

Giving women the choice to be childfree w/ Therese Shechter (ep#24)
If I'm clear on anything in life, it's that I dislike being forced or coerced to do something I don't want to do. And after speaking with Therese Shechter about her new documentary My So-Called Selfish Life, I get the feeling many women likely feel the same about the pressure to be a mother.
I had never considered how ubiquitous this societal pressure is and how connected it can be with feeling accepted or rejected by loved ones and the groups we belong to. My 2 favourite quotes from Therese's film were (paraphrased), 1) "I don't mind if people have children. I want everyone who wants kids to have them and live happily ever after. But I also want all women to know that they don't have to if they don't want to. It really is a choice" 2) "Often more thought goes into not having children than actually having them, and it should be the opposite." Therese Shechter is an award-winning filmmaker, public speaker, and the founder of the production company Trixie Films. Her work fuses humor, activism, and personal storytelling to explore and confront what's considered most sacred about womanhood.
Therese began her two-decades-long film career at Robert DeNiro’s production company Tribeca Productions. Since then, her work has been screened and streamed globally on TV and home video, at the Brooklyn Museum and the Kinsey Insitute, and at film festivals from Rio de Janeiro to Istanbul to Seoul.
Therese's newest documentary, My So-Called Selfish Life is a paradigm-shifting journey through one of our society’s greatest social taboos: choosing not to become a mother. Created with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, New York State Council of the Arts, and close to 800 individual donors, it premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2021 to critical acclaim. The film is currently screening at film festivals, colleges, conferences, non-profits, and global virtual streaming events. This topic has hit a nerve with her audience: the Facebook group she created for the film now has over 11,000 followers and a movement is growing.
KNOW MORE KNOW LESS PODCAST: Listen here: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/know-more-know-less/id1652659219 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2fxCXp5AlfajmcTgvSWSGl?si=87be920940534299 For full episodes and clips: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN4wkMATGEXMTU4Xrw-YZTA