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Pregnancy is considered a uniquely feminine experience, which is both a bodily, individual experience, and a socially constructed situation. From a sociologically perspective, the phenomenology of bodily experience should be go apart from mental perceptions and should be based on the way body is understood in a social medium. Investigating personal experiences of pregnant embodiment, I decided to debate on existing stereotypes of pregnancy associated concepts, such motherhood, sexuality, childbirth, bodily changes and connect them to existing sociological frameworks to define whether they fit my bodily experience. In addition, I need to define whether there are certain peculiarities of bodily experience during pregnancy or not. Finally, there is also an interesting perceptive of considering pregnancy embodiment as limits for a body to engage into various activities.
According to Shilling (2005), body is regarded as a source of society; at the same time, it cannot be considered exclusively an object. Indeed, I realize that body has extreme responsibility for all processes regulated within. Pregnancy is among those duties that a body should be in charge. This provides me with a source of situated experience; at the same time, I understand that bodily experiences should also be connected to meaning of the world construction. Biological changes make humans change their attitude to their bodies.
The existing social stereotypes dictated by bodily experience allow me to understand the value of integrity of bodily process shaping a medium (Klent, 2000). I have always been thinking over the source of person’s decisions and abilities. For instance, how can a person understand that something is wrong with his/her organism? Personal experience make people interact and discuss development of social variation in acceptance or refusal of a body image (Uotinen, 2011). Indeed, the knowledge hidden under the bodily experience complements people’s decision. It shapes a sort of bodily consciousness that directs’ human incentives and needs.
Being pregnant, I started searching for books, journals and resources to learn more about this condition to reassure myself that my personal experiences were “normal” and everything goes in accordance with the accepted norms. Hence, pregnancy conditions are largely identified by social stereotypes that shaped through bodily experiences (Kelly 2005; Oliver, 2010). On the one hand, objectivity presented in the concept of pregnancy is limited to the above-presented conception.
On the other hand, there is also a feeling of subjectivity and alienation from the surrounding world. Indeed, Young (2005) explains, “split subject appears in the eroticism of pregnancy, in which the woman can experience an innocent narcissism fed by recollection of her repressed experience of her own mother’s body” (p. 46-47). Aside from the new roles and sensitivities, I felt a strong affiliation to the past experience when my body was not changing in such a quick manner. I realized that this state is temporal, but still I considered it a certain period of approaching a new feminine identity.
Alienation and subjectivity that were felt during pregnancy often contradict the theories of immanence of female’s body with fetus. Such an assumption proves that the image of self and body are closely intertwined (Root & Browner, 2001). In particular, my bodily perception have been justified in the studies by Root and Browner (2001) as the scholars have proved “…pregnancy is characterized by a split subjectivity in which women straddle the authoritative and the subjugated” (p. 196).
Probably, such a perception occurs in case some of female’s social and cultural needs are limited because of pregnancy. Often women are socially constrained by norms dictated in a community, where culture is of paramount importance because various nationalities view pregnancy from different perspectives. As a result, a set of knowledge from social medium prevents women from expressing their actual needs and attitude to the body image and the self-concept.
Pregnancy and bodily experience concerns provide a solid basis for introducing the concepts of subjectivity and consciousness in the body itself. Though it perils the idea of immanence of between a mother and child, I should agree with this concept. Despite the overall opinion of inherent connection a woman and its fetus, I often felt different in terms of my perception of the world where pregnancy hampers shaping my individuality and identity (Young 1984). It is not that a child is regarded as an obstacle or challenge, but a new stage of development where pregnancy is the required condition.
Subjectivity and alienation is also revealed in broader cultural and social context. For instance, visual pregnancy is often regarded as a gap between private family condition and the public state (Reich, 2003). While being pregnant, I had a wider access to certain public institutions, as well as wider access to medical and social information. Because of a physical condition, my state of being publicly pregnant provides me with a sort of discomfort that alienated me from the private, intimate sector.
Personal reflections on pregnant embodiment and related experiences allowed me to understand the obstacle that all pregnant women might encounter (Ettorre 2008). Anxiety of the confirmed conditions, however, increased my concern with the surrounding opinion because I know that pregnancy is perceived differently at various stages. This is of particular concern to teen pregnancy, marriage status, and many other social factors influencing the public opinion.
With regard to the above-highlighted perspectives, the culture of pregnancy and childbirth involves a number of undercurrents that are predetermined by accepted norms and values in society. Specifically, in a highly industrialized and globalized era, women have reached the equality status with men and, therefore, they have more opportunities for professional realization. However, pregnancy is a condition that creates certain challenges for occupational fulfillment.
