Opinion: Women don't need any more Big Lies

Another Big Lie I write about is that we don't need feminism anymore. In a way, these are two sides of the same lie, CNN reports. In the book, I make a strong argument for why we need feminism more than ever. The language of the biological clock has been around for decades, but conflicting or misleading messages persist. I believe it is the very role of feminists to arm women with knowledge so that they can make better choices to take control of their future. Some people claim that no one is unaware of the impact of age on fertility. They're wrong. A Fertility Centers of Illinois public survey in 2012 showed that only 18.2% of respondents accurately guessed how many couples are affected by fertility problems, and 28.1% didn't know that fertility declines rapidly in women after age 35. In addition, 68.4% of survey respondents weren't aware that as part of a couple, both men and women are equally likely to be infertile. We should be getting this knowledge from our health educators and doctors, and we should be getting it earlier, possibly during sex education. 'The Big Lie' in putting off pregnancy Headlines continue to distort the reality. Just last week, Jezebel ran a piece with the title, "New study suggests biological-clock frenzy is bulls--t." Among the actual findings of the study, by the National Center for Health Statistics, is that while the use of infertility services had declined between 2006 and 2010, white women with higher education levels and household income were the ones more likely to use such services. As sociology professor Arthur Greil, whom I also interviewed for my book, said to HealthDay, "Women, and especially middle-class white women, are delaying having a first child even longer than before. Part of that reason may be because they have confidence that infertility treatments, when they need them, will work. For a lot of them, it's a false confidence because the treatments work better when you're young." I started writing "The Big Lie" after my third miscarriage in 2011; my first was three years earlier, when I was 37. Since my book came out, I've seen comments along the lines of, "Just because she failed doesn't mean others will. I have a friend who had two kids naturally in her 40s." And maybe they will succeed, but they should know that they will be pushing back against tougher and tougher odds. As it happens, my doctors were clear that the biggest factor was my age. The pathologies from my first two miscarriages showed chromosomal abnormalities (by age 40, half our eggs are chromosomally abnormal; by age 42, that figure is 90%); the third was a blighted ovum -- which happens when a fertilized egg implants in the uterus but the embryo doesn't develop. I believe we are at a critical juncture where women of my generation are hitting our 40s and realizing that while many of us don't have children by choice, many of us don't have them because we waited too long.

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