Abstract
This article examines Katie Vigos’s petition and Instagram account @empoweredbirthproject that protests the social media platform’s censorship against images of physiologic births. In analyzing specific images, captions, and responses from the audience, I argue that Vigos’s project functions as an alternative form of birth educational material that retrains the audience’s gaze and feelings toward birth and the laboring body. I demonstrate that @empoweredbirthproject actively disrupts the dominant articulation of childbirth as pathological and the laboring body as abject by prompting audience members to consider the ideological underpinnings behind their emotional reactions toward images of physiologic births.
Notes
1 I use gender-neutral language to discuss birth and pregnancy unless the authors and sources I engage with identify as or refer specifically to women.
2 While the user comments I analyze here are all public, I am aware that individuals’ expectations of online privacy can be ambiguous and fluid. I have chosen not to include any of these users’ handles.
3 Vigos and her account followers use the terms “hands-free birth,” “free birth,” and “unassisted birth” interchangeably.
4 Some examples include @biffandi, @momsincolor, and @indigemama.