Lesbian Motherhood: Stories of Becoming / Edition 1

by Amy Hequembourg

Overview

A unique practical application of poststructuralist theory to lesbian mothers’ narratives, Lesbian Motherhood: Stories of Becoming analyzes the personal stories of 40 lesbian mothers to discover the complex ways their sense of self is constructed in the current legal, political, and social climate. These intimate narratives are examined by using Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s conceptual framework to understand subjectivities by focusing on the many flexible lines of movement that constitute subjectivities, or ‘becomings.’ This unique source reveals deep insight into a lesbian's construction of self through her stories about her own sexuality, parenting, and other experiences in becoming a mother.

Lesbian Motherhood: Stories of Becoming challenges the assimilation/resistance perspective typically expressed by scholars of lesbian motherhood. Qualitative interviews reveal startling new perspectives to lesbian mother subjectivities viewed within the context of the legal, political, and social areas that seek to define and regulate contemporary family life. This powerful source explores in detail the discursive strategies through which lesbian subjectivities are created and recreated. Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘becoming’ provides a valuable framework for analyzing the discursive strategies employed by those participating in this study.

Lesbian Motherhood: Stories of Becoming offers insightful, powerful information that is indispensable to GLBT scholars, and social theorists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560236863
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/27/2007
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Amy L. Hequembourg, PhD, is a principal investigator at the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions in Buffalo, New York. She has incorporated her interests in gay and lesbian issues to her research on addictions. Dr. Hequembourg recently received an NIH Mentored Research Scientist Career Development Award for her investigation on the role of gender and sexual identity in substance use and victimization. She regularly presents her research findings at sociology and addictions-related conferences, and her work has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Hequembourg is also a committee member in the Society for the Study of Social Problems’ Family Division; and secretary of the Western New York Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Anti-Domestic Violence Committee.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments. Introduction. Chapter 1. Academic and Legal Depictions of Lesbian Motherhood: A Critique. Chapter 2. Eliciting Stories of Lesbian Parenting. Chapter 3. Analyzing Lesbian Mothers’ Subjectivities. Chapter 4. Ideologies of Motherhood
Essential Motherhood. Chapter 5. Lines and Flows of Lesbian Motherhood. Chapter 6. Coming-Out. Chapter 7. Shifting Boundaries and Interrogating Categories. Chapter 8. Concluding Thoughts. Appendix. Notes. References. Index.

What People are Saying About This

Judith Stacey

In an original contribution to contemporary theoretical and political debates over the meaning of planned lesbian motherhood, Hequembourg creatively adapts the concept of becoming from Deleuze and Guattari. Melding qualitative sociology to post-structuralist theory, this provocative book proposes a route beyond the binaries of resistance versus assimilation and sameness versus difference. ( Judith Stacey, PhD; Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU; author, In The Name of The Family)

Nancy J. Mezey

PRESENTS A NEW WAY OF VIEWING LESBIAN MOTHERHOOD by explaining the processes of 'becoming' a mother. This unique theoretical and analytical approach moves from understanding identities as being static and stable to understanding how they are contradictory and in constant flux. . . . Draws on rich ethnographic data to provide an in-depth analysis that challenges the category of lesbian mother. . . . Successfully questions how scholars, legal professionals, and the public view and categorize mothers. . . . Concludes by offering new strategies for political organizing. . . . AN ESSENTIAL RESOURCE for understanding key debates and issues concerning lesbian motherhood. . . . Provides one of the most comprehensive, balanced, and nuanced explanations of assimilation and resistance, same-sex marriage, family connections, the use of reproductive technologies, child custody, and coming out, in the literature to date. Although Hequembourg uses lesbian mothers as her subjects, the book speaks to the broadest level of sociology. The approach presented can easily be used to study how categories and identities of other subjects are formed within, and because of, hegemonic discourses. ANYONE LOOKING TO UNDERSTAND MOTHERHOOD IN GENERAL SHOULD READ THIS BOOK. (Nancy J. Mezey, PhD, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Sociology Program Coordinator, Monmouth University)