« C’est pour le bébé ». Moralisation des femmes, individualisation de la responsabilité et disparités de classe dans le travail de soins pendant la grossesse

Abstract

Based on a field survey conducted in the Île-de-France region between 2014 and 2017, this article examines the limits of the government of bodies and behaviours around pregnancy, in the dual sense of the contours of this government and the tensions at work. The sanitarisation of pregnancies is approached from the point of view of the work on which it is based: the work of professionals, which consists of influencing and monitoring the behaviour of patients, and the work of pregnant women engaged in the domestic production of care. Pregnancy management is not an impartial application of biological or medical knowledge: it is about controlling women and orienting their behaviour according to a norm of 'good motherhood'. This norm articulates the institution of the foetus as a person and subject of care, the predominance of risk, and the injunction to maternal devotion. It is not merely a discourse but is anchored in the concrete organisation of healthcare and in the routine practices of care providers. Lifestyle modification appears to be the standard for evaluating maternal value. The individualisation of health responsibility conceals the weight of gender and class relations. The preservation of health appears to be a female prerogative, which perpetuates an unequal division of tasks and responsibilities within different-sex couples. Moreover, class determines the living and working conditions and the resources available, which have an effect on health, and which delimit what is possible or not in terms of changes of habits. Class also implies a situated understanding of health and of maternal responsibility.

Keywords

• Medicine; food; motherhood; domestic labour; fetus; risk