Legislating Ideologies of Motherhood

Diduck, Alison

doi:10.1177/096466399300200406

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…It was expected that partners and family members, but particularly women, acted as ‘gatekeepers’ in preventing their loved ones from taking, or wanting to take, substances, supporting the claim that woman's idealised role within the traditional family can centre on female (but not male) drug users’ ‘inability’ to keep their families together (Hannah-Moffat, 2007, p. 230). Expectations about the ‘natural’ role of mothers feeds into well-established scholarship on the social construction of motherhood and observations about the ways in which the law shapes normative ideals about women and mothers (a woman must be a mother, selflessly available to her children, and so on) (Smart, 1991; Diduck, 1993). Child-protection law, in particular, can create an opposition between the rights of children and mothers, so that women may be held individually responsible for failing to protect their children from socio-economic risks such as poverty (Kline, 1993).…”

Section: Gendered Judgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Substance misuse and parenting: making drugs and gender in the family court

Flacks

2019

International Journal of Law in Context

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Children tend to be represented as the quintessential victims of the ‘drug problem’, with drug-using parents, particularly mothers, characterised as vectors of the risks posed. Although evidence of drug use is not per se an impediment to retaining care of, or contact with, children (per Lady Hale in Re B [2013] UKSC 33, at para. 143), it does pose one of the greatest challenges to social and political norms about ‘good parenting’, and often has a powerful impact on decisions about care within UK family courts. While there is a considerable body of scholarship assessing criminal justice responses to drug use, there has been little research into how the family serves as an important site for the constitution of drug harms and the making of ‘drugs’ and ‘addiction’. This paper is informed by qualitative analysis of approximately 150 case reports in which drug use has been cited as relevant in the determination of guardianship/parenting. The purpose will not be to contest the difficult decisions that judges had to make in these cases but, using perspectives rooted in Science and Technology Studies and feminist drug scholarship, to remain attendant to the ontological multiplicity of objects that emerge from attempts to stabilise drug harms in legal narratives.

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Section: Gendered Judgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Substance misuse and parenting: making drugs and gender in the family court

Flacks

2019

International Journal of Law in Context

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“…This focus on the legal regulation of motherhood and reproduction was followed up in later issues (e.g. Belcher, 2000;Boyd, 1996;Chunn and Gavigan, 2004;Diduck, 1993;Fegan, 1996Fegan, , 2002Hacker, 2005;Lttichau, 2004;Sheldon, 1996).…”

Section: Social and Legal Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Boyd¹,

Parkes

2017

Social & Legal Studies

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This article offers a review of shifts in feminist legal theory since the early 1990s. We first use our respective histories and fields of expertise to provide a brief overview and highlight some key themes within feminist legal theory. We then examine Social & Legal Studies ( SLS), asking whether it has met its key goal of integrating feminist analyses at every level. Our review suggests that SLS has offered many important contributions to feminist legal scholarship but has not fulfilled its lofty goal of integrating feminist analyses at every level of scholarship. It features feminist work quite consistently and some degree of mainstreaming is evident, as is the international reach of SLS. Too many articles fail, however, to incorporate or even mention feminist approaches. We end with thoughts about, and hopes for, the future of legal feminism, examining efforts to revitalize the field and suggesting possible directions for the future.

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“…More generally, the development of foetal rights seems to be grounded in the perception of a fundamental antagonism between woman and foetus (see Thomson, 1994). Commenting on foetal rights in Canada, Diduck (1993) points out how the whole idea of legal personality of foetuses is based on the duty of society as a whole to protect the human life that the foetus represents. In some cases, the rights of the woman conflict with those of the foetus, in which case a balancing exercise must take place.…”

Section: Enforced Caesareans In Wider Perspective: St George's Healthcare and Beyondmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(C. Dyer, The Guardian, 19 February 1997) Underlying this accusation that S was seeking revenge is the idea that she refused to bring the sacrifices that are normally expected of pregnant women. As several authors have pointed out (for example Diduck, 1993;Thomson, 1998), the notion of maternal sacrifice is a core element in the prevailing cultural construction of motherhood. A bad mother is a woman who is not prepared to sacrifice her own well-being for that of the foetus she is carrying.…”

Section: 'Caesarean Mom's Bid To Sue Docs': St George's Healthcare In the Pressmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This suggests that S was behaving in an almost immoral way. Elsewhere (see Diduck, 1993), it has been argued that there is a tacit agreement between a pregnant woman and society as a whole that once a woman has chosen to continue the pregnancy, she is under a moral and sometimes even a legal duty to accept medical treatment in the interest of the foetus. 14 Refusing treatment and remaining indifferent in the light of it all, like S did, amounts to a serious breach of this contract.…”

Section: 'Caesarean Mom's Bid To Sue Docs': St George's Healthcare In the Pressmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Contesting the Rule of Emotions? The Press and Enforced Caesareans

Gies

2000

Social & Legal Studies

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The mass media are becoming increasingly interested in legal trials. This has led to concerns that legal rationality could be threatened by an emotionally driven media spectacle. The dichotomy between emotions and law has recently come to the fore in the enforced caesarean case of St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust v S[1998]. Studying the press reports on this case, my argument is that maintaining this dichotomy can produce the undesirable effect of justifying coercive medical treatment of pregnant women as an authentic, natural and spontaneous response. Emotions in this respect have to be denaturalized. Coercive surgery for pregnant women is neither a universal nor a necessary response, but one that has to be situated in its appropriate ideological, cultural and philosophical context. This requires attention to be focused on the fluidity and possible interconnections of law and emotions, and not so much on their polarity and mutual exclusion.

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Legislating Ideologies of Motherhood

Cited by 10 publications

References 13 publications

Substance misuse and parenting: making drugs and gender in the family court

Substance misuse and parenting: making drugs and gender in the family court

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Contesting the Rule of Emotions? The Press and Enforced Caesareans

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