Certain provisions of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act 2004 appear to have been enacted as a legislative response to the objections to surrogacy noted by the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies in 1993. However, the legislation may not be successful in tackling concerns generated by recent developments in assisted reproductive technologies. This thesis identifies the shortcomings of the AHRA provisions that impact its ability to effectively regulate the surrogate act in Canada. The discussion suggests shifting the existing regulatory framework away from the imposition of legislative prohibitions on commercial surrogacy and towards a model that is more effective in dealing with the current reality of the surrogate arrangement. Upon consideration of regulatory regimes in Israel and the United Kingdom, a framework for surrogacy is suggested that balances the reproductive rights of the individuals who participate in such an arrangement, while minimizing the potentially exploitative aspects of the surrogate act.

Certain provisions of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act 2004 appear to have been enacted as a legislative response to the objections to surrogacy noted by the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies in 1993. However, the legislation may not be successful in tackling concerns generated by recent developments in assisted reproductive technologies. This thesis identifies the shortcomings of the AHRA provisions that impact its ability to effectively regulate the surrogate act in Canada. The discussion suggests shifting the existing regulatory framework away from the imposition of legislative prohibitions on commercial surrogacy and towards a model that is more effective in dealing with the current reality of the surrogate arrangement. Upon consideration of regulatory regimes in Israel and the United Kingdom, a framework for surrogacy is suggested that balances the reproductive rights of the individuals who participate in such an arrangement, while minimizing the potentially exploitative aspects of the surrogate act.

The mothering role of African American women has largely been ignored in the literature. Contemporary research on the construct of becoming a mother has focused on upper middle class, White women who are partnered. When African American women are included in research, they are often poor, single, teenage mothers and their experiences have not been described within the context of the African American worldview. Hermeneutic phenomenology from an afrocentric feminist perspective is the methodological approach used in this study to provide insight, analysis, and understanding of the experiences of three generations of African American women in the transition to motherhood. A purposeful sampling of eighteen women from three generations was used to identify information-rich cases that would provide an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon. Generation one included seven women, between the ages of 65-83, who became mothers between 1950-1970, prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Generation two included five women, between the ages 51-58, who became mothers between 1971-1990, after the Civil Rights Movement, and there were six women in generation three, between the ages of 30-42, who became mothers between 1991-2003. All of the women in this study described themselves as middle-class; four women were single when they became pregnant with their first child, and education ranged from high school to master’s degree. Three constitutive patterns and their associated themes were identified. The first pattern, It Took Me a Minute, had three themes, Finding Out, Realizing What Mothers Do and Way Tricked! The second pattern, Preserving Our Home had four themes, Mothering Within the –isms: racism, classism and sexism, I Did the Best I Could, Mothers and Others, and Spiritual Mothers. Eat the Meat; Throw Away the Bone, the third pattern had two themes, The Ways in Which We Learn and Someone Who Looks like Me. The results of this study reveal some consistency with current descriptions of maternal identity and maternal role attainment and add to our understanding of the complexities that racism, classism and gender play in the lives of African American mothers and their families. The data from this study also suggests that future development of theoretical frameworks and analytical tools, used to assess the effects of stress and other psychosocial factors on health, need to be grounded in an historic understanding of the African American experience and of the African influence on family and cultural knowledge. Additionally, this study demonstrated the impact that the media, both professional and mass media outlets, has in defining and perpetuating our beliefs and feelings of the ‘good mother/bad mother’ dualism. The description of motherhood for this group of African American women illustrates that motherhood is a source of power and provides significant meaning, satisfaction and respect within the family and the larger community. It also highlighted the communal role that “othermothers” and spiritual mothers have in facilitating the transition to motherhood and providing strong social support.

