Must I give birth?

'Show me a black woman who doesn't want a child and I will show you a liar." This was a response to my Facebook status update asking if any of my black female friends didn't want to become mothers.

While this response may have been posted in jest, there still seems to be a belief across black cultures that women must bear children - what else are we here for?

But with our cultures and traditions evolving with the times (or clashing with them, in many cases), things are changing, albeit slowly.

While my parents certainly want their little girl married off and becoming a mother some day, they wouldn't disown me if I chose to be child-free and a bachelorette.

As we become more modernised, societal pressure to marry and have children is becoming increasingly outdated.

For lawyer Nonhle*, 40, remaining childless was something that happened naturally.

"I just never cared [about having kids]. I still don't," she says.

"If I had had a child, I would just have been going with the flow."

For Masters student Refiloe*, 24, not having children was a conscious decision.

She says: "At my age, my state of mind is still selfish. I want to be working for myself for the rest of my life. Mind you, I love kids, but mostly other people's kids."

She says her family won't be pleased about her decision to remain childless and, as a black woman, she thinks the pressure is a little stronger to have a child than on white women.

"In any black culture a woman is still judged by who she marries, by having children and being able to 'serve' her man, though the judging is milder than back in the day," says Refiloe.

"Men still want heirs and a woman who cannot or does not want a child is seen as somewhat useless or taking the idea of being an independent woman too far."

Nonhle admits people are sometimes bothered by her childlessness.

"I've had people say to me, 'but you should have at least one'. They never have an answer when I ask why."

South African women are not alone in their struggle with not wanting children.

In her new book, Why Have Kids?, US feminist Jessica Valenti explores society's obsession with women's reproductive choices.

"We're getting to a place where it is more acceptable to express ambivalence [about having kids], though there is still a stigma attached to being child-free by choice.

"There is no logic attached to questioning child-free people as to why they didn't have kids - it's all cultural expectations," she says.

In an article for the Atlantic titled Why Women Still Can't Have It All, former US politician Anne-Marie Slaughter argues that the idea of women successfully juggling a demanding career and motherhood is a farce. Many women, like Refiloe, want to have a career rather than become mothers.

An option of being child-free is something Refiloe believes South African women are adopting regardless of societal norms.

"Women are migrating to what is deemed as a western culture of thinking," says Refiloe.

But there are women who, unhappily, still have children to satisfy partners or families .

A woman who identified herself as Gianna posted on the Secret Confessions website: "Motherhood has been a thankless, monotonous, exhausting, irritating and oppressive job. I never wanted children, but I buckled in to my husband's desire to have a child. Motherhood feels like a prison sentence. I can't wait until I am paroled when my son turns 18 and hopefully goes far away to college."

* These are not real names