genealogy of problematizing teen pregnancy
Literature Related to Teenage Mothering
Young women are often gendered racialized subjects who are marginalized in schools, especially young mothers of color. The topic and question I plan on targeting for this section of my literature review is about the genealogy of problematizing teen pregnancy, specifically how the creation of policies on the bodies of young mothers of color have affected young mothers of color. How does feminist genealogy (Pillow, 1997) construct teen pregnancy in the US and how is it affecting young mothers of color in their everyday lives?
In the United States, teen mothers are often portrayed as a problem in our society, assumed to be irresponsible and unprepared for motherhood. Over the last few decades, society has stigmatized and marginalized teenage pregnancy, especially in regard to teenage mothers of color. Young mothers of color are going against the normative trajectory that neoliberal policies uphold – education, career, marriage, then childbirth (Wilson & Huntington, 2005). Consequently, teenage pregnancy is discussed as if it were an epidemic, even though in actuality the number of teen pregnancies has dropped over time.
In fact, the rate of teen pregnancy has substantially decreased from a peak in the 1990s of 116.9 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15-19 to a recent low of 57 births per 1,000 among 15-19-year-olds (Guttmacher Institute, 2015). Yet even though the number of teenage pregnancies is declining, U.S. society continues to problematize young mothers due to policy makers being seduced by quantitative measures. Data from quantitative studies along with a deficit view of teenage mothers drive policies due to beliefs that young mothers are in social isolation and dependent on welfare (Wilson & Huntington, 2005). As a result, social isolation and welfare dependency has become the “truth” of teenage pregnancy within the greater society.
As a result, teen mothers are often shamed and viewed as promiscuous, evident in the language of anti-teen pregnancy campaigns tinged with classism, racism, and sexism. Examples of this negative stereotyping abound: New York City had an ad campaign that suggested teen mothers were to blame for their pregnancies without any mention of teen fathers and that teen mothers and their children would inevitably have poor outcomes, such as poverty, incarceration, and low academic achievement (Reichard, 2014). In Louisiana, a charter school forced girls suspected of being pregnant to take pregnancy tests and kicked them out of school if the results were positive (Culp-Ressler, 2013). In Michigan, a school forbid a student to show her pregnant belly in the yearbook, while a school in North Carolina refused to show a student’s senior portrait in the yearbook since her baby was in the photo. Moreover, a national campaign showcased celebrities in a way that implied being a mother would not allow a woman to do great things (Culp-Ressler, 2013). Interestingly, a high school student did her own social experiment for her senior project pretending to be pregnant for six months and was astounded at the degree of discrimination she received from teachers and friends she lost in the process.
The U.S. public school system is deeply embedded within a white racial framework that views youth of color through a deficit model (Delgado Bernal, 2002; Valencia, 2010; Yosso, 2005). As a result of this framework, pregnant teens are often pushed out of comprehensive high schools and into alternative high schools due to the negative stereotypes around teen pregnancies (Mangel, 2011). Being pushed out of a comprehensive high school diminishes opportunities to graduate, prepare for higher education, and improve their economic circumstances. Isolating pregnant and parenting young mothers of color into separate educational settings or providing a different standard of instruction represents a sexist policy that violates Title IX (Clark, 2009). Title IX is a federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity (Mangel, 2011). Pushing students, specifically Black girls, into alternative high schools also goes against the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruling of school segregation as unconstitutional. Educators who push young mothers of color into a school for pregnancy operate from a deficit lens and ultimately punish the girls for their ‘bad choices.’
Organizations and institutions generally view young mothers of color from a deficit lens accompanied by a narrative that these women have poor academic outcomes and place a burden on U.S. taxpayers. Young women are often gendered racialized subjects, in that young mothers of color are simultaneously stereotyped and perceived negatively based on their gender and race, especially in schools. Current researchers, such as Azar (2012), Guttmacher Institute (2010), Jenner and Walsh (2016), Kappeler and Farb (2014), and Kappeler (2016), address the issue of teen pregnancy solely through prevention models, such as pregnancy prevention education, abstinence only versus comprehensive sex education, and providing access to contraceptives. However, this research focusing only on prevention and education does not allow room for addressing either the supports that current teen mothers may need or their lived experiences as teen mothers.