From a feminist perspective, childbirth and pregnancy are considered sophisticated social processes (Kent 2000). Specifically, certain technological and social constrains do not allow pregnant women to perceive individual peculiarities of childbirth as normal. Public opinion and health care professionals, therefore, have a significant impact on bodily experiences while being pregnant (Donovan, 2006). Fortunately, all aspects discussed and accepted in society fit my conditions of being pregnant. However, deviation from the accepted norms could have had a significant impact on my individual identity perception.
As I have mentioned earlier, shifts in bodily experiences made me adjust to existing social and cultural norms because I was concerned with the way my future child is influenced by my negative emotions. Hence, I perceived myself as being the main object of the public contemplation, a visual object in a social space. I wish I could conceal my pregnancy so as to protect my child and my private life. In this respect, Waskul and Vannini (2006) explains, “the inability of women to conceal pregnancy in its later stages…and the uncertain nature of the timing and outcome of delivery are all reflected in the dominant societal discourse regarding the fragility and unpredictability of the pregnant body” (p. 264). In this respect, the interruption of nurse professional in self-narrating process alienates bodily experience and introduces a deviant view on pregnancy.
I am lucky to have a positive reaction on my pregnancy. My personal experience of being pregnant enriches my experiences and fulfills my feminine identity. I have managed to experience all functions that a woman can perform in society. However, there are many women that consider pregnancy as burden imposed on their choices in life (Lupton 1999). Probably, such a bodily experience can contribute to their psychological state.
Regardless the fact that women can perceive pregnancy both negatively or positively, the phenomenon still received increased attention in terms of its moral significance (Mullin 2005). In this respect, pregnant women often perceive bodily experience as the one expressing moral identity, as well as the one providing or depriving them of certain alternatives in society (Campbell & Meynell, 2009). In my case, pregnancy was a kind of a new philosophy of life that made me enter a new path of personal development.
Currently, the pregnant embodiment is heavily impacted by society, as well as women’s personal acceptance of a new physical condition. My personal experience of being pregnant was both challenging and pleasant because it provided me with a new perspective of fulfilling my feminine identity. What is more important, it allowed me to understand that the feeling of alienation and subjectivity should be considered as normal and adequate because there should be no distinct standards of prenatal condition.
Reference List
Campbell, S, & Meynell, L 2009, Embodiment and Agency. Penn State Press, US.
Donovan, S 2006, ‘Inescapable burden of choice? The impact of a culture of prenatal screening on women’s experiences of pregnancy’. Health Sociology Review, vol.15 no. 4, pp. 397-405.
Ettorre, E 2008, ”Using’ women and the reproductive body: creating disorder in the somatic society’, Conference Papers — American Sociological Association, p. 1.
Kelly, M 2005, ‘What Society Expects When You’re Expecting’, Conference Papers — American Sociological Association, pp. 1-9.
Kent, J 2000, Social perspectives on pregnancy and childbirth for midwives, nurses, and caring professions, Open University Press, US.
Lupton, D 1999, Risk and Sociocultural Theory: New Directions and Perspectives, Cambridge University Press, UK.
Mullin, A 2005, Reconceiving Pregnancy and Childcare: Ethics, Experience, and Reproductive Labor, Cambridge University Press, UK.
Oliver, K 2010, ‘Motherhood, Sexuality and Pregnant Embodiment: Twenty-Five Years of Gestation’, Journal of Feminist Philosophy, vol. 25, no. 4. pp. 760-777.
Reich, JA 2003, ‘Pregnant with Possibility: Reflections on Embodiment, Access, and Inclusion in Field Research’, Qualitative Sociology, vol. 26, no. 3, p. 351.
Root, R, & Browner, C 2001, ‘Practices of the Pregnant Self: Compliance With and Resistance To Prenatal Norms’, Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 195-223.
Shilling, C 2005, The Body in Culture, Technology and Society, SAGE, US.
Uotinen, J 2011, Senses, bodily knowledge, and autoethnography: unbeknown knowledge from ICU experience, Quality Health Research, vol. 21, no. 10, pp 1307-1315.
Waskul, DD, & Vannini, P 2006, Body/Embodiment: Symbolic Interaction and the Sociology of the Body, Ashgate Publishing, US.
Young, IM, 1984, Pregnant Embodiment: Subjectivity and Alienation, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, vol. 9 no. 1, pp. 45-62.
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