Broken bodies: oral histories of infertility after the women’s liberation movement

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Using oral histories with women born between 1946 and 1980, this article explores experiences and memories of infertility and pregnancy loss in the post-women’s liberation era. Infertility had a lasting impact on participants’ relationships with their bodies, expressed often in terms of ambivalence towards their physical selves and an embodied ‘broken-ness’. I historically contextualise these expressions of broken-ness to show the ongoing resilience of socially-constructed narratives that link womanhood with reproductive ability. The resilience of these attitudes suggests a continued need for critically interrogating cultural norms about gender and infertility in Australian society.