Dr. Sanae Elmoudden is an Assistant Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Rhetoric, Communication, & Theater at St. John’s University, New York. She received her M.A. in telecommunication and PhD in communication from the University of Colorado, Boulder. During the lapse time between her masters and her PhD degrees, she worked as telecommunication analyst in different global cities. Her interests are in the conjuncture of globalization, technologies, and communication. She conducted Fulbright research in Morocco that investigated the offshoring of call centers and its impact on Moroccan identities. Her publications highlight women challenging stigmas, women work in call centers and the discursive crossings of Muslim women in the USA.
Abstract:
In this paper, I build upon the insights of Collins (1992) view on motherhood by examining how the pregnant body is disciplined into good and bad motherhood. I consider how the pregnant body is disciplined from prior pregnancy to after pregnancy. I use the idea of body politics, the policing of the body via power structures (Butler, 1993; Foucault, 1977) to discuss the continuum of the pregnant body prior to pregnancy to after. Ultimately, raising awareness on such body politics exposes to help women be more of control of their own body image during the continuum of pregnancy.
Policed Bodies: The Joy of Pregnancy and the Silent Loss