Out of Sync with Societal Expectations: How Gendered Consumer Timework Shapes Women’s Experiences in Fertility Services

Time is experienced differently by men and women, with women’s time often less valued, protected, and compensated. Society’s time norms assign women family-building and caregiving roles, creating gendered time shaped by systemic inequalities and pressure to meet normative timelines. In fertility services, women face ongoing reminders of their failure to align with societal expectations for family formation. Drawing on archival data, we identify three ways women experience and communicate gendered time: individualizing, valorizing, and memorializing consumer timework. These practices help reconcile their lived experience of infertility with society’s rigid timelines. We introduce the concept of gendered consumer timework, where women use both event time and relational time to navigate social pressures and personal expectations. Our study reveals that consumer timework exists on a friend-foe continuum and becomes an important asset for women facing infertility, a visible testament to their efforts regardless of outcomes.