For example, Azar (2012) discussed how the Center for Disease Control has adolescent prevention on its top ten list of battles. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is leading the way with a city-wide goal to dramatically decrease adolescent birth rates by providing evidence-based sexual health curriculum, parental involvement on prevention strategies, and access to reproductive health care services. They launched a citywide media campaign that spotlights teenage pregnancy as a social problem affecting the entire community. Similarly, Kappeler and Farb (2014) discussed how federal funds were dedicated to creating the Office of Adolescent Health (OAH) and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPP) specifically to target adolescent health. Overall, this narrow view of teen pregnancy from a prevention standpoint is deeply problematic since it misses key components about the experiences of young mothers (Mezey et al., 2017), preventing us to understand them as full, complex human beings.
As a result, current discourse on sexuality, pregnancy, and parenting of girls of color tends to be degrading. Since society has portrayed the pregnant teenage body as ‘dangerous,’ public policies are focused on controlling, regulating, shaping, and (re)producing bodies (Pillow, 2003). Girls in school face the common challenge of how their bodies are regulated in regards to a dress code. Girls are sent home and disciplined for not following the dress code, most often due to wearing shorts or dresses too short, crop tops, or tank tops. Disciplining girls in school for their clothes is an institution’s attempt to regulate female bodies, deemed as “distracting.” Even more troubling is that girls who are pregnant are often sent off to alternative schools, as if the changing of their bodies is too distracting for other students. Why are women’s bodies’ normal biological processes, such as pregnancy and birthing, treated like a problem? Those who most often face these circumstances are girls of color who are victims of sexualized racial stereotypes, often accused of having ‘welfare babies.’ Society sometimes blames social problems, such as poverty, on young women of color without looking at them as whole beings and fully understanding their full experiences (Lynch, 2007).
An abundant amount of research relates to teenage pregnancy worldwide. However, a majority of these studies tend to be focused on preventing teenage pregnancy or on healthcare of young mothers. Also, limited studies have involved conducting research with participants, and most studies conducted with teenage mothers tend to be in the United Kingdom, as they have one of the highest rates of teenage birth rates in the world (Guttmacher Institute, 2015).
Anastas (2017) conducted a meta-analysis of 41 qualitative studies from 1989-2014 and categorized these studies into three different Narrative Types (A, B, or C). Type A was 78% of the studies and showed sympathy toward the girls, but none of the studies included recommendations for policy changes. Type B was only one study, which was defined as studies that result in the “wrong kind of family” (p. 135). Type C narratives are studies that are looking for reform in schools and social structural barriers. 20% of the studies fell in the Type C category. Some emerging commonalities among the studies were that giving birth was a rite of passage into adulthood and moving forward to become more responsible individuals. The researcher found that a majority of the studies focused on the individual, in this case the girl, as being a part of the problem, rather than looking at the systemic issues. She noted that girls of color are often pushed out of school before and after they become pregnant and placed into alternative settings with an inferior quality of education. An important consideration to note is that the studies focused on pregnant teenagers and not parenting teenagers.
Anwar and Stanistreet (2014) discussed young mothers’ experiences and future aspirations based upon in-depth interviews to explore their future aspirations. They conducted ten in-depth interviews with teenage mothers of low socio-economic status from a social constructivist and symbolic interactionist perspective. They chose this theoretical framework to focus on how young mothers construct and continue their identities and how it impacts behaviors, choice, and action. Four key themes emerged: mother identity, stigma, social support, and future aspirations. The researchers’ findings concluded that although being a young mother has its hardships, the mothers felt that motherhood was a positive experience; their dislike for school prior to pregnancy shifted in that they reassessed their goals and discovered that pursuing education and a career path were important to reach their goals and aspirations. However, it must be mentioned that this study was conducted in the North West area of England with young white mothers from a deprived area (e.g. low socioeconomic status).
Brand, Morrison, and Brown (2014) conducted a literature review intended to heighten the awareness of the negative social construction of young mothers and how that view influences health and social policy. The qualitative studies reviewed showed that teenage motherhood was an opportunity for young women rather than something that led to bad outcomes as typically portrayed in the media. They found that most literature framed young mothers from a deficit view and was quantitative in nature, arguing that more qualitative studies were necessary to “position young others as the ‘experts’ in their own lives” (p. 178). The authors uncovered much stigma about young mothers from health and social service providers, which affects young women’s transition into motherhood. The researchers noted that more qualitative research was needed that positioned “young mothers as the ‘experts’ of their own lives and consider the multidimensional experiences of young women as they transition to motherhood” (p. 178).
