A01=Heather Paxson
abortion
anthropological study
anthropologists
athens
Author_Heather Paxson
birth control
Category=JBSF
Category=JH
Category=JHMC
contemporary greece
cultural traditions
economic struggles
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethical issues
ethics
europe
european union
falling birth rate
family planning
femininity
fertility control
fertility rates
gender studies
greece
greek citizens
greek demographics
modern motherhood
motherhood
nonfiction
reproductive politics
social analysts
social cultural
urban setting
womens issues
womens roles
Product details
- ISBN 9780520238206
- Weight: 499g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 12 Feb 2004
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
Heather Paxson is Lecturer in Anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
