WHO’S AFRAID OF UNMARRIED MOTHERS?

GENDERED DISINFORMATION HAS PLAGUED THE DEBATE ABOUT KOSOVO’S IVF DRAFT LAW.

In a TV debate in February 2024, Ferid Agani, Kosovo’s former health minister, declared that “A woman without a partner is mentally unstable.” Agani said this in reference to unmarried women who have a child through in vitro fertilization (IVF) with an unknown donor, as the Draft Law on Reproductive Health and Medically Assisted Conception currently proposes to allow. Agani, as a former minister, doesn’t hold political power, but his words reflect the broader toxic debate. 

The draft law in question, which derives from the Administrative Instruction No. 06/2023 on Medically Assisted Conception, has repeatedly not been approved by the Kosovo Assembly over several rounds of voting, mainly due to opposition by assembly members in the ruling Vetëvendosje (VV) party. If passed, it would allow couples who cannot afford assisted fertility in private hospitals to receive IVF in public health institutions. Single women being able to receive IVF in public healthcare facilities would be an important step toward further securing women’s reproductive rights and women’s bodily autonomy. To this point, IVF has only been available in private hospitals, at high cost. 

SINGLE WOMEN BEING ABLE TO RECEIVE IVF WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT STEP TOWARD FURTHER SECURING WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND WOMEN’S BODILY AUTONOMY.

The extensive debate about IVF in the assembly and on television centered on the supposed harm it brings to our society. The main source of grievance is article 15 of the draft law, which gives single women over the age of 18 access to IVF, allowing women to independently start and build families. 

Several socially conservative MPs voiced concerns that the new draft law would allow unmarried women to become mothers through medically assisted conception. This, they argue, violates the institutions of marriage and family, but this argument is misguided because it rests on a conservative and outdated notion of what a family is. 

The blatant misogyny of comments such as Agani’s corresponds with prevalent and traditional heteronormative thinking and living. Unless a woman fulfills the image of a sacrificial mother, is at the service of her husband and his family and helps further the bloodline, she is perceived as unnatural and alienated from other women. 

Unmarried and alienated

Such misogyny — calling a single woman insane — has long been heard and fought against. This context led filmmaker Irina Dunn to coin the famous catchphrase “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” This slogan was also later popularized by feminist activist and writer Gloria Steinem.

Unmarried women have historically been stigmatized by patriarchal families, seen as burdens or as pitiful creatures who didn’t live life to its fullest. Narratives like this reduce women’s worth to their marital status and draw upon traditional constructions of femininity. They use hyperbolic language and stereotypes to convey inaccurate and misleading claims aiming at polarizing public opinion. This is gendered disinformation, a form of gender-based violence and violence against women in particular that uses sexist and misogynistic narratives to maintain the patriarchal heteronormative status quo.

UNMARRIED WOMEN HAVE HISTORICALLY BEEN STIGMATIZED BY PATRIARCHAL FAMILIES, SEEN AS BURDENS OR AS PITIFUL CREATURES WHO DIDN’T LIVE LIFE TO ITS FULLEST.

One such narrative, fear-mongering about women’s rights to single motherhood through IVF, has been consistently reinforced by various MPs. These include Visar Korenica, Eman Rrahmani and Labinotë Murtezi-Demi from Vetëvendosje (VV), Albena Reshitaj from the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) and Duda Balje, the chairperson of the Parliamentary Commission for Human Rights. Such voices have pushed sensationalist narratives about the destruction of traditional institutions of marriage and family, pregnancy without a father, a child without a father, a woman without a partner being insane, IVF through an unknown donor causing incest or compromising our national identity. 

(The fear of) an end to fatherhood

Another key gendered disinformation narrative reinforced in Kosovo’s public discourse is that single motherhood through IVF makes fathers irrelevant. Social and religious groups insist that a child needs both a father and a mother. Others insist that the nuclear family is the so-called natural family model. 

