Following on from Sex,
Gender and All the Rest | Hidden, Airbrushed, Suppressed and Oppressed PART ONE
(adverts, jobs, Dr Who etc.) http://arwenackcerebrals.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/sex-gender-and-all-rest-hidden.html here
I consider specifically the issue of non/parenthood, reproduction and
reproductive rights. NB: for anyone who is watching the second series of Top of
the Lake (BBC 2) and hasn’t seen the whole of it yet there is a spoiler or two.
I have been researching and writing
about the reproductive experience, identity and rights of and for girls and women,
and to a lesser extent, of and for boys and men, for 28 years. Just a couple of
examples follow:
It is commonly assumed at the issue of reproductive health is
‘woman’s business’ and arguably for some women this assumption has been
instrumental in their control over reproduction. It has also been the
cornerstone of many feminist campaigns, which have demanded the right for women
to ‘control their own bodies’ … However, the majority of women do not make reproductive
choices in isolation from men (Earle and Letherby, 2003) and men both as medics
and as partners have significant influence … (Marchbank and Letherby 2014: 234-235)
And:
Motherhood is lauded as inevitable and desirable for all BUT only
if achieved in the so-called RIGHT social and material circumstances. It is
very easy for one’s ‘choices’ to be labelled as inappropriate and for one’s
identity as mother or not to be frowned upon. For example, teenage mothers are
often labelled irresponsible and those who seek technological help to conceive
may be accused of ‘playing God’. Furthermore, there is a hierarchy of motherhood
in that biological motherhood is often defined (in relation to social
motherhood) as ‘real’ and ‘natural’. Thus, just as it is possible to be other
than mother, it is also possible to be an other mother. . . . (Letherby
forthcoming).
So girls and women's reproductive choices and experiences are often controlled and/or judged by others. One of Donald Trump’s first orders as
president was to sign a memorandum reinstating a policy that originated under Ronald
Regan's presidency:
In the UK following the general election in June
2017 and the subsequent ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement, it is likely that
the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) will support the Conservative Government in key votes (e.g. the Queen’s
Speech (already passed), Budgets, Brexit and security matters). There remains many concerns regarding this relationship including those surrounding women’s basic reproductive
rights. The DUP has consistently opposed the extension of the 1967 Abortion
Action to Northern Ireland ‘forcing women either
to cross the channel for abortions they must fund themselves, risk prosecution for procuring abortion pills, or to carry pregnancies to term even if their foetus has no hope of survival' http://www.newstatesman.com/2017/06/deal-dup-just-another-sign-tory-disregard-womens-rights
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised then,
as Pam Lowe’s research has found, that ‘anti-abortion activism’ outside clinics
in Britain is changing:
Lowe argues that the concern of activists is a much about ‘saving’
women, who are 'ignorant' about the 'reality' of abortion, as it is about 'saving the foetus'.
Saving women from themselves seems also to have been the motivation of Boots, Britain’s largest chemist chain, when
it recently announced it did not intend to lower its price for the morning
after pill (MAP) following a request to do so by the British Pregnancy Advisory
Service (BPAS). The justification given was that Boots did not want to be accused of
‘incentivising inappropriate use’. Following a
petition that received more than 25,000 signatures and a letter signed by 35 female
Labour MPs Boots apologised:
Labour’s response to this was, quite rightly I think, to
acknowledge the apology but to also question the use of the reference to a ‘misunderstanding’
given Boots' infantilisation of and moral judgement on women.
Research
and autobiographical accounts contest that whilst women (and men) who are
unable to have children often feel pitied by others those that decide not to
become parents are often stereotyped as selfish. As I have
argued for many, many years such labelling is simplistic and offensive
(Letherby 1994, 2002, forthcoming) for the reality of ‘living without children’
just like life as mother or father, is always more complicated in reality. One (just one) inaccurate assumption concerns the issue of relationships. Thus:
… the only words to describe a woman who does not mother children is in
reference to what she does not have: not mother, nonmother, ‘childless’,
‘childfree’. All of which (and perhaps particularly the last two) are most likely a simplistic, and often inaccurate, description of a woman’s actual experience
(e.g. as godmother/guardian, aunt, friend, nurse, teacher. (Letherby forthcoming).
Despite this it seems that cultural
depictions of women who do not mother (biologically related) children still often
draw on oversimplified caricatures. The 2015 novel (I couldn’t bear to go and
watch the film but hear it was as bad) The Girl on the Train and the
2016 BBC drama The Replacement were each guilty of this. In both outputs
the women who do not mother biological children/do not have children of 'their own' are damaged, disturbed, unbalanced. Here, it seems we have moved on from
pity as the ‘childless woman’ is depicted as not only lesser but as a danger to herself and to others.
