Career-minded women see it as insurance against ‘panic partnering’

Media hype has painted a picture of so-called “career women” freezing their eggs in order to safeguard their futures while they get ahead at work. In reality, my research interviewing women who decided to freeze their eggs has found, overwhelmingly, they were motivated by men. Because there is no getting away from the fact men’s indecisiveness is a drag on women’s fertility.

Whether they are dating someone who isn’t ready to have children, in a relationship they think might not last the course, or simply haven’t met the right person yet, women are tired of their relationships having to be dictated by biological clocks. Egg freezing is seen as a form of insurance, buying single women the time and the security to be able to find the right person – and prevent them engaging in what I have called “panic partnering”, which they come to regret – or giving a woman in a committed relationship the chance to wait for their partner to be ready to have a child.

Several of the women I spoke to used it as a litmus test when dating. They’ll say to a man two weeks into dating: “I’ve frozen my eggs, because becoming a mother is important to me.” If he runs for the hills, they can be sure he wasn’t right for them. Others found it made them more appealing to men their own age, feeling they were less of an intimidating prospect as a 38-yearold woman with eggs in the bank.

What’s clear is that women are freezing their eggs not just in order to get a promotion, or go it alone, but in order to take the pressure off finding Mr Right Now, and allow them to find Mr Right. They are not just safeguarding their future, they are relieving the pressure on their present.

Dr Kylie Baldwin

Sociologist specialising in ‘social egg freezing’ at De Montfort University