Jag har närt en helig önskan och längtan. Kvinnlighet, moderskap och sexualitet hos ofrivilligt barnlösa kvinnor i Sverige 1936-1943

Abstract

This article explores how involuntary childlessness was experienced and interpreted by Swedish women (and, to some extent, men) during the 1940s. A collection of letters written to the Swedish Association of Sexuality Education (RFSU) has been analysed and related to medical articles from the same period. The article shows how women often interpreted their infertility as a consequence of them not enjoying sex as they felt they should, thus blaming themselves for their condition. In general, it was much more common that women took on responsibility for the childlessness of the couple; women ransacked their actions and bodily functions in a way that men did not. Interestingly, these interpretations were supported by the medical experts at the RFSU. Although RFSU, in their response to the worried women, said that there was not necessarily a correlation between their sexuality and their capability to conceive, they also claimed that there still could be a connection. The women were thus recommended to seek medical consultation for their lack of sexual desire. Furthermore, though it was stated again and again by the RFSU that men as well as women could be infertile, full responsibility for continued medical investigation was laid upon women. Women were encouraged to bring semen to their doctors, while men were released from taking any kind of action. The article concludes that involuntary childless women were defined, by others as well as by themselves, as both physically dysfunctional and lacking in womanliness. Since being a woman was closely related to being a mother, this identity became difficult for these women to impersonalise. Not only were they non-mothers; they were also, to some extent, non-women with failing, unwomanly bodies.