The solo mum, feminism and the negotiation of ‘choice’

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Holmes, Susan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4243-8337 (2018) The solo mum, feminism and the negotiation of ‘choice’. Women's Studies International Forum, 69. pp. 40-48. ISSN 0277-5395

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Abstract

Discursive constructions of single women who have children via sperm donation invoke the significance of feminism as an implicit/ explicit frame in explaining the rise of the ‘solo mum’. Drawing on qualitative data from 25 interviews with single (UK) women who have decided to have a child this way, this article explores whether the participants saw this route as emerging out of - or connected to - feminist ideals, paying particular attention to the discursive negotiation of ‘choice’. As the women were ambivalent about discourses of ‘choice’ here, they did not see the decision to become a solo mum as one that emerged out of female empowerment or agency. Nevertheless, the role(s) of feminism here emerged as shifting and complex, and in analysing these contradictions, the study contributes to the on-going conceptual dilemma about how feminist research can approach the difficult question of women’s ‘choices’, especially in a context in which feminism is inextricably enmeshed with neoliberal and postfeminist ideologies.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: solo mother ,feminism, qualitative ,choice,neoliberalism,heterosexuality,sdg 5 - gender equality ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/gender_equality
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Art, Media and American Studies
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Film, Television and Media
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 20 Apr 2018 14:30
Last Modified: 21 Jul 2023 09:48
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/66822
DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2018.04.007

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