Motherhood: From Representations to Societal Expectations
Film, television and media studies have long been interested in depictions of women in a range of screen, print and online platforms. More recently, the emergence of media-motherhood studies has paid particular attention to the representation of women as maternal figures in the entertainment arena (Douglas and Michaels 2005; Feasey 2012, 2018). However, what is missing from such research is an exploration of unsuccessful or unconventional pregnancy stories, non-traditional family building and narratives of non-traditional motherhood. I am using the term non-traditional here to refer to a myriad of family building options that involve medical support and/or third-party intervention, ranging from intrauterine insemination (IUI) and in vitro fertilisation (IVF), through womb transplants and adoption. In this way, non-traditional families can be straight or gay, experiencing primary, secondary or social infertility; genetically related or otherwise.
While notions of fertility, fecundity, the politics of reproduction and the impact of modern technology have been acknowledged in the field of motherhood studies (Berridge and Portwood-Stacer 2014; Feasey 2014), they remain a small part of a growing field of study. Indeed, there has been little sustained research on infertility and non-traditional mothering. Research on non-traditional family building and new reproductive technologies are rarely acknowledged beyond lesbian motherhood in Andrea OâReillyâs 800-page edited volume Maternal Theory: Essential Readings (2007). OâReillyâs seminal collection captures decades of maternal theorising, yet routinely overlooks the themes that I am introducing here, namely, the representation of infertility and non-traditional mothering within and beyond popular media culture. Over the last three decades the topic of motherhood has emerged as a significant area of academic debate, with themes ranging from sexuality, peace, religion, public policy, literature, health, work, care work, young mothers, feminist mothering, mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, the motherhood movement, race and ethnicity for example. Although work on the role of lesbian mothering, co-mothering and adoption does exist, such research tends to be short chapters or isolated journal articles in larger volumes dedicated to more traditional maternal experiences and/or debates concerning feminist mothering (Lewin 1994; DiLapi 1999; Ryan 2008). Although this work offers a fascinating and much needed consideration of non-traditional motherhood, wider debates concerning infertility continue to be overlooked within the field of gender, film, television and media motherhood studies.
Motherhood is often assumed to be a ânormalâ element of adulthood and indeed a ânaturalâ part of a womanâs life. Vivian Kraaij, Nadi Garnefski and Maya Schroevers make this point when they tell us that having children is an essential stage of life for most people (Kraaij et al. 2009, p. 19, emphasis added). This pronatal stance is echoed on screen as television titles routinely close with maternal outcomes. We are told that in recent years âtwo generically different HBO programs, namely Girls (2012â2017) and True Detective (2015) âeach concluded their series or recent season with a âstrongâ female character whose life is apparently rounded out through maternity or the promise of maternityâ (Hosey 2019). At the same time, characters who are diagnosed with infertility on the big screen âare portrayed as incomplete ⊠until they become positioned as normative by becoming natural mothers and situated within a heterosexual couple dyadâ (Le Vay 2019, p. 190). Irrespective of screen size and âregardless of a womanâs goals or accomplishmentsâ the media makes it clear that women must become mothers âin order to be truly fulfilledâ (Hosey 2019).
Kristina Engwall and Helen Peterson have gone so far as to suggest that women without children are viewed with âdoubt, suspicion and even disgustâ (Engwall and Peterson cited in Le Vay 2019, p. 161). Contemporary society judges âwomen on their ability or desire to procreateâ (Striff 2005, p. 190), and irrespective of whether women become mothers, motherhood is âcentral to the ways in which they are defined by others and to their perceptions of themselvesâ (Phoenix and Woollett 1991, p. 13).
Feminists have spent decades fighting for political, economic and social equality; and much of the second wave movement looked to remove women from what was understood to be the shackles of the domestic sphere. Demands for universal free childcare made it clear that motherhood in general, and stay-at-home motherhood in particular was part of a patriarchal society that held women back, or rather, maintained the seemingly ânaturalâ status quo that divided genders along the lines of public and private spheres. These discussions are useful, and in many regards, crucial, to a contemporary feminist debate at a time when more young women than ever before are entering higher education, looking to narrow the gender pay gap, getting married later and having children later still. However, there is a growing group for whom the feminist debate about motherhood, and by extension, maternal domesticity, is at best null and void and, at worst, alienating. For those affected by an infertility diagnosis and a desire to experience pregnancy and motherhood, feminist debates concerning access to contraception and abortion might appear misguided and misplaced. Popular news articles at the height of the second-wave feminist movement have been accused of ignoring the needs of those affected by an infertility diagnosis. It has been argued that âin an era of birth control, the Pill and the Population Explosion [women affected by infertility are] too often forgotten or simply dismissed as unimportantâ (cited in Marsh and Ronner 1999, p. 216). Only a few feature articles of the period âsuggested that in such a culture the infertile might feel as disenfranchised as had the voluntarily childless in the previous generationâ (Ibid., pp. 215â216). More recently, feminist positions relating to infertility in general and assisted reproduction in particular have been divided between those that view treatments and technologies âas coercive and abusive, pressuring women to conform to ⊠norms of womanhood through having childrenâ, those who âembrace technologies as a source of empowermentâ and those again who âview it as a method by which to fix/repair infertility by literally constructing biologyâ (Le Vay 2019, p. 40).
While those women who choose not to mother may struggle against reductive definitions of womanhood as motherhood as they circulate in contemporary society, women affected by infertility are left to navigate the âshame and stigmaâ that is said to follow a diagnosis (Edge 2015, p. 100). One woman speaks for many when she ârecounts finding out that she cannot have a child ⊠as a loss of her womanhoodâ (Bronstein and Knoll 2015). These feelings are common because infertility is seldom discussed in polite conversation; it is routinely overlooked by those without first-hand experience and it is rarely commented on by those affected.
The History of Infertility
In previous centuries, there was little knowledge or understanding of the process of human reproduction, and as such âvarious ideas about the origin of infertility have existed throughout Western historyâ (Van Balen 2002, p. 79). These ideas seem to fluctuate, as does the terminology to account for our changing understanding of them.
In his enlightening book-length volume on the rhetoric of infertility, Robin Jensen looks at the ways in which infertility âhas been defined in and across technical, mainstream, and lay communitiesâ during specific historical moments (Jensen 2016, p. 3). We are reminded that in Europe and the American colonies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, agrarian societies relied on large families to plant seeds, harvest crops and tend to cattle. At this time, the âbarrenâ woman, unable to produce children and thus serve the greater community, was seen to be at fault for her âinability to metaphorically flower or bear fruitâ (Ibid., p. 21). These women were blamed for their reproductive probl...