S/m/othering

Abstract

Recent scholarship in art education has introduced complex discourses of mothering, m/othering curriculum (Hoeptner-Poling, Guyas, & Keys, 2012; Springgay & Freedman, 2009, 2010), (m)others (Eisenhauer, 2009), m(other)work (Hoeptner-Poling, Guyas, & Keys, 2013), family structures that confront myths of the nuclear family (Rhoades, 2009), non-Western motherhoods (Richmond-Saravia, 2011), and disability (Derby, 2011; Eisenhauer, 2007). Feminist artists and activists have long confronted cultural constructions of motherhood and the pregnant, post-partum, and lactating body in their work (e.g., Kelly, 1973-1979; Opie, 2003; Redman, 1964; Ukeles, 1969). Yet, bodies rendered infertile through either biological or sociocultural exclusion from parenting and the loss(es) associated with infertility remain largely invisible in both artistic practice and academic discourse. This absence is s/m/othering. It perpetuates misunderstandings of the complex reality of mothering and parenting experiences in all their expressions. It at best condones and at worst reproduces discriminatory institutional practices such as routine exclusion of fertility treatments and of benefits for adoptive families from health insurance plans, limiting possibilities for pursuing parenthood. Following the inclusive precedent set by scholars and artists in art and art education (e.g., Eisenhauer, 2007,2010), I argue for both a presence for the experience of infertility along with an expansion of images of motherhood and parenthood within art and art education. I propose a framework for inclusion of the infertility experience within four primary contexts.First, contemporary feminist scholars (e.g., Gupta, 2006) have described a polarization of the discourses surrounding infertility and especially New Reproductive Technologies (NRTs), including invitro fertilization (IVF). This dichotomy represents women as either victims whose selves and bodies are subjected to patriarchal, medicalized surveillance or as capable agents who exercise choice within the context of reproductive rights that align with broader and historical feminist arguments. These binary discourses are pedagogically significant because they reproduce cultural and institutional practices that continue to render infertility hidden and encourage silence and lack of disclosure, diminish cultural support for the grief associated with infertility, limit the choices available to individuals who wish to pursue parenthood, conflate womanhood with motherhood, and reify patriarchal notions about who and what a family is and how that family comes to be (e.g., Throsby & Gill, 2004).Second, globalized medical and economic practices and transnational feminisms (Gupta, 2006) intersect with this polarized view. These junctures further complicate the relationship between access to reproductive care through insurance and national health programs; the quasi-legal selling, renting, regulating, and destroying of human body parts; and the interests of multi-national pharmaceutical corporations, (local, state, and national) governments, and their constituents that include public educational institutions and insurance carriers. Contemporary feminist scholars and artists must address this complexity and work to make the affective and embodied experience of all those experiencing infertility, engaging in the fertility economy, and building alternative family structures not only visible but also central rather than peripheral or anecdotal. For example, contemporary artist Marilee Talkington performed The Creative Process: An IVF Living Art Piece from May through June 2013. In the work, she publicly injected herself with the hormonal drugs necessary for IVF in multiple locations including the San Francisco MOMA, the de Young Museum, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Her injections were live-streamed for online viewers, and she invited others going through IVF to inject with her. Talkington's piece both publicizes the private aspects of the IVF process (including learning to inject oneself with medications) and invites other participants in the process to claim it by making it visible. …