Women Are Freezing Their Eggs Because Men Are Unstable Partners
Women are freezing eggs for more than just career-related reasons
It’s easy to just assume egg freezing happens because it’s 2018, and the modern woman is education and career focused. She has goals. She has casual sex. She isn’t worried about making babies just yet, because she’s climbing that career ladder and making that money.
Except a new study just revealed that that’s not quite the case.
The actual reason so many women are freezing their eggs has nothing to do with their jobs. Nope, they’re doing it because they can’t find any decent men. They don’t want to have babies with dudes who are basically just big ol’ man babies.
Say it with me now, ladies: Duh.
Yale anthropologist Marcia Inhorn surveyed women seeking to freeze their eggs in the United States and Israel and concluded that “Most of the women had already pursued and completed their educational and career goals, but by their late thirties had been unable to find a lasting reproductive relationship with a stable partner.”
The vast majority of the women who were surveyed — 85 percent — said they were freezing their eggs because of issues with relationships. They cited reasons ranging from “being single, divorced or divorcing, broken up from a relationship” to “working overseas, single mother by choice or circumstance, and career planning.” But while some women did cite career planning, that was the least common reason women chose for egg freezing.
The other 15 percent were in relationships, but issues with their men were still the reason they weren’t having kids. The top four reasons they cited were “with a man not ready to have children,” “in a relationship too new or uncertain,” “with a partner who refuses to have children” and “with a partner with his own multiple partners.”
Elective egg freezing is an increasingly popular service available in fertility clinics today. Dr. Pasquale Patrizio, a Yale fertility specialist and co-investigator on the study, says approximately 5,000 egg freezing cycles were performed in the USA in 2013, but that 76,000 are predicted in 2018. Based on research, Patrizio advises women under 35 years old to cryopreserve 10-12 eggs and for women over 35 around 20 eggs to have a reasonable chance of later pregnancy.
As for women who are struggling to find a partner with whom they want to have children, Inhorn says egg freezing helps to buy them some time. “Their choices are to freeze their eggs, hope to find a partner, or decide to become a single mother with donor sperm.”
So, men, time to step it up. When humans literally aren’t reproducing because of you — and egg freezing is the most beneficial and realistic option for cis women — it’s time to make some changes.
