Motherhood and the contradictions of feminism: Appraising claims towards emancipation in the perspective of surrogacy

Abstract

This article aims to explore some of the fundamental notions that connect the narrative of feminist emancipation to the experience of motherhood. It elucidates any inherent contradictions, appraises their implications for motherhood and assesses their respective salience today for feminist thought. It does so, in particular, by setting motherhood in a wider context where contradictions to feminist theory surface clearly: namely, through dialogues from empirical findings in contemporary motherhood studies and in the context of surrogacy and artificial reproductive technologies (ARTs). Ostensibly, one of the prominent tenets of classic feminism has been its disparaging view of motherhood as being the bastion of women’s subordination in a patriarchal society – the corollary being that the emancipation of women could happen only through opposition to or, at best, despite motherhood. The first two sections of the article present classic concepts related to domestic life and motherhood that lambast institutions of male domination, still highly influential in shaping discussions of women’s movements around the world. The third section focuses on feminism’s controversy over the practice of surrogacy and contends that the epistemological distinction between giving birth and mothering posited by feminism actually legitimizes ARTs’ continuing transformation of women’s bodies into ‘open access flesh’. This is the terrain on which today technology, not patriarchy, is erected. The fourth section surveys a range of vibrant, recent motherhood studies and reclaims the empowering capacity of motherhood at grassroots level, with wider implications. The conclusion raises the issue of ‘mothering as empowerment’ as a missing piece in the broader landscape of feminist theory, particularly in light of findings that there is a significant concurrence of values and practices characterizing how women with children self-define themselves, as both moral and social agents.