Making Modern Mothers : Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece.
Material type: TextPublisher: Berkeley : University of California Press, 2004Copyright date: ©2004Edition: 1st edDescription: 1 online resource (353 pages)Content type: text Media type: computer Carrier type: online resourceISBN: 9780520937130Subject(s): Athens (Greece) -- Social life and customs | Birth control -- Greece -- Athens -- Public opinion | Feminist anthropology -- Greece -- Athens | Motherhood -- Greece -- Athens | Public opinion -- Greece -- Athens | Women -- Greece -- Athens -- Social conditionsGenre/Form: Electronic books.Additional physical formats: Print version:: Making Modern Mothers : Ethics and Family Planning in Urban GreeceDDC classification: 305.42/09495/12 LOC classification: GN585.G85 -- P39 2004ebOnline resources: Click to ViewCover -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on Transliteration -- Prologue: Varnava Square -- 1. Realizing Nature -- 2. Remaking Mothers: From an Ethic of Service to an Ethic of Choice -- 3. Rationalizing Sex: Family Planning and an Ethic of Well-Being -- 4. Maternal Citizens: Demographics, Pronatalism, and Population Policy -- 5. Technologies of Greek Motherhood -- Appendix 1: Total Fertility Rates, European Union Countries, 1960-2000 -- Appendix 2: Legislation of the Greek State Pertaining to Gender Equality, Marriage, Family, and Reproduction -- Appendix 3: Birthrates, Greece, 1934-1999 -- Notes -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.
In Greece, women speak of mothering as "within the nature" of a woman. But this durable association of motherhood with femininity exists in tension with the highest incidence of abortion and one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe. In this setting, how do women think of themselves as proper individuals, mothers, and Greek citizens? In this anthropological study of reproductive politics and ethics in Athens, Greece, Heather Paxson tracks the effects of increasing consumerism and imported biomedical family planning methods, showing how women's "nature" is being transformed to meet crosscutting claims of the contemporary world. Locating profound ambivalence in people's ethical evaluations of gender and fertility control, Paxson offers a far-reaching analysis of conflicting assumptions about what it takes to be a good mother and a good woman in modern Greece, where assertions of cultural tradition unfold against a backdrop of European Union integration, economic struggle, and national demographic anxiety over a falling birth rate.
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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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