What is the problema being addressed ?
Single mothers by choice constitute an alternative to dominant notions of the family. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (2015) found that there has been a 226% increase in the number of women choosing to go through IVF alone in the UK since 2006. The number has increased fourfold in Spain in the last seven years. This study will examine alternative motherhood constituted through assisted reproductive technologies in the UK and in Spain and will investigate four interconnected themes: a) being a mother and being mothered are both permeated with socio-cultural, political, economic and psychological significance as everyone has an interest in the social organisation of motherhood, although these interests vary; b) at the same time inequalities involving ethnicity, class and sexual orientation, can be particularly powerful in relationship to mothering; and c) the struggle over the question of how best to reorganise social institutions, such as workplaces and schools, so that they adjust to mothering, women´s freedom and equal opportunity. Ethnographic methods will be used to construct a more holistic understanding of the complexities of politics, policy and power from an interdisciplinary perspective. This study will broaden our knowledge of the ways in which discourses of mothering and motherhood both shape and are shaped by various practices, constraints and experiences cross-nationally.
Why is it important for society?
This study will contribute to society in four important ways: 1) It will examine motherhood under three interconnected themes: motherhood as institution, single motherhood by choice as experience, and as a site for social change. This research will study what changes are needed in public-social policy, education, the workplace and the family to improve full and lasting gender equality for mothers. 2) This study aims to comprehend the complexities of politics, policy and power from an interdisciplinary perspective in order to broaden our awareness and understanding of the diverse positions and meanings of motherhood. 3) This work aims to construct a more complex understanding of the ways in which discourses of mothering and motherhood both shape and are shaped by various practices and experiences cross-nationally. 4) This study will illuminate how alternative families may be a site of empowerment and a location for social change for women that resist replicating "conventional" standards of motherhood and raise children who may comply with expectations of gender stereotypes damaging to the child and to society.
What are the overall objectives?
The objectives of this study are the following: 1) To examine who has the power to make their definitions of motherhood and good mothering stick in Spain & in the UK. Do these women – single mothers by choice - accommodate or resist those definitions or find themselves doing both? 2) To study how that power is exercised through specific social institutions and cultural ideologies. How the institution of motherhood impacts on the daily lives of women and their children? 3) To explore how motherhood is enacted in and reinforced by public policy and how women juggle earning a living and parenting their children. 4) To analyse how personal stories and social histories intersect to enable women to pursue single motherhood by choice, 5) To explore what mothers´ own perspectives are on motherhood and mothering, 6) To study how ideas about motherhood change over time and vary across social contexts. 7) To analyse how women manage the gender hierarchy of daily life which they cannot control while they may simultaneously encourage their children to resist it, 8) To study whether a conscious choice of single motherhood challenges traditional practices of gender socialisation for their children.