Along with many others I am currently
gripped by Channel 4's depiction of The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s a long time
since I read the book, which was published in 1985, but as I watch I remember
it well. In a recent article the author Margaret Atwood wrote: ‘The control
of women and babies has been a feature of every repressive regime on the planet’.
Also commenting on Trump’s vision for healthcare Atwood added:
As in The Handmaid’s Tale the
themes of sexual and reproductive violence and exploitation take centre stage in the second
series of Top the of Lake (China Girl).
Also highlighted, I think, are the differences between women who mother children
and women who do not and women who are able to bear and give birth to children and
women who can not. All the women in The Handmaid’s Tale
– the handmaid’s, the wives, the Martha’s (servants), even the aunts (who train and have considerable power over the handmaids) – are victims within the ultra-religious, patriarchal Republic of Gilead
(once the USA). Many of the women in Top of the Lake (China Girl)
whether (biological) mothers or not experience reproductive disruption and/or
lack of control and some are abused and manipulated emotionally, materially and sexually. And (am I the only
one to notice this?):
- both of these series are currently on terrestrial TV,
- the hero in each is played by the same actor Elizabeth Moss,
- both Offred (Handmaid’s) and Detective Robin Griffin (China
Girl) are mothers who (in different) ways have lost their daughter/had their
daughter ‘taken from them’.
- And in each case there are subtle and not so subtle suggestions that biologically
childless women are at best distressed and desperate, in need of pity and help
and at worst villains colluding with, even initiating, the exploitation of
their sisters.
 |
| Elizabeth Moss as Robin Griffin/Offred |
Don’t get me wrong I am enjoying both of these representations and I welcome the
serious consideration of reproductive and human rights. What I hope for though
are more, many more, representations – in adverts, books and films and also by politicians and
others in powerful positions – that break free from stereotypes (in terms of
roles and abilities) and focus on women (and men) as complex, holistic beings
in their (our) own right, irrespective of either domestic or public expectations. Roll
on Doctor Who No 13 (here's hoping) ….
****
In this two part blog entry focusing on Sex and Gender I have focused largely on issues that
concern girls and women. Yet, I do not, and never would, deny that the gender
order works against men also and that at times men’s and women’s experience of
disadvantage intersects as class, ethnicity, sexuality, age (and so on, and so
on) impact on our life chances and challenges. All of our lives are affected
differently by the different aspects of our identity as different times. At the
Auto/Biography conference (mentioned at the start of Part One of this
piece) I attended recently alongside papers highlighting the contribution of women war
correspondents; the value of sisterhood (both biological and social); academic achievement and advancement
through the female family line (and more) there were also papers on the
significance of childlessness in men’s lives (presented by Robin Hadley and
particularly relevant here given my discussion above); men’s reflection on gender
roles following traumatic brain injury and male undergraduates negotiating
masculinity (and more). Read also this piece which explains how age and
masculinity are significant with reference to suicide and mid-life men. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/chester-bennington-chris-cornell-suicide-men-middle-aged-a7854476.html
With all
of this in mind I can only paraphrase Christine Di Stephano (1990) and agree with her that sex and gender are differences that
make a difference even if they are not the only differences, or even the
defining features of a person’s life.
References (for part two)
Di
Stephano, C. (1990) ‘Dilemmas of Difference: feminism, modernity and
postmodernism’, in L. Nicholson (ed,). Feminism/Postmodernism.
London: Routledge
Earle,
S. and Letherby, G. (eds.) (2003) Gender,
Identity and Reproduction: social perspectives London: Palgrave
Hawkins,
P. (2015) The Girl on the Train Doubleday
Letherby,
G. (1994) ‘Mother or Not, Mother or What?: problems of definition and identity’
Women’s Studies International Forum 17:5
Letherby.
G. (2002) ‘Childless and Bereft?: stereotypes and realities in relation to
‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary childlessness and womanhood’ Sociological Inquiry 72:1
Letherby, G. (forthcoming)
‘To Be or
Not to Be (a mother): thinking about mothers and others through literature and
social science’
in Browne, V. Giorgio, A. Jeremiah, E. Six, A. L. and Rye, G. (eds.) Motherhood
in Literature and Culture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Europe London: Routledge
Marchbank,
J. and Letherby, G. (2014) An
Introduction to Gender: social science perspectives (revised 2nd edition) London: Routledge
