I have begun noticing a trope in the television shows and films that I have been watching. At first, it did not stand out to me, but as it started appearing in many of the show after show and movie after movie, it began to eat away at me. Though the trope itself is as old as Hollywood, now, more than ever, it is becoming popular to make one of the women in a television show or film infertile.
It's not the trope itself that bothers me. Infertility is a major issue that many men and women face and it is one that should definitely be represented within popular culture. My issue is with how the women facing this are represented.
One recent example of this is in the season seven opener of "Doctor Who." The characters of Amy and Rory, who had married in the season five finale, are in the midst of getting a divorce. Why? We as the audience are not entirely sure. Reasons are not really given until the middle of the episode when the truth comes out in an argument. Amy tells Rory that, due to events that transpired during season six, she is now infertile and that she is "giving him up" because she knew that he wanted kids. Rory tells Amy that he will love her no matter what and they get back together.
However, there are many other examples in recent popular culture where we can see this trope. "How I Met Your Mother" is an extremely notable example. Season seven's episode "Symphony of Illumination" reveals that the character Robin Scherbatsky is incapable of having children. The episode handles Robin processing this news in a thoughtful and emotional way that takes nothing away from her as a person. It is everything that comes after relating to this that ruins it. Throughout the series, we see the relationship with Robin and Barney, the perpetual playboy, develop and culminate in their marriage. However, in the hotly-debated finale, the couple chooses to divorce after Robin becomes incredibly successful in her career. Some time later, Barney becomes a father after a one night stand. Barney is seen as finding fulfillment in what Robin could never give to him.
The most recent example of this comes from "Avengers: Age of Ultron." We learn in a conversation between Natasha Romanova (Black Widow) and Bruce Banner (The Hulk) that, due to her training to be an assassin, she is now infertile. She refers to herself as a monster saying, "They sterilized me, said it was one less thing to worry about. You think you're the only monster in the room?" Compare this to Black Widow's conversation with Loki in "The Avengers" and the entirety of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," where she discusses the "red on her ledger" and how she is attempting to redeem herself from her past. We see a flip from focusing on her actions and the subsequent consequences to a never before seen focus on her physical body.
In each of these examples, and in many other parts of popular culture, infertility is used as a plot device and as a way to undermine a woman whose focus is not on having a family. Infertility is a way of making a seemingly perfect woman emotionally damaged without taking her through a physical trial. It advances a plot and a storyline without actually building one. A show-runner can slide in major emotional damage into a 30 second conversation or a two episode arc without dealing with the outside consequences. Instead of devoting actual storyline to something that many women would find genuinely traumatic to experience, the majority of pop culture uses it as an episode filler or as a punishment for women who have never experienced a want of children previously.
Why can we not show women in real situations in a way that does not undermine their goals, dreams, or personhood? Why do these stories end with the women needing male validation as its resolution for an issue that is so intensely personal?
Every woman that faces infertility will deal with it differently. Some will worry about whether someone will still want to start a family with them. Some will just need a long time to process the information alone. Some will be minimally bothered by the news. Unfortunately, we are not seeing different reactions from these female characters. We get the same story each time and it is insulting to the real women who deal with infertility and the characters that portray it.
Until content creators can learn how to properly write this storyline, we will have yet another gaping hole in how we portray women in media.
