May 5th 2017
I am now twenty-four weeks into my pregnancy. Today I visited a stu-dent teacher on school placement as part of my work. As I took up a place at the back of the classroom I was struck by the uncomfortable tension between my growing belly and the restricted confinements of the school desk and seat.
I wondered how pregnant students experience this rigid workspace on a daily basis as their bellies continue to expand during the maternity period. By now I am visibly pregnant. There is no hiding the bump anymore. I try to con-ceal my pregnancies for as long as possible, not because I want to deny being pregnant but because I lose my private body in pregnancy and it becomes a public spectacle. When I am not pregnant people do not reference or question my body, but now, acquaintances and strangers, stare at my stomach before making eye contact and some even think they have an uninvited right to touch my growing body.
In early March 2017 investigators made a shocking discovery at a former mother and baby home in Galway in the Republic of Ireland. The particular institution functioned between 1925 and 1961, but was just one of many such homes in operation at the time to cater for the growing numbers of teenage and unmarried mothers and the need of church and state to hide them away. In March large quantities of human remains were discovered, said to range in age from pre-term babies to three-year-old children. They were found concealed in two large underground structures, one said to be a sewage containment system and the other said to be a long passage-way containing twenty separate chambers. Irish history and literature are awash with descriptions of rural and urban women surrounded by their large families; their female bodies seemingly unrestrained by adherence to discourses of contraception or constriction. In contrast, teenage and unmarried mothers are largely absent from such depictions, their preg-nant and parenting bodies hidden from public view in enclosed institu-tions. The young pregnant mother stood in opposition to one of the most valued aspects of Irish society at the time, namely, sexuality as prescribed by the Catholic Church. The teenage and unmarried mother represented a decline in religious observance and her body threatened the very teaching and credibility of the church.
The increased secularization of Irish society in the latter part of the twentieth century allowed the teenage mother to be recognized in policy and legislation. However, the tension between the pregnant teenage body and church values was again highlighted more recently when a Catholic school in the south of Ireland refused enrolment to a sixteen-year-old girl on the basis that she was pregnant and, following the birth of her child, on the basis that she was a single mother. The girl and her mother com-plained to the office of the Ombudsman for Children, which proceeded to investigate the claim. The school management unapologetically responded, stating that is was ‘not a haven for young pregnant people or for young mothers’ and added that ‘the school has an uncompromising ethos and will not become a dumping ground’ (cited in McLysaght 2012). There was a clear sense from school management that pregnant students should not be visible within the school, as the publicly pregnant body compromises the moral standing of a church-run school. The notion of the righteous
learner being inconsistent with a bulging stomach was also highlighted in research carried out by Nkani and Bhana (2010) with school principals in Durban, South Africa. One principal explained that while chasing pregnant students away would be in violation of policy, students must be aware that
‘a learner in a school uniform with a bulging stomach’ is unacceptable, as it sends a message that ‘it is alright to get pregnant at school’ (ibid. 110). There is an inherent understanding here that the learner in a school uniform is incongruent with the bulging stomach and the sexuality it implies (ibid.).
There is no doubt that teenage girls in a post-feminist age enjoy more liber-ated sexual experiences than previous generations. New feminism endorses individual free choice. However, if these sexual choices are only free in so far as they do not result in pregnancy or stagnate educational attainment, then they are not so free at all.
The emblematic weight of pregnancy is undoubtedly as challeng-ing for teen mothers as somatic weight. The school context can be par-ticularly confronting for pregnant teens in this regard. In Pillow’s study nowhere were ‘girls’ voices stronger, more independent, and more resistant than when they were talking about their school experiences’ (1997: 354).
As noted previously, the assemblage of a bulging stomach and the sexual activeness it symbolizes, with innocent uniform-clad girls, is irreconcilable.
Uniforms symbolize ‘a school’s cohesiveness, levels of discipline, respect for authority, and high achievement’ (Happel 2013: 94). Versions of school uniforms will not be found in the maternity sections of department stores.
The school uniform imposes a type of deportment and way of being on its wearer that makes it impossible for young girls to forget the restricted nature of their embodied state (McSharry & Walsh 2014), and this may be particularly heightened for the pregnant uniform wearer. Tight waistbands are unquestionably uncomfortable for expanding stomachs, and skirts are decidedly revealing of swollen legs and ankles. Wearing alternative cloth-ing may be an option for pregnant students in some schools, but while this may be more physically comfortable for the growing body, it serves to further differentiate the pregnant student from her peers and to fur-ther invite the focus of their gaze. Vincent (2009) points to the dilemma faced by pregnant students as they want their schools to acknowledge and respond to the physical challenges of pregnancy, for example, soreness,
exhaustion, frequent urination, heightened emotion. However, they do not want the measures put in place to further differentiate them from the rest of the student population. In the midst of uniformed student bodies and corporeal sameness, the pregnant body confronts school life in a most direct and questioning way, and pregnant students fear the stigmatization this might lead to.
Whether in school, socializing or simply going about daily life, the pregnant teenage body is continually subjected to moral judgement and scrutiny. The thought of teens being sexually active can be uncomfortable for adults and sometimes for other teens. Of course babies are conceived through sexual passivity as well as sexual assertiveness, but there is a ten-dency to view the pregnant teenage girl as sexually experienced. In porno-graphic imagery this portrayal is extreme, where the pregnant schoolgirl with her pigtails and Catholic uniform is fetishized for her mischievous horny behaviour (Musial 2014). The schoolgirl with a mature body is fre-quently the target of catcalls and wolf-whistles and even more worrying forms of harassment from older male onlookers, yet she is viewed as a dangerous pariah for boys her own age. If maternity is to be perceived as a type of corporeal gifting, then teen mothers undoubtedly gift their sexual identity in an unparalleled and often misinterpreted way.
Sax, in her work with teenage girls in a Brazilian shantytown, describes how teenage girls with mature breasts and fleshy bottoms were viewed as dangerous to ‘inexperienced’ boys (2010: 326). Within the com-munity, whether a girl was deemed sexually active, or indeed pregnant, was negotiated by the size of her breasts, bottom and belly (ibid.). Through its very being, the pregnant body proclaims a sexual maturity often consid-ered inappropriate and threatening to other teenagers, giving the pregnant teenager a socially contaminated status. It is little surprise that in a study carried out by Conlon (2006) on behalf of the Irish Crisis Pregnancy Agency, teenage parents were amongst those most likely to attempt to conceal a pregnancy. The participants noted that they wished to conceal their pregnancy out of fear of rejection by the biological father and fear of disappointment from parents, as well as trying to conceal sexual activity and to avoid pregnancy related stigma (ibid.). In research recently con-ducted by some of my own Masters students, similar reasons were given by
teen mothers for concealing their pregnancies for as long as possible. They described wanting to hold back whispers and judgements. One participant explained how her uniform concealed her bump from school management and peers for seven-and-a-half months. Interestingly, she contrasted the self-consciousness she felt around her pregnant body and lack of pride in her bump with the absolute pride she felt when her baby was born. Another participant described how she kept her pregnancy secret for eight months, wearing baggy tops to conceal her bump. However, she regrets that the embarrassment she felt prevented her from announcing her pregnancy earlier and enjoying the excitement that usually accompanies the maternity journey. Findings ways to challenge and/or avoid the ‘looks’ from adults and other teenagers takes lots of emotional energy and self-protective strategies (Luttrell 2011: 304). So long as pregnancy is viewed as an age related event, teen mothers (and older mothers) will likely experience a tension around how to conceal and reveal the pregnant body.