Woods and Hendricks (2017) conducted a participatory action research study with 24 high school students, female and male living in South Africa, who were teenage parents. The authors concluded that the current strategies to prevent teenage pregnancies ignored the experiences of youth, and that hearing from the youth themselves would help create meaningful teenage pregnancy interventions in schools. Students interviewed other students who were teenage parents about their experiences. Participants also drew pictures and gave a narrative with prompts, such as, “What teenage pregnancy means to you.” Three themes emerged: 1) ‘we are just being teenagers,’ 2) ‘being a parent really messes up our lives,’ and 3) ‘sexuality education in schools does not help us.’ Although the authors valued listening to youth’s voices to create interventions, the study still was framed from a deficit-based lens in that the authors concluded that teenage parenting needs to be remediated, rather than hearing from the youth themselves about the best way to support them to reach their aspirations.
Since society has portrayed the pregnant teenage body as ‘dangerous,’ public policies are focused on controlling, regulating, shaping, and (re)producing bodies (Pillow, 2003). Over the last few decades, society has stigmatized and marginalized teenage pregnancy, especially teenage mothers of color. Interestingly enough, the rates of teenage pregnancy are declining, yet the knowledge streamed into society continues to problematize young mothers. The reason for this is due to policy makers being seduced by quantitative measures. Numbers from quantitative studies and a deficit view of teenage mothers drive policies due to beliefs that young mothers are in social isolation and dependent on welfare (Wilson & Huntington, 2005). Therefore, social isolation and welfare dependency has become the “truth” of teenage pregnancy within the greater society.
Pillow (1997) expands on Foucault’s (1980) concepts of “truth” and genealogy of works to focus on how feminist genealogy focuses on the structures that embody policies that are raced, gendered, and sexed to re-interpret truth. Pillow (2003) used this framework to understand educational policies of teenage mothers in schools. Pillow (2004) examined several discourses and how the teenage mother is treated differently depending on her social class and race. The author uses the theoretical approach of feminist genealogy, which “emphasized that the formation of policies are about regulating, reproducing, and surveilling certain bodies” (p. 9). She conducted interviews with school staff and conducted document analysis on policies. One discourse was regarding “contamination,” in that pregnant teens may “contaminate” other students at school by being a bad example. Another discourse is around “education responsibility,” in that a teen mother needs to attain an education as to not need welfare and burden taxpayers.
Two of the four discourses that Kelly (1996) described, shape policy on teenage pregnant bodies. Specifically, the “Wrong-Girl” discourse explained that girls are making a “choice” to go against the normative life trajectory. The normative life trajectory is usually college, career, marriage, then children. Instead, teenage mothers are having children first and portrayed as pathological, in that they made a mistake or that they are “deviant,” and often the image portrayed of this deviancy is a young mother in color, when in fact White teenagers are more sexually active than girls of color (Luttrell, 2003).
Pillow (2004) discussed how teenage pregnancy lies in between policies such as Title IX where teenage mothers can attend an alternative setting if it is voluntary, they cannot be expelled from school, and their education must be comparable to their peers. Importantly, Pillow (2004) found that when pregnant teens were White, they often continued at their comprehensive high schools, while girls of color attended alternative settings. The author examined both the portrayals of the pregnant teen, which are both consistent as well as constantly changing, including the teen mother as the “Girl Next Door” versus the teen mother as “The Other Girl.” A more contemporary analysis revealed the shift from “unwed mother” to the socially constructed term “teen mother” during the 1970s, and the epidemic discourse that emerged, despite the fact that teen pregnancy rates fell to their lowest between the late 1960s and 1980s.
In the 1960s, federal funding for pregnant teenagers started the shift into changes of school policies. (Hunter, 1982). There was an increase of teenage parent dropout rates among African American students and special programs were initiated. Unfortunately, these special programs were often separate from comprehensive schools, as school administrators felt that the pregnant teens would “corrupt the morals of other students” (Luttrell, 2003, pg. 16). The racial imbalance then (1960s) is still evident today, in that most students, if not all, are students of color. Young women of color’s bodies were “showing” and disrupting their “typical” peers and teachers. Their bodies were regulated by having students go into a seperate school program, which was usually less academically rigorous. Additionally, school districts are able to classify schools for pregnant teens as students who are disabled or have special circumstances, which allow for special education funding (Luttrell, 2003).
