9. Invoke the Biological Clock
The results of this tactic would likely be quite weak, as the concept of the biological clock is rooted in sexism and has been widely debunked. Starting in the 1970s as women increasingly gained prominence in the workforce, the idea of a “biological clock” that was continually ticking down to a woman’s infertility began to cause a moral panic. Women were wasting their fertile years chasing education and gainful employment instead of having babies. Despite men’s fertility also declining with age, this panic was unsurprisingly only applied to women.
The idea that women have a universal biological clock is, of course, biologically false as we now well know with many women having successful, healthy pregnancies well into their 40s. The clock theory was put forth analyzing French birth records from the 17th through 19th centuries, which showed that a woman’s peak fertility declined quickly at a relatively young age. This data is, of course, strongly flawed as we no longer have the same diets, lifestyles nor medical care as the historic French.
One journalist put it merely stating, “millions of women are being told when to get pregnant based on statistics from a time before electricity, antibiotics, or fertility treatment.” Sadly, this reliance on inapplicable data did not stop the moral panic from putting great societal pressure on countless women to delay entering the workforce in favor of having children. Myriad studies since have shown that women earn far less over their lifetime when entering the workforce late due to motherhood. This sexist moral panic likely hamstrung many promising careers.