“Liberation! A true liberation!”: Being childfree and sterilized

“I’m Free! I’m Liberated!”: Being Childfree and Sterilized
This ethnographic study explored voluntary sterilization among “childfree” women informants, many of whom consider sterilization to be an optimal method of contraception. The study situates these women’s views within the context of a subversive culture of self-optimization, based on a new hierarchy of values in which reproductive self-control is located at the top and procreation at the bottom. The article concludes that, because voluntary sterilization is almost exclusively practiced by women, it ultimately functions as a gendered strategy for feminine self-improvement.