Abstract
Militarized Maternity explores how pregnancy-related stigmas persist in the U.S. military despite the organization’s progressive maternity and postpartum policies. McFarlane draws on interviews with U.S. servicewomen and an analysis of military documents to argue that a policy–culture disconnect stems from the hyper-masculine military culture undermining the effectiveness of policies to protect and benefit pregnant and postpartum individuals. The book shows how familiar constructs operate in a military context, such as the competing expectations that women give themselves completely to their jobs to be seen as an “ideal worker” and that women give themselves completely to their children to be seen as “ the ideal mother.” McFarlane argues that the military constructs the ideal servicemember as masculine. Thus, the organization pushes women’s bodies to emulate men in a variety of ways that pose problems for pregnant and postpartum servicewomen who embody difference from this expected norm. As a result, she argues that women’s pregnant bodies are pathologized, and pregnancies are portrayed as a specific strategy women use to escape institutional obligations such as physical fitness requirements and deployments. Underlying these depictions is the assumption that all pregnancies are planned and that women are looking for a way out despite having volunteered for military service.
McFarlane shows how military pregnancy and postpartum policies, such as paid maternity leave and support for breastfeeding and pumping women, are better than many policies in the civilian workplace. Due to the cultural stigma surrounding pregnancy, however, servicewomen must combat negative assumptions related to pregnancy and motherhood. First, McFarlane finds that women try to hyper-plan their pregnancies around deployment schedules, unit exercises, and career pathways. She argues that women work even harder when pregnant, continue to engage in physical trainings while pregnant, and purposely do not take accommodations offered to pregnant servicemembers—strategies comprising what McFarlane calls “macho maternity.” These behaviors continue in the postpartum period as women return to work before their maternity leave is up, waive postpartum deployment deferrals, and prioritize work activities over pumping. Macho maternity reinforces the hyper-masculine military culture which frames pregnancy as problematic. Furthermore, the fact that women see it as their responsibility to decrease the salience of their pregnancies in the military reveals their engagement with and support of neoliberal discourses that constrain women’s position in the workplace.
Overall, McFarlane argues that women co-construct pregnancy-related inequality throughout their military careers and do not fully use benefits designed to accommodate pregnancy. Her data reveal that individual narratives leave women feeling like they are accountable for resolving the tension between work and motherhood and absolves the military of any responsibility to support pregnant and postpartum servicewomen. She labels this process a “circuit of discipline” and suggests that servicewomen can fight these inequalities by viewing their problems as collective rather than individual. In proposing solutions, she highlights nuances in her findings showcasing women who resist hyper-planning pregnancies and macho maternity and mentor others to do the same.
The disconnect between the hyper-masculine military culture and the organization’s policies to accommodate pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding mothers is central to McFarlane’s explanation for why pregnancy stigma persists. Furthermore, McFarlane recognizes that policies do not necessarily translate to accommodation. For example, she found that despite military policy that states women must have access to a private, hygienic space to pump that is not a bathroom, many women described pumping in bathrooms, closets, or not being offered any space at all. Other servicewomen stated that their commanders were not aware of the policy. Therefore, the policy–culture divide does not account for the fact that sometimes policies can become tools of oppressive structures and expressions of organizational culture. If servicewomen are being kept from accessing maternity and postpartum policies or are punished for using them, then the policies are functioning as sites of oppression rather than as signs of organizational attempts at equality.
McFarlane’s explanation that there are circuits of discipline that serve to limit, monitor, and control servicewomen is a helpful framework that extends beyond the military context. Highlighting the existence of a policy–culture divide is an important framework for understanding how gender and pregnancy oppression persist in many settings. This book will be of interest to Gender & Society readers who examine gender and the military as well as issues related to gender and work, pregnancy discrimination, and masculinity and femininity more broadly. McFarlane also creates a useful conceptual framework that she labels the “continuum of maternity” which understands maternity including pre-pregnancy and pregnancy planning phases, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and postpartum mothering. This framework not only shows how different maternity phases shape and constrain women’s lives and workplace experiences but also reveals the importance of policies and benefits at each stage and could easily be applied to other workplaces.