Postpartum Depression: Standardizing Motherhood? by Pamela J. Regus Under the Direction of Wendy S. Simonds ABSTRACT An expansion of the medicalization of Postpartum Depression (PPD) is evident in increased screening for maternal depression that begins in pregnancy and continues in the postpartum period, and in the growing number of medical professionals alerted to watch for signs of maternal distress. Although a definitive etiology ofPPDremains elusive, the scientific and medical fields – highly imbued with authority to create knowledge in Western society – promote essentialist views of motherhood that espouse “natural” attributes such as maternal instincts and tendencies to nurture. Mothers who struggle with these standards of motherhood are then defined as being ill and become patients under the care of the medical profession until they can perform adequately in their motherhood roles, or they face social condemnation and legal repercussions for being “bad” mothers. Because characteristics of the “normal” postpartum period are said to be similar to symptoms of general depression, how do some women come to identify their postpartum experiences as depression while others do not? Does the choice of traditional obstetrics or an alternative, such as midwifery, make a difference in the incidence of postpartum depression? And what changes in the social support network occur in a woman’s life as a result of a diagnosis ofPPD? Using Foucault’s theory of docility, critical constructionism, and postmodern feminism as the theoretical focus, and in-depth interviews as the research method, I compare the postpartum experiences of mothers who have been diagnosed with postpartum depression with mothers who have not been diagnosed. The sample includes mothers who gave birth with the assistance of obstetrics and mothers who gave birth with the assistance of certified nurse-midwives. In order to examine the differences in approaches to and treatment of postpartum depression, I also interview a sample of obstetricians and certified nurse-midwives. Findings show that medical professionals use gender-normative assessments, such as physical appearance, language, and nurturing tendencies to determine whether the mother is performing as expected; if not, she is defined as ill and treated with antidepressant medication. Although the majority of mothers in the sample experienced feelings of depression in the postpartum period, many resisted diagnosis and medication. Mothers found the greatest support in their peers, rather than those closest to them, citing the ability to talk candidly about the struggles they face in their motherhood roles as the way to avert or heal from PPD. This finding highlights the enforcement of normative motherhood within the social institutions of the family and medicine; thus, cultural change from ideological representations of motherhood may come about through peer relationships. INDEX WORDS: Postpartum depression, Motherhood, Medicalization, Expansion of medical control, Maternal behavior, Childbearing years, Normative motherhood

A comparison is made between the manner in which motherhood is perceived from a liberal feminist point of view within the patriarchal framework of modern western society, and the way in which it is viewed in ultra-orthodox Judaism among middle-class women. In considering some aspects of motherhood and marriage, a comparison is made between the ethics of liberal feminism, rooted as they are in liberal ideology, and the ethics of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. The problem of the exploitation of women during child-rearing and child-bearing years, as a result of financial dependence on an individual man, and the lack of legislation and protection for women in the private sphere regarding physical and mental abuse in marriage, is considered and compared with that of ultra-Orthodox Judaism where the private sphere is religiously legislated. / Thesis (M.A.) - University of Natal, Durban, 1991.

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This a/r/tographic dissertation offers opportunities to interrogate curator identity and curator ways of being in both public and private spaces. Instead of an authoritative or prescriptive look at the curatorial, this dissertation as catalogue allows for uncertainty, for messiness, for vulnerable spaces where readers are invited into an exhibition of disorderly living. Stitched throughout the study are stories of mothering and the difficulties that accompanied the extremely early birth of my daughter. Becoming a mother provoked my curating in unexpected ways and allowed me to reconsider the reasons I collect, display, and perform as a curator. It was through the actual curating of familial material artifacts in the exhibition Dress Stories, I was able to map the journey of my curatorial turns. My engagement with clothing in the inquiry was informed by the work of Sandra Weber and Claudia Mitchell, where dress as a methodology allows for spaces to consider autobiography, identity, and practice. It was not until the exhibition was over, I was able to discover new ways to thread caring, collecting, and cataloging ourselves as curators, artists, researchers, teachers, and mothers. It prompts curators and teachers to consider possibilities for failure, releasing excess, and uncaring as a way to care for self, objects, and others.

