I suppose an introductory post is in order. And I will try to say something here about why, exactly, I am interested in motherhood, and to clarify what my biases are. Historically, of course, motherhood has been inextricably tied to womanhood. Pregancy and childbirth are very major things which biologically do separate the experiences of female-bodied versus male-bodied people. It has been used, again somewhat historically, as a reason or means to oppress women, tying them to childrearing activities and preventing them from seeking employment or emancipation from male control.
At the same time as it represents a real threat, motherhood also represents a very pure form of female power, perhaps the only example of a power that is uniquely and exquisitely female. Thus, dealing with motherhood often presents a conundrum for gender theorists: if gender is a social construction, what do we make of this biological capacity that only women have?
With the existence of birth control and abortion, motherhood has become more of a choice, and thus women have been able to control that particular power in new ways. More and more women have postponed childbirth or foregone it altogether, such that the birth rates in many Western European countries have fallen below the rate of replacement (ie 2 children per couple) and the rate of births in the United States are only slightly higher.
Women today seem to face scrutiny whatever choice they make. Those who choose not to have children are scorned for ignoring their maternal instincts (and likely also for failing to produce the rich, white babies who will carry on the status quo, since it is mostly white and middle class women whose birth rates are falling). Yet women who have children are also scrutinized for not reaching their potential in the workplace or for their choices around childrearing.
Abortions are stigmatized; giving a child up for adoption is stigmatized; adopting a child is only permitted if one is white, heterosexual, and well-off; workplaces tend to overlook women with children or with the potential to have children and often fail to provide the necessary support for mothers; society seems to believe that upon pregnancy a woman becomes public property to be touched or questioned and judged; and all of these things are of course dependent on race and class dynamics. I am interested in how that scrutiny, which real women feel every day, plays out in the media.
2 Comments
April 3, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Yo, this looks like it’s going to be a fascinating blog. Just one quick point: I wonder to what extent pregnancy and childbirth– in our culture– is “purely” female. I’m thinking of the increasingly male, technocratic, biomedical control that women must subject themselves to in order to gain “necessary” knowledge about the state/health/body of their child in utero. And after birth, I think the developmental psychology field and its books and advice industry might be construed as another tool of control and– in early childhood day care and kindergarten– even state repression.
I mean to say that women are no longer construed as having the knowledge or expertise necessary to be mothers. And, honestly, I think that many women don’t; that the division of labor and technology is accepted. Girls don’t have to learn about birth processes like in other places or times, midwives might serve in rural or alternative communities, but that’s about it.
My question is: do you think that women giving up control over so many aspects of motherhood arises from their entrance into the workplace? Are other knowledges and functions expected of them, leaving little room for potentially irrelevant or irrational (that’s how it’s construed, anyway) folk knowledge? Was something sacrificed, and something gained, or what’s going on here, in your opinion?
April 4, 2007 at 1:24 am
Those are very good questions, and I will certainly take some time to explore them. I do think pregnancy has become increasingly “medicalized,” with the result being that control, or at least the feeling of control, is taken away from mothers. This applies both, as you say, to the birth process but also to the constant barrage of ultrasounds and tests (the “clinical gaze” as it is called) which keep women in constant fear that their baby is less than perfect. I’m really interested in what I see as a relatively new movement for women interested in natural childbirth and the rising desire for a return to midwives/folk knowledge, so hopefully I will be able to blog about that in the future as well.