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Planning a family

Nature Reviews Chemistry volume 6, pages 673–675 (2022)Cite this article

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To write this article, we spoke to members of the supramolecular chemistry community, including the International Women in Supramolecular Chemistry network. We are not attributing anyone’s name to their story to protect their anonymity.

We have all either been asked or seen others asked: “So when are you going to have children?” — at family gatherings, as a casual aside by colleagues or even by complete strangers. There is societal judgement around having children, not having children, when to have children and how many children to have. Even if we put aside the recent US Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade, 1973 and with it remove long-held rights around access to abortion in the US, there are numerous other ways in which reproductive choices are becoming weaponized, and what may seem to some an innocuous question is racialized, gendered and loaded.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Jennifer S. Leigh

  2. School of Science and Engineering, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Nathalie Busschaert

  3. Department of Chemistry, University College London, London, UK

    Cally J. E. Haynes

  4. School of Chemistry and Forensic Science, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Jennifer R. Hiscock

  5. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA

    Kristin M. Hutchins

  6. Kekulé-Institut für Organische Chemie und Biochemie, Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Larissa K. S. von Krbek

  7. Otto Diels Institute of Organic Chemistry, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Anna J. McConnell

  8. Department of Chemistry and Materials Innovation Factory, University of Liverpool, Crown Street, Liverpool, UK

    Anna G. Slater

  9. Department of Chemistry, University of York, York, UK

    David K. Smith

  10. School of Chemistry, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Emily R. Draper

Authors
  1. Jennifer S. Leigh
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  2. Nathalie Busschaert
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  3. Cally J. E. Haynes
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  4. Jennifer R. Hiscock
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  5. Kristin M. Hutchins
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  6. Larissa K. S. von Krbek
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  7. Anna J. McConnell
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  8. Anna G. Slater
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  9. David K. Smith
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  10. Emily R. Draper
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Emily R. Draper.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Leigh, J.S., Busschaert, N., Haynes, C.J.E. et al. Planning a family. Nat Rev Chem 6, 673–675 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-022-00427-0

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