In US security culture, motherhood is a site of intense contestation—both a powerful form of cultural currency and a target of unprecedented assault. Linked by an atmosphere of crisis and perceived vulnerability, motherhood and nation have become intimately entwined, dangerously positioning national security as reliant on the control of women's bodies. Drawing on feminist scholarship and critical studies of security culture, Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz explores homeland maternity by calling our attention to the ways that authorities see both non-reproductive and "overly" reproductive women's bodies as threats to social norms—and thus to security. Homeland maternity culture intensifies motherhood's requirements and works to discipline those who refuse to adhere. Analyzing the opt-out revolution, public debates over emergency contraception, and other controversies, Fixmer-Oraiz compellingly demonstrates how policing maternal bodies serves the political function of securing the nation in a time of supposed danger—with profound and troubling implications for women's lives and agency.| Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Homeland Maternity, the New Reproductive Regime 1. Securing Motherhood on the Home Front 2. Risky Reproduction and the Politics of Octomom 3. Post-Prevention?: Conceptualizing Emergency Contraception 4. Crisis Pregnancy and the Colonization of the Clinic Conclusion: Just Pregnancy, Just Parenting in the Age of Homeland Maternity Notes Bibliography Index | James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichlens Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address, National Communication Association (NCA), 2020 — National Communication Association (NCA)
|Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz is an assistant professor of communication at the University of Iowa.