Women, speaks with Lana Manikowski, life coach and author of So Now What? Create a Life Your Love Without the Children You Always Dreamed Of, published in the US by LM Publishing on April 2nd, 2025, and which debuted at #1 in the ‘New Releases’ section of ‘Fertility & Infertility’ on Amazon.com. Lana shared with us all the various elements that inspired the cover design, did a short reading from her book, and we then discussed some of the questions sent in by the audience, including: […]

[WATCH NOW] ‘FRIENDSHIPS ACROSS LIFE’, A WORLD CHILDLESS WEEK SESSION OF FIRESIDE WISDOM WITH CHILDLESS ELDERWOMEN

August 26, 2024 Jody Day 0

Recorded live on Thursday 19th September for World Childless Week 2024 Issues with female friendships (particularly with those who become mothers when we do not) are such a common part of the childless experience that I termed it ‘the friendship apocalypse’ of childlessness. And although I wouldn’t wish this painful experience on anyone else, it did come as a huge relief to me when I discovered that it’s something many of us can identify with – I thought I just must be a rubbish friend! The friendship issues that get stirred up can take us into deep waters that can […]

[WATCH NOW] Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen on ‘Courageous Conversations’ (Recorded 19 June 2024)

June 3, 2024 Jody Day 0

For the June 2024 Solstice, Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women brought together a panel of #NomoCrones (nomo=not-mother + crone is not an insult!) to explore the topic of ‘Courageous Conversations’. As all women grow up (and exist within) a patriarchal culture that valorizes female silence and compliance, this is no small task. Although some of us may have grown up in families and cultures that role-modelled and supported some freedom around speaking up for your needs, correcting misunderstandings and seeking to redress injustices, we are often encouraged by the overculture to become more compliant as move through puberty and […]

[WATCH NOW] Free Gateway Women Masterclass: ‘Navigating Friendships, Old and New’. (Recorded Feb 2024)

February 3, 2024 Jody Day 0

Childlessness can be experienced as a relational wound and can ask a lot of us and our friendships – Sometimes more than they can bear. As many of our friends move into parenting, coupling and families, we can find ourselves increasingly isolated and feeling like outsiders in family-centred relationships, social spaces and workplaces. Yet childless people have much to give as friends, and we deserve relationships with others who can be authentic, empathetic and available. In this free Gateway Women Masterclass, Sarah Roberts, Judy Graham and myself explored the different types, purpose and contexts of friendships in our lives, and […]

[WATCH NOW] Gateway Women Masterclass: ‘Reclaiming Your Childless Festive Season!’

October 27, 2023 Jody Day 0

To watch previous GW Masterclasses click here. To sign up to future free GW Masterclasses, click here. Christmas and the December holiday season can be some of the most challenging times of the year for those of us who are childless-not-by-choice. It can made even harder as our consumer society uses images and ideas of ‘togetherness’ and ‘happy families’ as relentless marketing tools to sell us a fantasy life that we are excluded from. From Halloween through to New Year’s Eve, there seem to be so many different days in the holiday calendar, whatever your faith (or not), and whether […]

[Watch now] ‘Challenging the Lazy Stereotypes of Childless Women in Fiction and Films’. A free World Childless Week webinar: Thursday 14 September 2023, 7pm BST

August 14, 2023 Jody Day 1

This special World Childless Week webinar, ‘Challenging the Lazy Stereotypes of Childless Women in Fiction and Film’ was filmed live on Thursday 14th September as part of the ‘Childless in the Media’ themed day of World Childless Week 2023. From fairy tales through to modern fiction, childless women are often portrayed as damaged, deranged and deviant. Whether it’s Snow White’s evil stepmother, the psychopathic puppy-killer Cruella de Vil, Glenn Close’s bunny boiler in ‘Fatal Attraction’ or the unreliable and half-cut narrator of ‘Girl on a Train’, we never seem to come out well! Unconsciously, it seems writers default to using women […]

WATCH NOW: Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen. What does it mean to be a ‘Radical Old Woman?’ [Recorded 21 June 2023]

June 22, 2023 Jody Day 0

Sign up to Jody’s mailing list for future sessions here. CAPTIONS ARE AUTO-GENERATED AND NOT ALWAYS ACCURATE! In this session of ‘Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen’, Jody Day (founder of Gateway Women) and her #NomoCrone panel (Nomo=not mother + crone is not an insult!) discuss what it means to each of us to be and become ‘Radical Old Women’. What does the word radical actually mean? Recorded on the June 2023 Solstice; a powerful fulcrum moment in the year, whether you are in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, this was a conversation by turns powerful, tender, shocking and surprising. Featuring: […]

[WATCH NOW] Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen on ‘Mothers & Daughters’

March 21, 2023 Jody Day 1

In this session of ‘Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen’, Jody Day (founder of Gateway Women) and her #NomoCrone panel (Nomo=not mother + crone is not an insult!) discuss the sometimes challenging topic of mothers & daughters – a tricky relationship for many of us, and with a unique flavour if you are childless not by choice. Recorded on the March 2023 Equinox; a time of turning away and turning towards, depending on which hemisphere you live in; and falling the day after Mother’s Day in the UK & Ireland, this felt like a poignant moment in the wheel of the […]

Encore Airing: ‘It’s International Women’s Day, not International Mother’s Day!’ – Jody Day on New Legacy Radio [Audio + Transcript]

March 8, 2023 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, and this episode, from the Pilot Series of New Legacy Radio, was re-aired on 7th March 2023. Click here to listen or read the transcript on the New Legacy Radio website. Or search ‘New Legacy Radio’ wherever you get your pods And do connect/follow the New Legacy Institute on Twitter @NLInstitute and Instagram @newlegacyinstitute or explore the New Legacy Institute website, where I am proud to be a volunteer Advisor.

[Audio + Transcript] ‘Why is Policy Engagement Essential for People Without Children?’

January 26, 2023 Jody Day 0

Why is Policy Engagement Essential for People Without Children? on New Legacy Radio, a Voice America Show. [Episode recorded 23 January 2023]. Featuring Christine J. Erickson, founder of New Legacy Insititute in conversation with New Legacy Institute Advisors: Jody Day (founder of Gateway Women and author of ‘Living the Life Unexpected’), Dr Robin Hadley (adademic researcher and the author of ‘How Is a Man Supposed to be a Man? Male Childlessness – a Life Course Disrupted’), Therese Shechter (founder of female-led production house Trixie Films and director of ‘My So Called Selfish Life’) and Nandita Bajaj (Lecturer on pronatalism at […]

1 2 3 4 »