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Gender, Place & Culture
A Journal of Feminist Geography
Volume 16, 2009 - Issue 5
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Articles

‘I don't think it was such an issue back then’: changing experiences of pregnancy across two generations of women in south-east England

‘No creo que fuera un gran problema en aquel entonces’: experiencias cambiantes de embarazo a lo largo de dos generaciones de mujeres en el sudoeste de Inglaterra

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Pages 553-568 | Published online: 08 Sep 2009
 

Abstract

Based upon in-depth interviews with recent mothers and their own mothers in London, England, this article uses a cross-generational perspective to examine the changing experiences/perceptions of pregnancy over the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Pregnancy is a biological process, but exists within social, economic, political and cultural realms and is both spatially and temporally located. In this article we argue that advances in gender equality, maternity benefits, technological innovation and mass media have meant that pregnancy is now increasingly experienced in the ‘public’ sphere, whereas, in earlier twentieth century Britain at least, it was often relegated to the realm of private or domestic life. However with these changes have come new types of surveillance in the form of scientific ‘advice’, medical technologies and media dissemination of cultural ‘norms’ regarding appropriate dress, lifestyle and behaviour during pregnancy. Based upon the findings of our research we examine these changes from two different perspectives: firstly a Foucauldian notion of surveillance in relation to ‘medical’ advice on diet/lifestyle during pregnancy, and secondly new expectations regarding body image and clothing in the context of the emergence of ‘pregnancy chic’ and the figure of the ‘celebrity mum’.

Basado en entrevistas profundas con madres recientes y sus propias madres en Londres, Inglaterra, este artículo utiliza una perspectiva intergeneracional para examinar las cambiantes experiencias/percepciones del embarazo durante fines del siglo veinte y principios del siglo veintiuno. El embarazo es un proceso biológico, pero existe dentro de esferas sociales, económicas, políticas y culturales y está situado tanto espacial como temporalmente. En este artículo argumentamos que los avances en igualdad de género, licencia por maternidad, innovación tecnológica y medios masivos de comunicación han hecho que ahora el embarazo sea cada vez más vivido en la esfera ‘pública’, mientras que, en la Gran Bretaña de principios del siglo veinte al menos, era frecuentemente relegado a la esfera privada o doméstica. Sin embargo, con estos cambios han llegado nuevas formas de vigilancia en la forma de ‘recomendación’ científica, tecnologías médicas y la difusión mediática de ‘normas’ culturales respecto a la vestimenta, el estilo de vida y el comportamiento adecuados durante el embarazo. Basándonos en los resultados de nuestra investigación, analizamos estos cambios desde dos perspectivas distintas: primero, una noción Foucaultdiana de vigilancia en relación con las “recomendaciones” médicas sobre dieta/estilo de vida durante el embarazo, y, segundo, nuevas expectativas con respecto la imagen corporal y vestimenta en el contexto del surgimiento del ‘embarazo chic’ y la figura de la ‘mamá de la farándula’.

Acknowledgements

The research for this article was carried out as part of the Leverhulme Trust funded Changing Families, Changing Food programme, a collaboration between Royal Holloway and the University of Sheffield. We would like to thank all our participants for their help in this research, the Leverhulme Trust for supporting the project and Conde Nast Publications for supplying us with illustration.

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