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<p>Surrogacy is an emerging phenomenon in Canada, facilitated by societal changes and advances in reproductive technologies. Although surrogacy offers individuals an alternative form of family creation, it is rife with issues of inequality and social injustice based on gender, class, age, sexuality and geographical location. These social justice issues are evident in surrogacy discourses, which have influenced public perception on surrogacy and particularly in relation to women and their role as mothers. This exploratory research will examine these discourses and their representations of women and motherhood through a critical discourse analysis combined with a theoretical framework drawing upon post-structural feminist, social constructionist and social justice theories.</p> <p>Surrogacy discourses have been influenced by patriarchal notions of women and motherhood which evolved during time from focusing on issues of paternity, to women’s rights, to children’s bests interests and finally to family interests. Although the rhetoric surrounding surrogacy has changed, the discourses have always contained oppressive norms concerning women and their bodies. With the rise of global markets and capitalism, these oppressive discourses have taken on global implications for families involved in surrogacy arrangements. These implications beckon the attention of the field of social work on various individual, institutional, structural and global levels through program development, research and advocacy. This research will highlight these implications and will explore recommendations for the social work field in the hopes of providing avenues for social workers to act as agents of social change.</p> / Master of Social Work (MSW)

This novel is a family saga that follows Gülsün and her two daughters Sevda and Eda-Eva, who are half-sisters. Gülsün agrees to an arranged marriage with Haydar, a factory worker in Germany, and immigrates from her small village in Turkey to Germany. From this marriage Sevda is born. When she is old enough for kindergarten, Gülsün attends a German language course. She falls in love with the German instructor, Günther, and they begin an affair. Gülsün finds out that she is pregnant and abandons Sevda to live with Günther, who moves them to the outskirts of the city where Haydar cannot find her. Haydar, feeling emasculated and unable to take care of five-year-old Sevda, sends her to his family in Turkey for a couple of years. In a moment of intoxication, Gülsün sets out to reclaim Sevda and to unite her with her half-sister Eda-Eva, who knows nothing about Sevda’s existence. Gülsün, having chosen to follow the riverbank to reach the old apartment where she once lived, falls into the river and drowns. To connect Eda-Eva to her mother’s roots, Günther moves them to the city close to the Turkish community, where she makes friends with Sinem and realizes that she is queer. Years later on a train, Sevda and Eda-Eva meet and become friends, unaware of their connection. As their friendship deepens, the two fall in love. Both girls are desperate to leave their homes (Günther has built a new family for himself, in which Eda-Eva feels like a third wheel. Haydar has remarried a woman from his village back home, who takes out her sadness of infertility on Sevda). Eda-Eva suggests they move to the house in the outskirts, where she used to live with her mother. They arrive at the house that holds Gülsün’s memories in the basement. Lying in bed, the two create a fantasy of a future life together, although the truth becomes more and more undeniable to Sevda.

Yes / Over the past few decades, the number of women having their first babies over the age of thirty-five in most developed societies has steadily increased. Concerns have been raised over this trend amidst warnings of both the increased risk of fertility problems and health risks to mother and child. Despite this, research into the timing of pregnancy in the context of decreasing fertility has been somewhat neglected, with research typically framed in biomedical rather than social terms. However, this area merits closer attention given the contradictory nature of societal messages that simultaneously encourage women to pursue careers and enhance lifestyle, whilst warning of ‘risks’ of infertility and problems in ‘delaying’ motherhood. This article is based on a small-scale qualitative study that uses data drawn from eleven in-depth interviews with ‘older mothers’ about their transition to motherhood. The data was thematically analysed. We found that the women drew upon risk discourses around decreasing fertility and advancing maternal age, and that these discourses impacted on their decisions about the timing of their pregnancies. Some mothers felt that they started trying to conceive at ‘non-ideal’ times, owing to expectations they held about decreasing fertility. We suggest that the impact of contradictory societal messages around the timing of motherhood need to be more clearly considered for their potential effects on the timing of pregnancy and note how this topic brings the personal, and, by implication, the societal, into conflict with the (narrated) biological.

Yes / Though many women may be dissatisfied with their bodies, maternity represents a period when the body deviates significantly from Western beauty ideals. However, the developing corpus of literature is contradictory and there is limited knowledge about the longer-term implications of maternity. Further, much of the early postpartum literature focuses on body image, precluding consideration of broader embodiment and other potential issues. Taking account of recent feminist critiques about acknowledging women’s reproductive capacities, the study reported here explores the embodied subjectivity of longer-term bodily changes resulting from pregnancy, childbirth and early mothering. The data explored are from three focus groups. Mothers were recruited from two universities in the North of England, UK. Data were transcribed and analysed thematically and discursively using a feminist and poststructuralist approach, while also taking account of where language was elusive. A number of contradictory, yet interrelated embodied constructions were identified including the aesthetic, the maternal, the suffering/sentient, the strong and the embarrassing body. New insights are offered, in that, not only are the postpartum body and the ‘work of mothering’ inextricably linked, but also that maternal embodied identities are in continuous process across the life course and may have implications for health and well-being.

This study examines secular mommy bloggers, a group of women who blog about the difficulties of being a nonbeliever parent in a predominantly religious society. In this study, I explore the rhetorical dimensions of four separate blogs by investigating how each mother builds identity within her personal blog and how her sense of identity enables her to construct individual ethos. Furthermore, I illustrate how the individual ethos of each blogger contributes to a group ethos representing the entire secular parenting community. Ultimately, I show how these mothers rhetorically set themselves apart from other nonbeliever/secular groups. / Master of Arts

This qualitative study used a phenomenological approach to understand the experience of 10 later-life mothers who had a first child at age 35 or older and were in the process of raising a teenager. Data were collected with semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic coding. Initial findings suggest maternal age contributes to a positive parenting outcome due to life experience, emotional maturity and financial security. Drawbacks include fatigue and reduced fertility that limited family size, as well as competing life stages such as retirement and college. Older mothers felt in the mainstream. Clinical implications are discussed. / Master of Science

No / This study aimed to enable a cohort of women to describe their personal experiences of motherhood in the context of problematic substance use and street-based prostitution. The study also aimed to describe the impact upon women of separation from their children. Findings that emerged from focus group data were organised into four over-arching themes: children and motherhood, personal accounts of drug use and street-based prostitution, risks to women and their children and supportive/unsupportive factors in the women’s lives. Each theme consisted of many categories that illustrated the impact of dependent drug use and involvement in prostitution on the lives of the women and their children. This article describes the theme of children and motherhood. Involvement in street-based prostitution is extremely risky, frequently characterised by calculated risk taking, with consequences for both the woman and her children. Parental responsibilities and lifestyle contribute to stress, which is typically compounded by problematic substance use. Risks are increased for both the woman and her children when timely and appropriate support is unavailable. Emphasis should be placed upon the proactive identification and implementation of positive supportive strategies. Ethical approval was obtained via the Local Research Ethics Committee to undertake this research study.

by Cheung Pui Sze. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [130-134]). / List of Tables --- p.i / Abstract --- p.ii / Acknowledgments --- p.iii / Chapter Chapter One: --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- Literature Review --- p.12 / Chapter Chapter Three: --- Social Conditions and Meanings of Being Parents --- p.28 / Chapter Chapter Four: --- Organization of Parenthood --- p.47 / Chapter Chapter Five: --- Experiences of Motherhood and Fatherhood --- p.87 / Chapter Chapter Six: --- Conclusion --- p.121 / Appendix A / Appendix B / Bibliography