Brown Bodies, White Babies examines surrogacy as a location that reveals the cultural and politic... more Brown Bodies, White Babies examines surrogacy as a location that reveals the cultural and political context in which traditional notions of family and race are shored up, and potentially disruptive social phenomenon are reabsorbed into the hegemonic norm. What I term “cross-racial gestational surrogacy”—when a surrogate carries a pregnancy for intended parents of a different race—demonstrates how boundaries of likeness and difference are drawn and negotiated. . Surrogacy is an example of a social practice that has the potential to destabilize hegemonic ideologies, yet is recast through popular, medical, and legal discourse as a means to uphold traditional social constructs. Through an analysis of surrogacy, I unpack the ideological work that is done socially, politically, and legally to draw distinct boundaries around very limited definitions of “family,” “kinship,” and “mother,” and which reifies races into biologically distinct, genetically based categories.
This essay examines what I call “crossracial gestational surrogacy,” a practice in which prospect... more This essay examines what I call “crossracial gestational surrogacy,” a practice in which prospective parents of one race contract with a woman of another race to carry their child. I situate surrogacy within transnational circuits of reproductive labor, particularly “reproductive tourism” from the United States to India. This essay examines how Western notions of race and genetic determinism are mapped uneasily onto surrogacy in India, including the ways in which Indian surrogates resist or complicate these discourses in creating their own narratives of surrogacy. The essay also interrogates the question of agency; while many critique reproductive tourism in India as yet another example of the wealthy elite exploiting the labor of poor women of color, or celebrate it as an empowering transnational example of women-helping-women, the reality is far more complicated. Moreover, intended parents benefit from the racial and economic “differences” between themselves and Indian surrogates.
The story of motherhood in popular culture has never been a simple one. Cross-cut by race, class,... more The story of motherhood in popular culture has never been a simple one. Cross-cut by race, class, and sexuality (and, importantly, marital status), interwoven with changing psychological and biological theories and fantasies, tied up with nation-building and citizenship claims, images of motherhood remain both template and signpost upon which we project our desires for kinship and care and our most vexed understandings of womanhood and femininity. This essay examines fictional motherhood in an era of real-life Octomoms and presidential candidates. We argue that a new type of mother has emerged—particularly on TV—that presents a radical departure. From the suburban mom/drug dealer of Showtime's outré series Weeds to the vapid 1960s wife of Mad Men, aberrant mothers abound in contemporary culture. But, unlike aberrant mothers of earlier eras, these mothers are by and large heroines, unapologetically non-normative in their maternal functioning. The parenting is cursory at best and often downright neglectful, behavior that has typically resulted in sure death for Hollywood mothers of earlier eras. We examine these images as a challenge to normative familialism and rigid gender ideologies.
The article focuses on the Quiverfull movement, which began in the 1980s in the United States. Th... more The article focuses on the Quiverfull movement, which began in the 1980s in the United States. The movement derives its name from Psalm 127, which considers children to be a "heritage from the Lord" and compares them to arrows in a quiver with which believers may face their enemies. Quiverfull members are evangelical Christians who eschew all forms of birth control as interference with God's divine plan. Women, in particular, are encouraged to sacrifice their bodies for unfettered reproduction and to submit to both God and their husbands, who are their earthly masters. Examined are popular media representations of the movement, as well as Quiverfull members' own self-representations, including books, news articles, online articles, blogs, and television shows, to assess Quiverfull's larger cultural significance and analyze the movement in the context of pro-natalism and the backlash against feminism. The article argues that the Quiverfull movement is a community of members who are connected through their belief in gender essentialism, divine control of reproduction, and culture war. However, the article insists that the movement does not represent simply a reactionary impulse-it does not merely desire a return to some simple, mythic past; rather, Quiverfull readily engages with modern culture in order to argue for its worldview. By connecting its movement through modern technology, using the mainstream media to gain credibility by emphasizing common values, and co-opting the rhetoric of feminism, the movement works both within and challenges cultural norms.
