“The View” co-host Sara Haines said Wednesday that criticism of her earlier comments on marriage and motherhood had been “misconstrued,” responding to backlash tied to remarks made by Isabel Brown encouraging Gen Z women to prioritize marriage and having children.
“My ultimate beef with this is that it wraps a woman’s worth up in her ovaries,” Haines said on the “Behind the Table” podcast. “Marriage, children, it’s a choice … The world has over 8 billion people. We no longer need to force people to procreate and pump out babies. We have arrived here.”
The discussion came after the segment on the daytime talk show drew criticism online, particularly from Brown, who argued Haines’ remarks dismissed traditional family values.
Haines said her intent was not to discourage marriage or motherhood, but to address what she described as societal pressure placed on women.
“My issue was with the greater message,” Haines said. “I love babies. I love being married. I love all those things. But there’s so much pressure in this world on women to define themselves by if they’re married and if they have babies.”
She said her perspective was informed by her own life experiences and those of women around her.
“My take comes from a place of empathy and life lived,” Haines said. “Knowing so many women, having been single, like dating for years and not knowing if I was going to find my person to get married.”
Haines said she believed the expectation that women can easily marry and have children does not reflect reality for many.
“They make it sound like this easy choice. Get married, have kids,” she said. “There are so many amazing women I know that aren’t meeting people.”
She also pointed to challenges surrounding fertility and alternative paths to parenthood.
“So many people I know have struggled for some reason having babies,” Haines said. “Whether it was fertility — I’m friends with a lot of gay couples that have had to fight non-traditional surrogates, all these things.”
Haines said conversations about women frequently center on marital status and children.
“We ask women all the time about marriage and kids and that seems to be all they’re worth,” she said.
“The beauty of progress in time is that we don’t have to put that on people’s shoulders … You do what you can and what you want because you have a life beyond that.”
Haines said she believed her comments had been taken out of context by some conservative figures.
“I refuse to read it because right when I saw some of the headlines, I thought, here we go again,” Haines replied.
“Conservative influencers have kind of misconstrued what you guys were saying on the show and what the point of it is,” podcast host and “The View” executive producer Brian Teta said.
“I definitely think she misconstrued — whether that was willful or ignorance, she’s missing my whole point,” Haines said, referring to Brown.
Haines reiterated that her comments were meant to affirm women regardless of their life circumstances.
“I know too many women that, for whatever reason, aren’t married, don’t have kids, and they matter,” she said. “I would never want to dim someone’s light in life by saying they matter less because of that.”
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