Between April and June, I was looking for respondents for the study on Pregnancy, Motherhood and Ideals of Citizenship in Slovakia. Since this was my first time doing participant interviews, I did not have many expectations besides few people warning me that it would be difficult to find Slovak women willing to talk about such a vulnerable topic. Although the study was not specifically focused on abortion cases, I remembered the interview with Michaela Kramárová, the editor-in-chief of a Czech magazine Heroine known for openly discussing taboo issues related to women. In this interview Kramárová admitted that despite their efforts to find Slovak women who would share their experiences with abortion, they were unable to find any who were willing to share their story while revealing their identity. This reluctance is a likely consequence of long-term “culture wars” against abortion and “gender ideology”, waged not only in the political field and civic sector but also on social media. Not to mention the 2020 rejection of the Istanbul Convention, which meant to combat domestic violence but instead fueled fears of speaking out. Women’s experiences of motherhood shape and are shaped by the society around us, which is why they deserve to be brought into public view.

I started my research looking for women who had experienced an unplanned pregnancy within the past 10 years, when a close friend of mine, a Lutheran parish priest in a village in Banská Bystrica Region, offered to help me find participants.¹ Out of nine women she asked, six women never replied. Two claimed that their pregnancy was planned and only one agreed to take part in the study. Since the priest knew these women very well and is very tolerant and open-minded herself, she was shocked by the response of her parishioners. Eventually I managed to interview five women whose pregnancies were unplanned, but it was only after I extended my criteria to planned pregnancies within the past few years, I was able to find a few more women willing to talk about the highs and lows of new motherhood. This is not meant to shame or criticize those women who are not interested in participating in any research dealing with sensitive topics, but it is worth asking why women are reluctant to talk about their unplanned pregnancy, in some cases outside of marriage. What tensions between ideal life and reality do their silences reveal?

A crisis counselor from a Slovak NGO, that focuses on women’s reproductive rights and gender equality said that pregnancy is often mythicized and perceived as the most beautiful period in woman’s life, and she must be happy when she becomes pregnant because, her role within society is to be just a mother and nothing else. Constant confrontations with not only societal expectations of becoming a mother, but also of becoming a happy mother must cause a lot of inner turmoil to most women, especially if they had no intention of embracing this role anytime soon. Additionally, religion might play a part in society’s perception of pregnant women. Since Virgin Mary and other women were portrayed as worthy through being pregnant, while the single woman in Catholicism was Mary Magdalene, a prostitute. Thus,we are missing a more diverse representation of women and there is even more pressure on women to be respected in a society that respects them when they are pregnant.

Even though many Slovaks do not practice “lived” Christianity, Catholic sentiment is deeply rooted in the national culture. However, this symbol of a virtuous woman who is pregnant and then becomes a mother is easily refuted by the reality that is not favorable to families, and certainly not to single mothers. When a woman is pregnant, she gets some special treatment, but when women are pushing strollers or have children with them in public transport, people are already fed up with them, says the crisis counselor. According to a psychologist and social counselor of an NGO providing counseling services to pregnant women, women are most certainly perceived as inferior in their first few years of motherhood. Women are often underestimated by their partners and surroundings for “only” caring for their children and disadvantaged by their employers and the state that does not provide sufficient childcare.

Unplanned pregnancy can represent an additional obligation, financial, emotional and relational. Out of the five women I interviewed, who did not plan to get pregnant, four were married and one had a long-term partner. Two of them became pregnant while still in secondary education or at university, which meant that they had never been employed full-time. This lack of professional experience adds to stress and uncertainty when it comes to their own future and self-development. While these five women found support in their long-term partnerships as well as their immediate family or friends, they have also encountered inappropriate and demeaning comments on their physical appearance or abilities, and loneliness in many aspects of motherhood.

Knowing this, I am even more compelled to think about what those women who did not want to participate in the research, who changed their plans at the last minute, or suddenly labeled their pregnancy as planned, went through. Perhaps they saw it as a failure on their part or feared that other people might perceive it as such. It may be that the idea of academic research (at a foreign university) seemed too far removed from their concrete day-to-day struggles. In precarious situations silence can seem like a convenient escape, but in reality, it only conceals the shortcomings of the community and system we are a part of. After all, these women live in a country where certain MPs regularly submit proposals to restrict abortions, 50.8% of women have experienced some form of violence from their intimate partner in their lifetime and any attempts to introduce systematic sexual education in schools are immediately dismissed. Regardless of their personal reasons, I am certain that many of them stem from a distrust in a society that claims to be pro-family, yet systematically underestimates, disadvantages, and does not make enough effort to understand their issues.

1. In Slovakia, Lutheran Church is officially known as Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession.

FRA et al., EU Gender-Based Violence Survey – Key Results, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/7870049/20464303/KS-01-24-013-EN-N.pdf/052adbe2-40bd-9472-87c0-ed14c7106bfa?version=1.0&t=1732193841491.