Helen Taylor

Writer and feminist academic Professor Helen Taylor reflects on her own experience, cultural history and portrayals in media and literature to explore what it means to voluntarily live a life without children and to challenge assumptions about family and female identity.

Taylor examines the joys and complexities of her own path, considers the experience of other women she has interviewed and reflects on cultural attitudes and media and literature. She looks at issues around legacy and purpose and belonging in a society that often defines women through motherhood. Taylor says there are challenges in ageing without children, but she celebrates the freedom and opportunities her choice has provided.

Taylor is emeritus professor of English at Exeter University. She is author of Scarlett’s Women: Gone With the Wind and its Female Fans, The Daphne du Maurier Companion, and Why Women Read Fiction: The Stories of Our Lives and was the first director of Liverpool Literature Festival.