Being Nonmother in a Pronatalist Culture

Year 2018, Volume: 10 Issue: 2, 84 - 97, 01.06.2018

Meral Salman Yıkmış

Abstract

Being Nonmother in a Pronatalist Culture This qualitative research tries to understand how the pronatalist cultural acceptances, which promote reproduction by locating the family within the centre of social life and conflating womanhood with motherhood, mould non-mother women’s relationship with their husbands/partners, family members, friends with children and with other people they meet in their everyday life. To find answers to this research question, I apply the data derived from the face-to-face interviews and e-interviews conducted with fourteen childless women. To be able to understand how the participants find themselves within the pronatalist culture and perceive their gendered being, first of all I focus on their conceptualizing of womanhood and motherhood and then, on their relationship with others. The urban life and the social milieu relatively protect them from the pronatalist cultural acceptances. Yet they cannot totally escape from connection with people who can easily pose questions about their childlessness or give advice to them about having children or feel sorry for their childlessness. For those women who question the pronatalist cultural acceptances, childlessness becomes a field of struggle and they become the subjects of it. The others who develop strategies without challenging the sexist dimension of pronatalist culture unknowingly weaken mothers and non-mothers although they just want to get empowered

Keywords

pronatalism, pronatalist culture, motherhood, childlessness, relationship with others

Pronatalist Kültürde Anne Olmamak

Abstract

Bu niteliksel çalışma aileyi merkeze alarak üremeyi teşvik eden ve kadınlıkla anneliği eş tutan pronatalist kültürel kabullerin, anne olmayan kadınların eşleriyle/partnerleriyle, aileleriyle, çocuklu arkadaşlarıyla ve gündelik hayatlarındaki diğer kişilerle kurdukları ilişkileri nasıl biçimlendirdiğini kavramaya çalışmaktadır. Bu araştırma sorusuna yanıt bulabilmek için on dört çocuksuz kadınla yüz yüze ve e-mülakat tekniğiyle yaptığım mülakatlardan elde ettiğim verileri kullanıyorum. Öncelikle katılımcıların pronatalist kültür içerisinde nasıl konumlandığını ve kendi cinsiyetli oluşlarını nasıl kavradıklarını anlayabilmek için katılımcıların kadınlığı ve anneliği kavramsallaştırma biçimleri, ardından eşleri/partnerleri, aileleri ve diğerleri ile olan ilişkileri üzerinde duruyorum. Katılımcılar açısından kent yaşamı ve kendi sosyal çevreleri onlara görece korunaklılık sağlayabiliyor fakat çocuksuzlukla ilgili kendilerine yöneltilen sorular, çocuk doğurmaları yönünde yapılan tavsiyeler, çocuksuz oldukları için onlara acınması rahatsızlık duydukları ilişkilenme biçiminlerinden tamamen uzak durmanın mümkün olamadığını gösteriyor. Pronatalist kültürel kabullere daha eleştirel yaklaşabilen kadınlar açısından çocuksuzluk kendilerini fail olarak konumlandırabildikleri bir mücadele alanı olabiliyor fakat mevcut pronatalist değerlerin cinsiyetçiliğini sorgulamadan strateji geliştirmeye çalışan kadınlar, güçlenmeye çalışırken farkına varmaksızın anne olan veya olmayan kadınları güçsüzleştirmeye yöneliyor

Keywords

pronatalizm, pronatalist kültür, annelik, çocuksuzluk, gündelik ve yakın ilişkiler

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