Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece

by Heather Paxson

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.

351 pages, Paperback

First published January 13, 2004

Reviews

[Mitchel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written and well-argued anthropological study about Greek women and reproductive health in the 90s. While the book's archive is limited, Paxson effectively illustrates how Greek gender is based on a system of ethics and how the changing ideas surrounding reproduction and new technologies have failed to produce a substantial change in how Greek women practice reproductive agency. Paxson also offers a useful archive to think through the limits of Western rationality when applied to sexuality.