Specifically in the 1990s there were changes in the welfare system, which made life as a teen mother more difficult. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (Welfare Reform) made the lives of those living in the margins of society, often young women of color, very trying. Young mothers of color trying to earn money, raise their children, and finish school were up against a difficult battle. Often times insitutitions meant to support these young women understood how they were marginalized, but not how racism played into the equation (Cox, 2015) and how it intersected with sexism, classism, etc. Basically, the welfare reform made staying at home with young babies only for those who could afford to, and otherwise mothers needed to be in the workforce, deeming mothering and the unpaid labor attached to it as obsolete. Ramifications of these policies led to increased poverty and lower income for single mothers. Luker (1996) explained that American culture has scapegoated young mothers of color by using racial stereotypes. However, there are more White than African American pregnant teenagers. Additionally, there are more “unwed mothers” in their 30s than there are pregnant teenagers. Important to note, the welfare reform caused an increase in women needing to stay in homeless shelters (Ehrenreich, 2003).
Shapeshifting is involuntarily altering your body in reaction to an extreme external force. In Shapeshifters, Aimee Meredith Cox (2015) conducted an ethnographic study at a homeless shelter in Detroit, Michigan for eight years. She analyzed how Black women pushed up against social hierarchies that are put into place to marginalize them. Although her book covers a range of stories using creative outlets these young women use to exercise agency, for the purposes of this paper I will be looking at the construction of Black women as social problems, especially Black mothers. Interestingly, she uses the idea of choreography to describe how the women navigate their bodies within systems of oppression by shapeshifting. When thinking of choreography, the women are using the physicality of their bodies to embody meaning making, physical storytelling, and their space within social contexts that cause them to actual shapeshift depending on their space, themself, and their situation. Cox described the difference between Black and White Motherhood in the United States. Specifically, she noted how White motherhood has been constructed into a sacred institution, while Black motherhood has been portrayed as the nurturing nanny or caregiver of other children, but their own.
Cox described a director at the shelter who is used as an example of how Black women’s bodies “carry the weight of economic anxieties and political uncertainties and thus tends to be read as either surplus or productive in the context of social service organizations” (p. 91). Specifically, a woman named, Camille, was in charge of hiring employees and found those with physicalities deemed counter normative (e.g. visibilbly pregnant, exposed midriffs, large breasts, tight jeans, etc.) were not suitable to work at the shelter and were a bad example for the women there, such as Pillow (2004) explained as a discourse for “contamination.” These characteristics were attributed to reasons why some of the women themselves were in the shelter. Besides this director surveilling bodies, the shelter itself was under state surveillance as a residential facility for women and minors, continuing the argument that women of color’s bodies are continually monitored in many spaces and contexts and often seen as deviant.
Specifically, Weitz (1994) explained that women did not fit the normative mold of women when they“represent subjectivities outside of marriage- prostitutes, single mothers, mothers involved with multiple partners, and particularly black single mothers” (p, 47 in Fine, 1992). When specifically looking with young mothers of color, our society often gives adolescent woman a lot of attention in the context of institutions, such as our welfare and social service systems. Specifically, our society fears single mother pregnancies, especially teenage pregnancies with the fear of young women of color depending on welfare and social systems. In turn, our government feels that they are obliged to determine what family structures should look like and caseworkers often pry into the private lives of young women to deter them from “deviant sex” (Cox, p. 162), which goes along with the “wrong kind of family” narrative described by Anastas (2017). Cox described a poetic performance by LaT, who was young, Black, and pregnant. LaT’s poem described how the system tries to shame women like her by enforcing policies and practices for social welfare, allocating resources strategically, and employment practices.
Although sex education can be a paper in itself, I want to explain the observations Cox witnessed from the young women who were discussing sex were the women who have already given birth. A common theme was self-respect. They described women’s bodies like the earth because they can create life, and not to let anyone mess with them. Cox described that Black women’s bodies are often shapeshifting where they “strategically choose from a variety of gender, race, and class displays depending on the situation” (p. 183). Often times their scripts are conflated with both their gender and their sexualtiy “within a broader political economy that seeks to subjugate them on the basis of sex and gender” (p. 183).
This section shows how teenage pregnancy has been shaped since the 1960s by looking at how policy changes has shifted the discourse. The ethnographic study conducted by Cox (2015) portrays how these policies have directly affected mothers of color in their everyday lives. Specifically, the changes in the welfare program completely disrupted the lives for mothers of color from being able to afford to stay home with their babies, along with the decline of social programs making childcare too expensive. Although the current discourse blames young mothers of color for being a burden, the mothers described in Shapeshifters are countering against the current narratives of young mothers and mothers of color, proclaiming: women’s bodies like the earth because they can create life, and not to let anyone mess with them.
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