Homeland Maternity: US Security Culture and the New Reproductive Regime

by Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz

Overview

In US security culture, motherhood is a site of intense contestation—both a powerful form of cultural currency and a target of unprecedented assault. Linked by an atmosphere of crisis and perceived vulnerability, motherhood and nation have become intimately entwined, dangerously positioning national security as reliant on the control of women's bodies. Drawing on feminist scholarship and critical studies of security culture, Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz explores homeland maternity by calling our attention to the ways that authorities see both non-reproductive and "overly" reproductive women's bodies as threats to social norms—and thus to security. Homeland maternity culture intensifies motherhood's requirements and works to discipline those who refuse to adhere. Analyzing the opt-out revolution, public debates over emergency contraception, and other controversies, Fixmer-Oraiz compellingly demonstrates how policing maternal bodies serves the political function of securing the nation in a time of supposed danger—with profound and troubling implications for women's lives and agency.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252042355
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	03/02/2019
Series:	Feminist Media Studies
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz is an assistant professor of communication at the University of Iowa.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Homeland Maternity, the New Reproductive Regime 1

1 Securing Motherhood on the Home Front 31

2 Risky Reproduction and the Politics of Octomom 59

3 Post-Prevention? Conceptualizing Emergency Contraception 85

4 Crisis Pregnancy and the Colonization of the Clinic 111

Conclusion: Just Pregnancy, Just Parenting in the Age of Homeland Maternity 141

Notes 161

Bibliography 209

Index 245