Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece

Heather Paxson

Published by University of California Press 2004

Making Modern Mothers

Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece

Heather Paxson

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520937130

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Author / Editor information

Paxson Heather :

Heather Paxson is Lecturer in Anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	iii
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
A Note on Transliteration Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Prologue Varnava Square Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
1. Realizing Nature Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Remaking Mothers From an Ethic of Service to an Ethic of Choice Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	38
3. Rationalizing Sex Family Planning and an Ethic of Well-Being Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
4. Maternal Citizens Demographics, Pronatalism, and Population Policy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	160
5. Technologies of Greek Motherhood Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	212
Appendix 1. Total Fertility Rates, European Union Countries, 1960–2000 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
Appendix 2. Legislation of the Greek State Pertaining to Gender Equality, Marriage, Family, and Reproduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	256
Appendix 3. Birthrates, Greece, 1934–1999 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	321

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 351

eBook

Published: February 12, 2004
ISBN: 9780520937130