Inconceivable: An exploratory study of South African childfree lesbian couples

[摘要] ENGLISH SUMMARY: Lesbians have historically neither been associated with motherhood nor considered fit toparent. However, in recent decades in an increasing number of countries, including SouthAfrica, lesbian couples have obtained the legal rights to and increasing opportunities formotherhood. Despite these changes that make motherhood an accessible status for lesbians,as well as the prevailing beliefs that all women inherently aspire to motherhood, many lesbiancouples choose to remain childfree. There is limited research regarding the latter group ofwomen, and this present study therefore aimed to address this gap.This exploratory study adopted a feminist social constructionist framework and focused onexploring childfree lesbian couples' constructions of their childfree status. In-depth interviewswere conducted with ten white, middle-class, childfree lesbian couples (twenty participants)living in Cape Town, South Africa. Carol Gilligan's Listening Guide method was then appliedto conduct an analysis of the participants' accounts. The analysis identified two majorcontrapuntal voices, each made up of three minor voices. Firstly, the Conscious Voice, madeup of No Maternal Instinct; Obstacles; and An Alternative Path. Secondly, the Covert Voice,consisting of Unnatural; If I Could Have, I Would Have; and Inequality.The analysis found underlying conflicts between the participants' Conscious and Covertvoices reflecting the contradictions in their personal lives, as well as within the South Africancontext in which they conduct their public lives. The Conscious voice conveyed a lack of feltdesire for a child and the practical barriers lesbian couples need to overcome in order to havea child. However, the Covert voice suggested that their childfree status was less aboutchoosing not to have children, and more about struggling to construct a lesbian motherhoodalternative to the perceived ideal of heteronormative parenting in South Africa. A significantfinding was that, despite asserting self-aware lesbian identities, their constructs ofmotherhood and parenting were still strongly influenced by heteronormative discourses anda pronatalist context. These findings suggest that although the participants lead meaningfuland satisfying lives without the experience of motherhood, much more still needs to be doneto expand alternative constructions of motherhood, parenthood and families before lesbiancouples will be offered an equal social context in which they can consider motherhood withoutthe conscious and unconscious barriers that are posed by hegemonic heteronormativeconstructions.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University