The social relations of power and women’s reproductive self-determination: The research of attitudes of female students at the University of Zagreb

Abstract

Women?s reproductive self-determination is shaped by different social interests in reproduction as well as by the cultural context: political, religious, corporate, medical, etc. interests of social actors and institutions usually limit the autonomy of women and couples in their reproductive decisions. For many women access to and attitude towards reproductive methods and techniques, as well as different approaches to birth, fundamentally influence the course of their lives. In a similar way the reproductive strategies and techniques deeply affect the cultural ideas of femininity, motherhood and family. The way women experience control over their reproductive abilities largely depends on their socio-economic and cultural circumstances. Socio-cultural norms that define when to become pregnant and how, what is preferred family size, attitudes towards infertility, adoption and abortion, what is the appropriate childbearing age or preferred baby?s gender as well as what constitutes a healthy pregnancy, fetus and baby mutually shape and are shaped by ideologies of reproduction and institutional power relations which are in themselves supported by fundamentally patriarchal social norms. Women?s reproductive activities (conception, pregnancy and birth) are ranked in accordance to the ?quality control? of children they may produce. As a consequence, women are being perceived as either ?good? or ?bad? producer while stigmatizing reproductive morality is supported by stigmatizing social dimensions of reproductive technologies. Pregnant women are being observed through the discourse of ?good? and ?bad? women due to their ?good? or ?bad? reproductive bodies in accordance to the traditional female reproductive social roles. Development of reproductive technologies coupled with increased role of experts, different policy-makers and other stake-holders? in women?s reproductive decision-making opened the space for building a new kind of ?women?s solidarity? although the female body is still controlled, usurped and ?politically? shaped by different types of power relations and ideologies of reproductive technologies. This paper has two main goals: 1) to establish a theoretical template of a conceptual scheme for future empirical studies of women?s reproductive self-determination in the context of social power relations, and 2) to present preliminary questionnaire and the results of its application on the convenience sample of female students at the University of Zagreb.