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'You don't train for a marathon sitting on the couch': Performances of pregnancy 'fitness' and 'good' motherhood in Melbourne, Australia
Citation
Nash, MB, 'You don't train for a marathon sitting on the couch': Performances of pregnancy 'fitness' and 'good' motherhood in Melbourne, Australia, Women's Studies International Forum, 34, (1) pp. 50-65. ISSN 0277-5395 (2011) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2010 Elsevier
DOI: doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2010.10.004
Abstract
This article explores informants' negotiations around the performance of pregnancy "fitness" and "good" mothering through exercise. Although exercise has been discussed as a way to "empower" middle-class women, I suggest that this position is problematic in its co-optation of the language of "feminism" and also in its lived experience. For my pregnant informants, "liberation" through exercise was clearly contradictory. In this article, I argue that pregnant women are encouraged to embody a "fit" pregnancy. Findings suggest that there is no time in a woman's life when she is "free" to be inactive; she must constantly engage in a high-level of physical activity to maintain an appropriately feminine body and to prove her "self" "publicly" as capable.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Research Division: | Human Society |
| Research Group: | Sociology |
| Research Field: | Sociology not elsewhere classified |
| Objective Division: | Health |
| Objective Group: | Specific population health (excl. Indigenous health) |
| Objective Field: | Women's and maternal health |
| UTAS Author: | Nash, MB (Associate Professor Meredith Nash) |
| ID Code: | 67740 |
| Year Published: | 2011 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 47 |
| Deposited By: | Sociology and Social Work |
| Deposited On: | 2011-03-07 |
| Last Modified: | 2015-02-11 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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