Making 'Postmodern' Mothers—Pregnant Embodiment, Baby Bumps and Body Image

This book, the first of its kind, provides a multi-disciplinary, empirical account of pregnant embodiment and how it fits into wider sociological and feminist discourses about gender, bodies, "fitness," "fat," feminism, celebrity and motherhood. This study draws on original qualitative data collected in Australia with pregnant women, their partners, and maternity industry professionals including maternity designers. The voices of pregnant women are located at the centre of a range of competing social discourses to reveal what the author describes as "postmodern" pregnancy, an experience that highlights the contradictions inherent in being a contemporary woman in the West: Eat junk food but do not get fat. Wear "sexy" clothing but be a "good" selfless mother. Be "fit" but do not exercise too much. "Postmodern" pregnancy features as an ambivalent and uncertain experience, with women constantly negotiating the boundaries of both femininity and motherhood in a neo-liberal socio-political and economic context that both promotes and constrains their "choices."

MEREDITH NASH is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Tasmania, Australia.