1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910826642003321

Autore

Paxson Heather <1968->

Titolo

Making modern mothers [[electronic resource] ] : ethics and family planning in urban greece / / Heather Paxson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2004

ISBN

9786612762918

1-59734-727-2

1-282-76291-5

0-520-93713-9

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (353 p.)

Disciplina

305.42/09495/12

Soggetti

Feminist anthropology - Greece - Athens

Women - Greece - Athens - Social conditions

Motherhood - Greece - Athens

Birth control - Greece - Athens - Public opinion

Public opinion - Greece - Athens

Athens (Greece) Social life and customs

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on Transliteration -- Prologue -- 1. Realizing Nature -- 2. Remaking Mothers -- 3. Rationalizing Sex -- 4. Maternal Citizens -- 5. Technologies of Greek Motherhood -- Appendix 1. Total Fertility Rates, European Union Countries, 1960-2000 -- Appendix 2. Legislation of the Greek State Pertaining to Gender Equality, Marriage, Family, and Reproduction -- Appendix 3. Birthrates, Greece, 1934-1999 -- Notes -- References -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In Greece, women speak of mothering as "within the nature" of a woman. But this durable association of motherhood with femininity exists in tension with the highest incidence of abortion and one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe. In this setting, how do women think of themselves as proper individuals, mothers, and Greek citizens? In this anthropological study of reproductive politics and ethics in Athens,



Greece, Heather Paxson tracks the effects of increasing consumerism and imported biomedical family planning methods, showing how women's "nature" is being transformed to meet crosscutting claims of the contemporary world. Locating profound ambivalence in people's ethical evaluations of gender and fertility control, Paxson offers a far-reaching analysis of conflicting assumptions about what it takes to be a good mother and a good woman in modern Greece, where assertions of cultural tradition unfold against a backdrop of European Union integration, economic struggle, and national demographic anxiety over a falling birth rate.