Doing homebirth like a man? Constructions of masculinity in South African men’s narratives of homebirth

Abstract

The intersections between homebirth and masculine identities have not been widely explored. In this paper, we focus on the construction/contestation of masculinity in South African men’s narratives of planning and experiencing homebirth. Drawing on 20 interviews conducted with a sample of 5 men and couples in 2013–2014, a narrative analysis found men constructed ideal masculinities and ways of being a man in relation to homebirth. The paper focuses on the multiple representations of masculinity constructed in men’s talk about homebirth and traces their efforts to articulate a masculine perspective of birth. Men grappled with the meanings of ‘being there’ as a man during labour/birth and articulated alternative modes of being a man that valued and accommodated relationality, passivity and containment. Men thus articulated ways of being present and passive during homebirth that challenged normative constructions of masculinity. The notion of selfless masculinity emerged as a key masculine ideal in which giving and service during birth was constructed as integral to being a good father and man. However, competing forms of normative masculinity constructed in men’s narratives meant gender tensions remained in the continued salience of traditional masculine meta-narratives, such as being the ‘breadwinner’.

Keywords:

• Homebirth
• masculinity
• being there
• childbirth narratives
• South Africa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by National Research Foundation; Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Award [OMT Ref.20008/01]; Centre for Social Science Research and University of Cape Town.

Notes on contributors

Nicole M. Daniels is a PhD candidate and research affiliate with Family Studies Research Unit (FASRU) at the Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR) at the University of Cape Town. Primarily interested in childbirth, with a special focus on gender and qualitative methodologies. She is mother of two, doula, and nature lover.

Rachelle J. Chadwick is NRF Research Career Fellow in Gender Studies at the University of Cape Town. She is a feminist psychologist and has published papers on gender and reproductive health, qualitative methodology and childbirth narratives.

Acknowledgements

The first author would like to acknowledge funding from the CSSR which supported the writing of the working paper on which this article is based (See http://cssr.uct.ac.za/pub/wp/385). She also wishes to thank all the participants who gave of their time so willingly, Elena Moore for tireless support and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Notes

1. Homebirth support groups were chosen as a site for sampling to both recruit participants and conduct participant observation. This helped ensured that although the sample was limited, the socio-cultural shaping of homebirth as a localized resistance practice (See Viisainen, 2001), as observed over a two-year period in Cape Town, was able to inform the analysis.