Brown Bodies, White Babies examines surrogacy as a location that reveals the cultural and politic... more Brown Bodies, White Babies examines surrogacy as a location that reveals the cultural and political context in which traditional notions of family and race are shored up, and potentially disruptive social phenomenon are reabsorbed into the hegemonic norm. What I term “cross-racial gestational surrogacy”—when a surrogate carries a pregnancy for intended parents of a different race—demonstrates how boundaries of likeness and difference are drawn and negotiated. . Surrogacy is an example of a social practice that has the potential to destabilize hegemonic ideologies, yet is recast through popular, medical, and legal discourse as a means to uphold traditional social constructs. Through an analysis of surrogacy, I unpack the ideological work that is done socially, politically, and legally to draw distinct boundaries around very limited definitions of “family,” “kinship,” and “mother,” and which reifies races into biologically distinct, genetically based categories.
This essay examines what I call “crossracial gestational surrogacy,” a practice in which prospect... more This essay examines what I call “crossracial gestational surrogacy,” a practice in which prospective parents of one race contract with a woman of another race to carry their child. I situate surrogacy within transnational circuits of reproductive labor, particularly “reproductive tourism” from the United States to India. This essay examines how Western notions of race and genetic determinism are mapped uneasily onto surrogacy in India, including the ways in which Indian surrogates resist or complicate these discourses in creating their own narratives of surrogacy. The essay also interrogates the question of agency; while many critique reproductive tourism in India as yet another example of the wealthy elite exploiting the labor of poor women of color, or celebrate it as an empowering transnational example of women-helping-women, the reality is far more complicated. Moreover, intended parents benefit from the racial and economic “differences” between themselves and Indian surrogates.
The story of motherhood in popular culture has never been a simple one. Cross-cut by race, class,... more The story of motherhood in popular culture has never been a simple one. Cross-cut by race, class, and sexuality (and, importantly, marital status), interwoven with changing psychological and biological theories and fantasies, tied up with nation-building and citizenship claims, images of motherhood remain both template and signpost upon which we project our desires for kinship and care and our most vexed understandings of womanhood and femininity. This essay examines fictional motherhood in an era of real-life Octomoms and presidential candidates. We argue that a new type of mother has emerged—particularly on TV—that presents a radical departure. From the suburban mom/drug dealer of Showtime's outré series Weeds to the vapid 1960s wife of Mad Men, aberrant mothers abound in contemporary culture. But, unlike aberrant mothers of earlier eras, these mothers are by and large heroines, unapologetically non-normative in their maternal functioning. The parenting is cursory at best and often downright neglectful, behavior that has typically resulted in sure death for Hollywood mothers of earlier eras. We examine these images as a challenge to normative familialism and rigid gender ideologies.
The article focuses on the Quiverfull movement, which began in the 1980s in the United States. Th... more The article focuses on the Quiverfull movement, which began in the 1980s in the United States. The movement derives its name from Psalm 127, which considers children to be a "heritage from the Lord" and compares them to arrows in a quiver with which believers may face their enemies. Quiverfull members are evangelical Christians who eschew all forms of birth control as interference with God's divine plan. Women, in particular, are encouraged to sacrifice their bodies for unfettered reproduction and to submit to both God and their husbands, who are their earthly masters. Examined are popular media representations of the movement, as well as Quiverfull members' own self-representations, including books, news articles, online articles, blogs, and television shows, to assess Quiverfull's larger cultural significance and analyze the movement in the context of pro-natalism and the backlash against feminism. The article argues that the Quiverfull movement is a community of members who are connected through their belief in gender essentialism, divine control of reproduction, and culture war. However, the article insists that the movement does not represent simply a reactionary impulse-it does not merely desire a return to some simple, mythic past; rather, Quiverfull readily engages with modern culture in order to argue for its worldview. By connecting its movement through modern technology, using the mainstream media to gain credibility by emphasizing common values, and co-opting the rhetoric of feminism, the movement works both within and challenges cultural norms.
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another example of the wealthy elite exploiting the labor of poor women of color, or celebrate it as an empowering transnational example of women-helping-women, the reality is far more
complicated. Moreover, intended parents benefit from the racial and economic “differences” between themselves and Indian surrogates.
another example of the wealthy elite exploiting the labor of poor women of color, or celebrate it as an empowering transnational example of women-helping-women, the reality is far more
complicated. Moreover, intended parents benefit from the racial and economic “differences” between themselves and Indian surrogates.