Denna uppsats syftar till att utforska hur mödrar som upplever ånger och tvivel i samband med att vara mamma blir bemötta. Hittills har undersökningar relaterade till ämnet främst analyserat olika chattrådar, men ingen från en svensk kontext. Av den anledningen studerar denna uppsats via en kritisk diskursanalys en chattråd på det svenska forumet Familjeliv. Vad som undersöks är vilka moderskapsdiskurser som framträder i chattinläggen och varför mammor upplever ånger och tvivel kopplat till modersrollen. Det teoretiska ramverket består av Berger och Luckmanns teori om institutioner, Hochschilds begrepp känsloregler, emotionellt arbete samt yt- och djupagerande, Goffmans term fasad och Butlers tolkning av termen genus. Resultatet visar på tre diskurser i datamaterialet; moderskapet som lyckligt, en fälla och inställningen till moderskapet. Ånger och tvivel uttrycks i förhållande till modersrollen när modern inte kan leva upp till diskursen om moderskapet som lyckligt. Då kan mamman känna sig inlurad i modersrollen, eftersom hennes förväntningar om moderskapet inte motsvarade den faktiska modersrollen. Av det skälet kan mamman börja uppleva moderskapet som en fälla. Om modern inte vill eller vet hur hon ska använda emotionellt arbete för att få “rätt” inställning till moderskapet kan hon även börja utveckla känslor av ånger och tvivel i relation till modersrollen. Vad som ligger till grund för förväntningarna om moderskapet är institutionen om familjen. Avslutningsvis har uppsatsarbetet enbart börjat fylla en kunskapslucka och därför kan inga absoluta svar presenteras till frågeställningarna. / This essay aims to explore how mothers who experience regret and doubt in connection with being a mother are treated. So far, studies related to the subject have mainly analysed chat threads, but none from a Swedish context. For this reason, this essay studies a chat thread on the Swedish forum Familjeliv using a critical discourse analysis. We investigate which motherhood discourses appear in the chat posts and why mothers experience regret and doubt linked to their role as a mother. The theoretical framework consists of Berger and Luckmann's theory of institutions, Hochschild's concepts of feeling rules, emotional work and surface and deep acting, Goffman's term facade, and Butler's interpretation of the term gender. The result shows three discourses in the data material; motherhood as joyful, a trap and the attitude towards motherhood. Regret and doubt are expressed in relation to the role as a mother when the mother cannot live up to the discourse of motherhood as joyful. Then the mother may feel tricked into her role as a mother, because her expectations of motherhood did not correspond to the actual role of being a mother. For that reason, the mother may begin to experience motherhood as a trap. If the mother does not want to, or know how to use emotional work, to get the "right" attitude towards motherhood, she can also begin to develop feelings of regret and doubt in relation to her role as a mother. The basis for the expectations about motherhood is the institution of the family. In conclusion, this essay has only begun to fill a knowledge gap and therefore no absolute answers can be given to the questions.

Diploma thesis "The Intensive Motherhood in the Czech Society" deals with the motherhood. It focuses on finding the forms of motherhood in two different social environments in the Czech Republic reflecting the Ideology of Intensive Mothering. In response to identified information from secondary sources in this thesis I consider motherhood a social construct that is proved by the analysis of primary data too. The qualitative research strategy was chosen to achieve defined goals. Outcomes of analysis of the Problem-Centered Interviews, realized with mothers of young children from different social backgrounds, show two different realities of motherhood. This distinction also proves that The Intensive Mothering is not accepted by all mothers. Although the cited authors present it like dominant model, it can't be automatically considered the dominant model in practice.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study explored the experiences of raising children in the context of living with HIV/AIDS. In the fall of 2007, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 17 HIV-positive mothers (8 African American and 9 white) living in Indiana. Spillover theory was used to describe the interacting effects of the experience of living with HIV/AIDS and the experience of motherhood on one another. Findings indicate that maternal ideologies critically affected how the women experienced both their HIV-positive status and their mothering experiences. Findings also show that the mothers developed strategies to help them reconcile their valued identity as mothers with a stigmatized identity as HIV-positive women. Recommendations are made regarding directions for future research, social policy, and social service provision.