In countries like Pakistan, a woman who cannot carry a pregnancy is failed twice — first by her body, and then by a culture that has no language for her loss. Miscarriages and infertility affect thousands of women, yet these experiences are rarely recognised as a loss for the woman herself. They are rather framed as a failure of the woman in giving what she is obliged to.
No one acknowledges the grief of the woman and how that loss affected her. The focus tends to be the loss as a failure of the woman, putting a question on her worth, leaving no room for her to process her grief but to navigate the situation, being in a place of shame, all while going through it. Even when they try to open up, they hear phrases like ‘but he never lived,’ dismissing the magnitude of their loss.
Silence as a Form of Social Control
The silence surrounding reproductive grief is not accidental. It is sustained by faulty cultural approaches that define womanhood through motherhood and treat reproductive failure as a defect rather than viewing it as a medical and emotional reality. Silence in this case operates as a form of social control as the grief not talked about starts to be viewed as something that is not as significant to be talked about.
Women are taught from childhood to tame down their emotional expression in order to be accepted. They are constantly fed the notion that they must not be too much and are expected to comply with the roles women are associated with. Patriarchy has resulted in such rigidity of this association that women themselves have it deeply ingrained in their mindset, as if they were the ones responsible for meeting the set criteria that are beyond their control.
Infertility as a Measure of Worth
Infertility becomes a measure of a woman’s worth as people start to view motherhood as the ultimate manifestation of womanhood, confusing motherhood’s absence as a flaw in the woman’s womanhood. Such an expectation raises a question on her worth as a woman, as if infertility were evidence of her inadequacy. The burden such expectations place on women within marriages and families ends up framing them in accordance with their reproductive capacities.
The Mental Health Crisis Nobody Acknowledges
All while holding the grief in, the grieving mother, who was willing to bear all the pain and excited to bring a new life into the world, ends up having to bear the questions; the shame associated with the failure; unsolicited advice; and the family pressure, while holding the grief in. This ends up affecting their mental health, developing anxiety, depression and guilt that comes with isolation due to the stigma associated with miscarriage and infertility, which are the costs they pay as a manifestation of such unspoken grief.
Way Forward
By counting the grief we have chosen to ignore and shifting our perspectives of womanhood and its correlation with motherhood, we can reimagine women’s worth beyond reproduction. There is a need to spread awareness for public recognition of the issue at the root level, empathy building, healthcare support, and cultural change.