This is a problem if women are then made to feel that everything that happens during this time is somehow only our responsibility, ours to confront, carry, and resolve, alone. By adjusting women’s bodies with contraception and allowing men to live as eternal teenagers—uncertain jobs, short-term flings, adolescent hobbies—we have placed the burden of whether to try for a baby almost entirely at women’s feet. We shield men from the reality of fertility, family, and female desire, because we have been conditioned to consider them uninteresting or unattractive. Throughout my twenties and into my thirties, I tried desperately to appear casual and carefree, believing that any hint at my true, complicated desires—in my case, for love, commitment, independence, a successful career, and ultimately a baby too—would render me single forever. I silenced myself, because I thought it made me more attractive. I tucked my weaknesses, my wants, and my womb out of sight.