![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
Feminist scholars have been critical of the expectations placed upon mothers to accomplish a perfect version of motherhood, but have often failed to interrogate the values about normalcy and disability imbedded in modern mothering ideologies. Mothers with disabilities are well positioned to expose the underlying beliefs about normalcy with which all mothers must contend. Drawing from interviews and focus groups conducted with mothers who have physical and sensory disabilities, I explore Deaf/disabled women’s experiences negotiating the scientific motherhood regime. Illuminating a paradox, I argue these women are labeled “risky mothers” under scientific motherhood, which prizes the management of risk and the prevention of disability. Yet, these mothers are simultaneously rendered invisible by inaccessible and inflexible medical practices, and by a consumer market of expert advice which prescribes that mothers inhabit a typical body. These women’s experiences illuminate the normalcy project as a central tenet of scientific motherhood.
References
|
Alvarez Manninen, Bertha . 2015. The replaceable fetus: A reflection on abortion and disability. Disability Studies Quarterly 35(1). http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3239/3831 (accessed August 15, 2016). Google Scholar | |
|
Apple, Rima D. 2006. Perfect motherhood: Science and childrearing in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Armstrong, Elizabeth M. 2000. Lessons in control: Prenatal education in the hospital. Social Problems 47 (4): 583-605. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Armstrong, Elizabeth M. 2003. Conceiving risk, bearing responsibility: Fetal alcohol syndrome and the diagnosis of moral disorder. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Baynton, Douglas C. 2001. Disability and the justification of inequality in American history. In The new disability history: American perspectives, edited by Longmore, Paul K., Umansky, Lauri New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Blum, Linda M. 2015. Raising Generation RX: Mothering kids with invisible disabilities in an age of inequality. New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Bruer, John T. 1999. The myth of the first three years. New York: Free Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Carey, Allison C. 2009. On the margins of citizenship: Intellectual disability & civil rights in twentieth-century America. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Davis, Lennard J. 2013. Introduction: Normality, power and culture. In The disability studies reader, 4th ed., edited by Davis, Lennard J. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Davis-Floyd, Robbie E. 1992. Birth as an American rite of passage. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Ettorre, Elizabeth . 2009. Prenatal genetic technologies and the social control of pregnant women: A review of the key issues. Marriage & Family Review 45 (5): 448-68. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Flavin, Jeanne . 2009. Our bodies, our crimes: The policing of women’s reproduction in America. New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Fox, Bonnie . 2009. When couples become parents: The creation of gender in the transition to parenthood. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Fox, Bonnie, Neiterman, Elena. 2015. Embodied motherhood: Women’s feelings about their postpartum bodies. Gender & Society 29 (5): 670-93. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Frederick, Angela . 2015. Between stigma and mother-blame: Blind mothers’ experiences in USA hospital postnatal care. Sociology of Health and Illness 37 (8): 1127-41. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie . 2012. The case for conserving disability. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 9 (3): 339-55. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Hansen, Karen V. 2007. Not-so-nuclear families: Class, gender, and networks of care. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Hays, Sharon . 1996. The cultural contradictions of motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Kafer, Alison . 2013. Feminist, queer, crip. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Ladd-Taylor, Molly, Umansky, Lauri. 1998. Bad mothers: The politics of blame in twentieth century America. New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Lagu, Tara, Hannon, Nicholas S., Rothberg, Michael B., Wells, Annalee S., Green, K. Laurie, Windom, McAllister O., Dempsey, Katherine R., Pekow, Penelope S., Avrunin, Jill S., Chen, Aaron, Lindenauer, Peter K. 2013. Access to subspecialty care for people with mobility impairment: A survey. Annals of Internal Medicine 158 (6): 441-46. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Landsman, Gail H. 2009. Reconstructing motherhood & disability in the age of perfect babies. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
|
Lupton, Deborah A. 2012. Precious cargo: Fetal subjects, risk and reproductive citizenship. Critical Public Health 22 (3): 329-40. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Mackendrick, Norah . 2014. More work for mother: Chemical body burdens as a maternal responsibility. Gender & Society 28 (5): 705-28. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Malacrida, Claudia . 2009. Performing motherhood in a disabling world: Dilemmas of motherhood, femininity and disability. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 22 (1): 99-117. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Mauldin, Laura . 2016. Made to hear: Cochlear implants and raising deaf children. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
McCormack, Karen . 2005. Stratified reproduction and poor women’s resistance. Gender & Society 19 (5): 660-79. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Miller, Tina . 2007. Is this what motherhood is all about? Weaving experience and discourse through transition to first-time motherhood. Gender & Society 21 (3): 337-58. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Morris, Theresa . 2013. Cut it out: The C-section epidemic in America. New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Nielsen, Kim E. 2013. A disability history of the United States. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Preston, Paul . 2012. Parents with disabilities. In International encyclopedia of rehabilitation. http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/encyclopedia/en/article/36/ (accessed June 10, 2016). Google Scholar | |
|
Prilleltensky, Ora . 2003. A ramp to motherhood: The experiences of mothers with physical disabilities. Disability and Sexuality 21 (1): 21-47. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Pugh, Allison J. 2005. Selling compromise: Toys, motherhood, and the cultural ideal. Gender & Society 19 (6): 729-49. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Rapp, Rayna . 2000. Testing women, testing the fetus: The social impact of amniocentesis in America. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
|
Reich, Jennifer A. 2014. Neoliberal mothering and vaccine refusal: Imagined gated communities and the privilege of choice. Gender & Society 28 (5): 679-704. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Remennick, Larissa . 2006. The quest for the perfect baby: Why do Israeli women seek prenatal genetic testing? Sociology of Health & Illness 28 (1): 21-53. Google Scholar | Medline | ISI | |
|
Rivera Drew, Julia A. 2009. Disability and the self-reliant family: Revisiting the literature on parents with disabilities. Marriage & Family Review 45:431-47. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Romagnoli, Amy, Wall, Glenda. 2012. “I know I’m a good mother”: Young, low-income mothers’ experiences with risk perception, intensive parenting ideology and parenting education programs. Health, Risk & Society 14 (3): 273-89. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Song, Felicia W., West, Jennifer, Lundy, Lisa, Dahmen, Nicole S. 2012. Women, pregnancy, and health information online: The making of informed patients and ideal mothers. Gender & Society 26 (5): 773-98. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Thomas, Carol . 1997. The baby and the bath water: Disabled women and mothering in social context. Sociology of Health & Illness 19 (5): 622-43. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Wall, Glenda . 2004. Is your child’s brain potential maximized? Mothering in an age of new brain research. Atlantis: A Women’s Studies Journal 28 (2): 41-50. Google Scholar | |
|
Wall, Glenda . 2010. Mothers’ experiences with intensive parenting and brain development discourse. Women’s Studies International Forum 33 (3): 253-63. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Wolf, Joan Beth . 2011. Is breast best? Taking on the breastfeeding experts and the new high stakes of motherhood. New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar |
