Sh Jiménez's How To Get A Girl Pregnant

What is the word “lesbian” associated with in the minds of society? The common, albeit absurdly comical, stereotype is that the lesbian dons short hair, refuses to shave her legs, wears plaid five days out of the week, and probably played softball in high school. Some connotations, such as the word “mother” are not associated with lesbians. As Chicana lesbian Karleen Pendleton Jiménez recalls whilst discussing pregnancy with her own mother, lesbians are viewed as people who “[weren’t] going to make family, make babies, make home” (8). Despite being women, who have historically been forced to bear and rear children for hundreds of years, lesbians are considered an asexual subspecies. As opposed to heterosexual women, homosexual women are deemed “unfit” for motherhood.
Jiménez knew she wanted to be a mother for as long as she knew she was a lesbian.
Motherhood is supposedly an innate gift women possess, but when they are unable to bring a child into the world, they feel as if they are a failure. Most women are often scared to reveal their suffering because they do not want pity; like Jiménez, they do not want to be the woman “everyone feels sorry for” (34). Readers are thus able to empathize with and possibly relate to Jiménez’s struggle. Despite the sorrowful undertones Jiménez’s memoir beholds, hope is instilled with its happy ending. After wanting a child for nearly twenty years, on July 29th, 2009, Jiménez gave birth to a baby girl weighing nine pounds, seven ounces (164). Lesbians are supposedly unacceptable mothers, but Karleen Pendleton Jiménez is giving a new name to butch