But the nuclear family has already reduced fathers to breadwinners and women to caregivers. It has tolerated and even enabled violent masculinity to flourish. A patriarchal family unit has produced a society where male violence is the norm, where violence against women is tradition and violence against children is discipline. 

And who is in charge of maintaining the order and traditions within the nuclear family? Women, particularly mothers. More precisely, obedient ones, who have to perform their roles with a big smile on their faces and admit to the world that being a mother is the biggest honor and accomplishment of their lives. 

Mothers are overloaded with unpaid care work, are often victims of domestic violence, largely unemployed and financially dependent, economically abused, even raped by their own husbands. But such lives, regardless of the brutal hardships, are deemed acceptable because a married woman’s marital status is considered a validation for her as a human being. Rarely have we heard from MPs that such violations of women’s bodies and their lives are detrimental to the institution of marriage or the traditional family.

Whether they provide financially or not, fathers in Kosovo generally seem happy with their biological contribution. Parental responsibility is typically not equally divided among married couples. The people who help mothers take care of their children are usually other women: their own mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters, aunts and so forth. We still don’t collectively demand qualitative contribution of men in family life, in equal partnership and more humane marital roles, as well as in the upbringing of children.

WHETHER THEY PROVIDE FINANCIALLY OR NOT, FATHERS IN KOSOVO GENERALLY SEEM HAPPY WITH THEIR BIOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTION.

Therefore, the polarization in Kosovo’s public discourse regarding reproductive rights and the accompanying health policies is about the autonomy that patriarchal societies and institutions despise so much in women — autonomy over their bodies, their lives and their definition of family. This autonomy gives women the vision, space and opportunity to lead their lives by their own informed choices. 

Single and autonomous

All women are different, as are their motivations for motherhood. We might attribute it to the fiery desire and the fierce determination to act on hereditary maternal instincts that we may not even fully understand. It could be the need to fulfill one’s vision of womanhood or to respond to the internalized societal expectations for women’s gender roles. It could also simply be the joy of having a person who you will love fully and who will love you back. 

Regardless of one’s motivation or decision to become a mother, it is important to acknowledge that going through IVF is physically and emotionally demanding. A woman who chooses this form of motherhood is already aware of the difficult path of parenthood and the commitment needed to dedicate her life to taking care of another human being. 

IT IS THUS IMPORTANT THAT WE START DEMANDING HEALTHY MALE MODELS IN OUR HOMES AND IN OUR COMMUNITIES INSTEAD OF INSISTING ON BIOLOGICAL FATHERS’ SIGNIFICANCE.

A mark of political and social progress will be when people show less conflicting attitudes toward the image of a single mother who raises her child on her own by choice. It will come when people accept the fact that in some households, there may simply be no father or husband and when people know that this also constitutes a real family. It is thus important that we start demanding healthy male models in our homes and in our communities instead of insisting on biological fathers’ significance.  

A single woman who chooses this path to motherhood will need the same services and resources to take care of herself and her child. Safe maternal care, breastfeeding support, and antenatal care apply the same to all women, regardless of their pregnancy background or marital status. Thus, the only thing that parliamentarians should panic about is whether women are being provided with high quality health care services.

Instead of contributing to disinformation and fearmongering, those holding public office should handle debates on sensitive issues with care. Details should be carefully discussed and clarified in respective parliamentary commissions, focus groups and other official meetings with key stakeholders, where civil society activists, particularly feminists, are an integral part of working groups.

Kosovo’s public is owed filtered and responsible information, but the information that it does receive breaks down trust, confuses people and diverts attention away from systemic solutions to problems that affect women, children and families. Holders of public office must communicate in ways that provide constructive education about responsible parenthood policies, family planning and that systemically uphold the rights of women, children and all humans.

Author: Shqipe Gjocaj

Feature Image: Majlinda Hoxha / K2.0

This article was originally produced for and published by Kosovo 2.0. It has been re-published here with permission.