TY - JOUR
T1 - Essentialism as a form of resistance
T2 - an ethnography of gender dynamics in contemporary home births
AU - Santos, Mário J.D.S.
AU - Augusto, Amélia
AU - Clausen, Jette Aaroe
AU - Cohen Shabot, Sara
N1 - Funding Information: This research was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (grant number SFRH/BD/99993/2014). This article contributes to the EU COST Action IS1405, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). Funding Information: This work was supported by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology [IS1405 BIRTH]; Funda??o para a Ci?ncia e a Tecnologia [SFRH/BD/99993/2014]. This research was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (grant number SFRH/BD/99993/2014). This article contributes to the EU COST Action IS1405, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). Publisher Copyright: © 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2019/11/17
Y1 - 2019/11/17
N2 - Feminist scholars have criticised the essentialist construction of femininity associated with ‘natural’ childbirth movements. Along these debates, planned midwife-attended home births stand as the typical representation of this counterculture. In this article, we present data from a multi-sited ethnography on Portuguese home births where we analyse how gender ideologies are reproduced and operationalised by families and home birth professionals. Our findings illustrate how home birth care and associated practices are configuring apparently contradicting gender ideologies. Essentialist perspectives, which conceive birth as an opportunity to reconnect with women's oppressed femininity, coexist with non-binary conceptions of gender, where masculinity and femininity are regarded as fluid forms of energy that everyone has in different degrees, and where men are potentially welcomed in the birth setting, either as fathers or as professionals. Given the androcentric references of modern obstetrics and the marginal position of home birth, we argue that essentialism was constructed as a form of resistance.
AB - Feminist scholars have criticised the essentialist construction of femininity associated with ‘natural’ childbirth movements. Along these debates, planned midwife-attended home births stand as the typical representation of this counterculture. In this article, we present data from a multi-sited ethnography on Portuguese home births where we analyse how gender ideologies are reproduced and operationalised by families and home birth professionals. Our findings illustrate how home birth care and associated practices are configuring apparently contradicting gender ideologies. Essentialist perspectives, which conceive birth as an opportunity to reconnect with women's oppressed femininity, coexist with non-binary conceptions of gender, where masculinity and femininity are regarded as fluid forms of energy that everyone has in different degrees, and where men are potentially welcomed in the birth setting, either as fathers or as professionals. Given the androcentric references of modern obstetrics and the marginal position of home birth, we argue that essentialism was constructed as a form of resistance.
KW - Homebirth
KW - Portugal
KW - discourse
KW - emancipation
KW - essentialism
KW - ethnography
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85070490633&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2019.1650256
DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2019.1650256
M3 - Article
SN - 0958-9236
VL - 28
SP - 960
EP - 972
JO - Journal of Gender Studies
JF - Journal of Gender Studies
IS - 8
ER -
