Reproductive Justice and Its Discontents: Recent Representations in American Popular Culture
Special Section Editors: Cristina Di Maio, Università degli Studi di Torino (cr*************@un***.it), Fulvia Sarnelli, Università degli Studi di Messina (fu*************@un***.it)
The recent Harris-Trump debate has emphasized the relevance of reproduction in the presidential campaign, framing it as a key issue for American voters. In fact, abortion rights and access to birth control have been under continuous assault at least since the 2010 House elections and, with a decisive conservative majority in the Supreme Court, the future of abortion appears increasingly under threat. Moreover, a more comprehensive overview of reproductive rights in the United States comprising contraception, access to assisted reproductive technologies, reproductive and postpartum health, shows an equally vulnerable situation.
Reproductive justice—defined as the right to have children, to not have children, and to parent—has always confronted praxes of power and control, which include the regulation of many issues such as expected gender roles, sexual behavior, abortion, family formation, adoption, reproductive assistive technology, and surrogacy. In fact, activist Loretta Ross and historian Rickie Solinger (2017) argue that reproductive oppressions stem from a determination to exercise power over vulnerable persons and achieve goals that have nothing to do with the well-being or interests of those subjects.
Throughout US history, reproductive politics has also assigned different cultural values to pregnancies according to issues of race, class, sexuality, and nationality in line with the concurrent political needs of the nation. This special section aims to explore the ways in which reproductive issues and their history have been portrayed in popular culture (literature, television, film, music, dance, social media, news reporting), particularly reflecting on representations that on the one hand risk identifying individuals (particularly women) as victims of their reproductive capacity, and on the other hand, shed light on the American insecurities and anxieties about the stability of the nation’s social order. By its nature and diffusion, pop culture has real effects on our daily lives and on how we represent ourselves in relation to others; therefore, it has had and has a fundamental role in the development of modern and postmodern societies. Understanding popular depictions of issues concerning contraception, child-bearing, and child-rearing as responses to/in their entanglement with neoliberal political agendas and neoconservative attacks is crucial to map the imbrications of power and narrative representations.
We invite contributions from different disciplines considering how popular culture shapes our attitudes about reproductive justice. Topics may include (but are not limited to):
- Cultural representations of abortion before and after Roe v. Wade.
- Access to reproductive rights for members of the LGBTQI+ community and racialized identities.
- Historical perspectives on landmark court decisions (de)criminalizing abortion, and/or concerning reproductive rights.
- Access to fertility treatments and experiences of pregnancy through IVF.
- Community activism to support reproductive health, and/or pro-life movement(s).
- Political debates on federal vs state role vis-à-vis reproductive health and rights, and their representation in the media.
- Adoption as a reproductive justice issue.
- Debates around breastfeeding in contemporary popular narratives.
- (Re)production of stereotypes around pregnancy, termination of pregnancy, miscarriage, and other aspects of reproductive and sexual health.
- Teen sexuality.
Submission and information:
If interested in sending a full submission, contact BOTH EDITORS (Cristina Di Maio, cr*************@un***.it and Fulvia Sarnelli, fu*************@un***.it) — final submissions are due by January 31st, 2025.
Deadline for submission: January 31st, 2025
Publication: RSAJournal
