Alcance y planeamiento de los objetivos estratégicos

The institution of motherhood, both historically and contemporarily, assigns women the sole responsibility to care for and nurture children, yet affords them limited power to determine the conditions under which this care and nurturing takes place. In neoliberal societies, the limited power available to women exists in the marketplace, or, in other words, in their ability to

consume. This lack of power can be understood as the subtle, yet significant remaining influence of the patriarchal system Adrienne Rich (1977) first detailed in her groundbreaking work Of Woman Born. Rich summarized the institution of motherhood as follows: “Institutionalized motherhood demands of women maternal ‘instinct’ rather than intelligence, selflessness rather than self-realization, [and] relation to others rather than the creation of self” (1977:42). Our social and cultural understanding of motherhood reinforces the suggestion that maternal instinct is biological, and something any and all women inherently possess. We take the self sacrifice and denial of needs and desires of mothers as evidence of their love for their children, and position women as responsible for the nurturing of relationships within the family. As such, the institution of motherhood is the ideal against which women and others define their success and/or failure as mothers. By aligning particular practices of motherhood with biology, the institution of

motherhood is prescriptive of the ways women must perform the work of mothering in order to be recognized as good mothers. Rich refers to women’s position as one of “powerless

responsibility”. Reflecting on Rich’s work, Andrea O’Reilly reminds us that “mothers do not make the rules...they simply enforce them” (2004: 6). It is not for women themselves to

determine what kind of care and nurturing they wish to take on, this has been predetermined by the prescriptive ideology (or institution) of motherhood.

Numerous feminist scholars of motherhood have taken up this concept in reference to the shifting social and cultural norms around mothering. Sharon Hayes, (1996) Pamela Courtney Hall, (1999) and Petra Buskens (2001) have discussed powerless responsibility in relation to what Hayes termed “intensive mothering” (1996). Intensive mothering sees women devote every

part of themselves exclusively to the work of mothering, while at the same time having that work undermined by being framed as “natural”. Self-less love and devotion to children is supposed to underlie every aspect of women’s public and private lives. In other words, if a woman works outside the home, it must be for the benefit of her children; if she takes care of herself through diet and exercise, it must be so that she can better care for her children; if she exposes herself to non-medical ultrasound, it must be so that she can form a deeper bond with her fetus, rather than to fulfill her own curiosities or desires. The primacy given to women’s role as caregivers must therefore be reflected in every decision she makes. What is at stake here is the perception of her as a good or bad mother.

The dominant belief in motherhood as biological obscures the varying ways social, cultural, political and economic ideologies come to bear on motherhood throughout time and place. It allows for the reinforcement and reinscription of essentialized and hegemonic ideologies of motherhood, which also maintain a clear division between good and bad mothers (Gillis, 2004; Dubriwny, 2010). Tasha Dubriwny explained that “this formulation of motherhood broadly suggests that mothers are guided by natural feminine instincts that allow them to happily and successfully nurture their children” (2010: 287). Following Rich’s description, a good mother is one who is selfless, nurturing, and concerned only with the happiness and well-being of her children and family. She exists to care for and serve others, and does not require or desire recognition for her efforts. A good mother makes use of the all the tools and technology at her disposal to ensure that she has done everything in her power to give her children the best

opportunities to succeed. Drawing on the work of Paula Nicolson (1999) and Patrice DiQuinzio, (1999) Dubriwny contends that to be socially recognized as a good mother, women must have the “race (white), class (upper or middle), and sexual (heterosexual, married) characteristics that are valued by patriarchal ideology” (2010: 287). Further, she must display emotional and

behavioural characteristics which signal the joy and happiness she feels in regards to her maternal role, and the selfless nurturing she provides for her children. In my study most participants fell within the identity categories listed above; most were white, middle class, and involved in a heterosexual relationship with the father of her child, though not all were legally married. As well, most participants in this study identified accessing feelings of joy and happiness, or fostering relationships between family members as their primary motivations for

seeking out elective ultrasound. Thus the experience of elective ultrasound can bring women (momentarily) closer to the good mother ideal.

The ideal of the good mother is positioned against the socially abject image of the bad mother. Rich (1977) draws on high profile examples of mothers who commit infanticide as being the exemplars of bad (perhaps even evil) motherhood, while Lorna Weir (2006) addresses the social stigma of the drug addicted mother. Pregnant drug users are understood as lacking the self- control and unconditional love necessary to treat their addictions for the benefit of their fetus (Weir, 2006). They are, therefore, positioned as actively placing their needs above or before the needs of their fetus. This belief ignores the neurological aspects of addiction, and simplifies women’s (or anyone’s) ability to “kick the habit”. Tasha Dubriwny (2010) takes up public discussions of postpartum depression and pyschosis, concluding that the effect of pathologizing and individualizing women’s emotional responses to early motherhood reinscribes motherhood as a biological drive, and positions postpartum disorders as a “temporary disruption”. Citing the high profile case of Andrea Yates, who was eventually acquitted for killing her 5 children as a result of postpartum psychosis, Dubriwny argued that Yates was positioned as an otherwise good mother (white, married, devoutly religious, conservative) whose motherhood was interrupted by an individual medical condition (2010: 286). What this narrative suggests is that all women have the potential to be bad mothers, even those who display all of the qualities and characteristics heralded by the institution of motherhood. The women referenced by Rich, (1977) Weir, (2006) and Dubriwny (2010) are so obviously going against the notion of the selfless, nurturing and devoted mother, their examples serve as cautionary tales to all women. Susan Brownmiller suggests that the prominence of such examples, and women’s identification with the possibility of exhibiting these characteristics and behaviours (save perhaps for the drug addicted women discussed by Weir) is in part why there is a pervasive sense among women of what she calls the “fear of maternal inadequacy” (1984:214).

The fear of maternal inadequacy was present in participants’ descriptions of their motivations for seeking elective ultrasound, and the anxieties they felt in relation to their pregnancies in general. The drive to make sure “everything’s okay” with the fetus reflects an understanding that risks are omnipresent and that it is the woman’s responsibility to ensure fetal well-being. Participants described feeling responsible for “doing their homework” and researching the safety of elective

ultrasound to ensure that they were not taking on any undue risks. While most were satisfied with the information they could find, Sarah reflected on her choice to purchase elective

ultrasound as “selfish” because of the perception that she did not prioritize the safety of her fetus over her own curiosities and desires. In other words, she did not embody the self-denial

necessitated by the institution of motherhood and therefore risked the consequences of being labeled (and labeling herself) a bad mother. Sarah took on full responsibility for her decision in a way that obscures the social conditions that underlie it. Sarah, like other participants in this study, had no power to ensure the safety of ultrasound, or to dictate the way in which it is employed in medical or elective settings, yet she assumed this responsibility by way of guilt. In this way, elective ultrasound should be understood as a site in which powerless responsibility is reinforced in relation to motherhood. I will return to a discussion of responsibility as it relates to neoliberal subjectivity in the sections that follow.