Public foetal images and the regulation of middle-class pregnancy in the online media: a view from South Africa

Abstract

Ultrasonography images and their derivatives have been taken up in a range of ‘public’ spaces, including medical textbooks, the media, anti-abortion material, advertising, the Internet and public health facilities. Feminists have critiqued the personification of the foetus, the bifurcation of the woman’s body and the reduction of the pregnant woman to a disembodied womb. What has received less attention is how these images frequently intersect with race, class, gender and heteronormativity in the creation of idealised and normative understandings of pregnancy. This paper focuses on the discursive positioning of pregnant women as ‘mothers’ and foetuses as ‘babies’ in online media targeted at a South African audience, where race and class continue to intersect in complex ways. We show how the ontologically specific understandings of ‘mummies’ and ‘babies’ emerge through the use of foetal images to construct specific understandings of the ‘ideal’ pregnancy. In the process, pregnant women are made responsible for ensuring that their pregnancy conforms to these ideals, which includes the purchasing of the various goods advertised by the websites. Not only does this point to a commodification of pregnancy, but also serves to reinforce a cultural understanding of White, middle-class pregnancy as constituting the normative ‘correct’ form of pregnancy.