How to improve female fertility: avoid selfish men

Women understand it gets harder to become pregnant as they get older. But they don't always have a choice
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kate garraway
Kate Garraway in the poster to make women think twice about putting off pregnancy. Photograph: Nicky Johnston/First Response

The new "Get Britain Fertile" campaign features a photograph of presenter Kate Garraway, made up to look elderly and pregnant. Her wrinkles and white hair juxtaposed with a fecund belly illustrate the main thrust of the campaign – to make British women aware of the decline in fertility by their 30s and 40s.

However, is there a grown woman left in Britain who's not already aware of this? Moreover, when are we, as a society, going to address a painful truth: that where timing is concerned, female fertility is not, as is often supposed, controlled exclusively by women, but also very much in the power of the men they are with?

There's much that's well intentioned about GBF. It claims to be aimed at both men and women. Garraway, an ambassador for the campaign, says she feels fortunate to have had children relatively late, and wants women to make "informed choices". However, GBF taps into the culture of misogyny surrounding female fertility. It feeds the urban myth of women "refusing" to have children because of careers, partying, or holding out for Leonardo DiCaprio.

These delusional "picky" females have been figments of the collective imagination for so long they need to be dusted down. Indeed, GBF is accompanied by a survey, stating that many women aged 18-46 are concerned about practicalities: ranging from loss of earnings and workplace inflexibility, to childcare costs and housing. All crucial issues, but for the purpose of this article, let's look at the third of women who say they want children but haven't yet found the right partner.

In my opinion that one-third is an underestimate. Even not finding the right man often turns out to be a euphemism for: "I met him, I spent years with him, but ultimately, he wouldn't have children." Put bluntly, many of these women at their fertile peak didn't refuse anything, their men did.

Like it or not, this is how men influence female fertility and, ultimately, female infertility. The mere thought is enough to inspire feminist panic: women, not men, should control their fertility. Who could disagree? It's also true that some women don't want children, period. And yet how many of us have met (or even been) the thirty-fortysomething, forced to abandon a long relationship because the man wouldn't start a family?

Such men may feel that the relationship isn't right, or don't want their freedom curtailed, or other reasons, all as valid as a woman making similar decisions. It only becomes unfair, verging on selfish, when men keep such insights to themselves for too long. These are the time-wasters, what I'd term the fertility-drifters, who think nothing of keeping women dangling for years on end.

It's not that these women are pathetic wimps, rather that often they can't win: if they push, they're pushy (humiliating); if they don't push, if they're respectful and patient, they'll waste even more time. Frequently, these men go on to start families with younger women, leaving their original partners scouring dating sites, lampooned as desperadoes on the hunt for viable sperm.

Some might say: "Diddums, that's life." Fine, so long as we acknowledge that this is something many women put up with during their fertile years, and that to castigate them is unfair. Sometimes it's not women who are picky, it's men. Ergo, such men should at least be part of the ongoing debate about late female procreation. After all, a stalled relationship at the wrong time with an immature, untruthful, or simply unwilling, man, is enough to compromise or even destroy a woman's fertility. If the GBF campaign really is aimed at both sexes, perhaps they need to include a photograph of a man with the caption: "Play fair and, by the way, sperm deteriorates too." Meanwhile, women may need another mantra – don't let anyone waste your precious time.

Baz's claim to greatness seems a mite premature

Baz Luhrmann has hit back at criticism of his adaptation of The Great Gatsby, saying that F Scott Fitzgerald was also "horrendously criticised" when he published the novel.

Luhrmann makes it sound as though he'd have been positively offended if the film had received blanket rave reviews, thereby robbing him of creative kinship with Fitzgerald. What's he rattling on about?

Why do some film people assume the grandeur of their source material in this way? It's akin to the director of a biblical turkey, huffing: "Well, some people also disliked the way Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did the New Testament!"

It's all conflation; there's no genuine link between the two projects. The fact that Luhrmann made this film places him in no greater cultural proximity to Fitzgerald than ordinary people who've read and enjoyed the book. It's also a trifle early for Luhrmann to be making these claims to joint creative martyrdom with Fitzgerald: comparing a film that's just opened to a novel written in the 1920s. Give it a little time, Baz, (a century?), then we'll have a better idea how much you've got in common with Fitzgerald.

Let him go, Nick. He's not right for you

How intriguing to hear that senior Tories are working out the best way to "divorce" the Lib Dems before the next election.

Is it true? Who cares? What's not to love about the divorce analogy? I'm picturing David Cameron, fuming, wine glass splintering in his hand because Nick Clegg forgot to put the bins out yet again. "Is it too much to effing ask?" he'd roar, as Clegg appears with a terry nappy slung over one shoulder, screaming back: "How dare you judge me? After all I've done for you!" The nappy is thrown down, wine spills from the glass, as both flounce to other ends of the kitchen, lips trembling, an unspoken question hanging in the air: "What has become of us?"

Cut to later that evening, both mournfully sipping chablis, giving each other wistful smiles, before Clegg breaks down: "I can't go on like this, Dave. I'm back on the gaspers!" Both fall silent, remembering past desperate attempts to salvage what once felt so right, so good, such as that planned mini-break to discuss Lords reform (anything!), just to see if they could patch things up. But it never happened. They were both too busy. For each other. For coalition love.

At the end, the unutterable decency, as Cameron helps Clegg pack up his proportional representation pamphlets, their fingers occasionally touching in what may be lingering tenderness for what might have been. Then it gets ugly, with Cameron refusing to hand over the rose garden photographs that remind them both of happier times. More recriminations and door slamming as Clegg takes his voting blocs and leaves forever … or until it's next politically convenient. I have to admit – I can't wait. If the coalition play this right, this could be the funniest ugly divorce ever.

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