Joy Taylor is challenging what she calls the oversimplified societal narrative around pregnancy and motherhood, saying women do not owe it to society to have children and wishing men could experience pregnancy firsthand.
Taylor, host of the podcast “Two Personal With Joy Taylor,” addressed the issue in a recent episode, taking aim at broad cultural conversations around abortion, maternal mortality, birth rates, and the so-called “trad wife” movement.
“Everything is just broad strokes as if it is just this thing that everyone can do and everyone should just embrace,” Taylor said. “And it’s easy, and you figure it out, and you owe it to society to make children get the f— out of here.”
Taylor, who says she has never been pregnant, argued that observing others go through pregnancy and childbirth has given her a clear-eyed view of how demanding the experience can be.
“I have been around children my entire life,” she said. “I know how hard it is to do that because I have eyeballs, because I have the ability to see someone else experience something and be able to apply what that experience would be for my life.”
Her most pointed remarks came when she expressed her wish that men could become pregnant, arguing it would transform both the political debate around reproductive rights and the state of medical research on childbirth.
“If men could get pregnant, you could get an abortion at a drive-thru,” Taylor said. “The advancements that would have been done in the medical field to make childbirth as seamless, as safe, as comfortable as the recovery, all of it as perfect as possible, would be light years beyond where we are right now.”
Taylor said she views developing the capacity for male pregnancy as a genuine societal solution, calling on women in science to pursue the idea.
She also emphasized that even the most careful pregnancy carries no guarantees of a safe outcome.
“You can eat perfect. You can eat all the fruits. You can not have sushi,” she said. “You can do everything perfect and it can still go wrong. There’s so much to it.”
Taylor called for more honest, substantive public discourse around motherhood and pregnancy, comparing the need to similar conversations she believes society should be having about money, marriage, divorce, menopause, and aging.
“We need to have real conversations about motherhood and pregnancy and stop stroking it with this patriarchal trad wife bulls— that it’s just this thing you’re supposed to do,” she said.
She also expressed concern for women whose experiences fall outside the mainstream narrative, those who are unable to conceive, those who have suffered pregnancy loss, and those whose bodies have been severely impacted by childbirth.
“Stop broad-stroking what an elaborate, scary experience where you’re putting your life and body on the line to bring a child into this world is,” Taylor said.
