Motherhood, Fertility and Reproductive Choice: Expert Discourses and Women's Agency, 1960-1980
Referent/in: Isabel Heinemann (Münster)Abstract:
This contribution seeks to analyze women’s agency in matters of motherhood, workforce-participation and reproductive choice during the 1960s and 1970s in the light of the demands of the women’s movement, expert advice, and public debates on fertility and workforce participation. Despite the seemingly broad acceptance of women’s equal rights, a closer look at welfare policies, the availability of child care, and the abortion debate reveals that rigid race and class barriers still hampered women’s equal access to reproductive choice. Whereas the white middle class nuclear family still figured as the national hegemonic model with a strong focus on motherhood as a national duty, women of color, low-income women, and single mothers faced serious discrimination regarding their most private reproductive and child-rearing choices. It is the objective of this paper to trace the relevant debates, investigate the role of social experts, and seek explanations for women’s still unequal access to economic as well as symbolic resources in the USA as part of a broader history of processes of social and normative change in the 20th century.
