The Gender of Pregnancy

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the culturally assumed link between femininity and pregnancy. It situates itself using the feminist theories of performativity (Butler, 1990), female masculinity (Halbertstam, 1998) and the queer art of failure (Halberstam, 2011). The chapter is based on ethnographic research with butch lesbians and genderqueer individuals in British Columbia, Canada. It focuses on these individuals’ desires to experience pregnancy, find appropriate clothes to wear when pregnant, and not being simultaneously socially recognized as both pregnant and masculine. It argues that feminism is still needed to broaden how we gender pregnancy, and to challenge the assumptions and social pressures that link individuals with uteruses to female to femininity to pregnancy and motherhood.

Citation

Walks, M. (2017), "The Gender of Pregnancy", Bonifacio, G.T. (Ed.) Global Currents in Gender and Feminisms, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 181-194. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78714-483-520171017