Childless Voices : Stories of Longing, Loss, Resistance and Choice
- Submitting institution
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University of Hertfordshire
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- 19312121
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
-
- Publisher
- Granta
- ISBN
- 9781783782628
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- February
- Year of publication
- 2019
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- Childless Voices is a 228-page creative non-fiction book published by Granta. It blends the forms of memoir and international account while looking at the issue of childlessness, its consequences and many forms. The book has been widely discussed and featured in international media. It was described as ‘making the case for empathy, imagination and respect’ (The Guardian) and as ‘not only moving’ but ‘important’ in The Spectator, which also noted that the book explored ‘a vast sweep of female existence routinely hidden or erased’ while revealing ‘central truths about the roots and continuing drivers of gender inequality.’
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Childless Voices blends the forms of memoir and international account while looking at the issue of childlessness, its consequences and many forms.
The book involved collaboration with the Charity Reach India, who send volunteers into remote villages to educate women and girls on their own bodies and combat some of the taboos and stigma around pregnancy and menstruation. The volunteers, during their usual work, gathered stories from women who had been unable to conceive, which formed part of the book.
A grant from the Society of Authors also enabled Gibb to research two very different kinds of childlessness in Sri Lanka, one a story of male childlessness and a wider narrative that looked at the experience of parents whose children went missing in the civil war. This latter was made possible by collaboration with Visaka Dharmadasa, a one-time nominee for the Collective Nobel Peace Prize.
Gibb’s own experience of involuntary childlessness acted as a commonality with many of the interviewees but at the same time highlighted the privilege of her birth which had protected her from the very worst kind of experience. But the pervasiveness of casual discrimination and disregard exists in all societies, and in this work she wanted to raise awareness of them as well as help to bring about change. The book was described as ‘making the case for empathy, imagination and respect’ (The Guardian) and as ‘not only moving’ but ‘important’ in The Spectator. The latter went onto say that the book explored ‘a vast sweep of female existence routinely hidden or erased’ while revealing ‘central truths about the roots and continuing drivers of gender inequality.’
The book was widely discussed and featured in international media, and there are currently discussions with a German film maker about a possible spin off documentary.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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