The pregnancy of the subject: between encarnation and emancipation

Abstract

In relation to the notion of labor, birth, and early upbringing, we risk our concept of the world and of the human being. The silence in philosophy about the female body and, especially, about all those experiences that are markedly feminine since they have to do with pregnancy and birth, is too patent not to be noted. On the one hand, it is true that the absence, within philosophical analysis, of the humanity of the pregnant woman and of the woman in labor, runs parallel to the lack of presence of other paradigms of the human, such as babies and childhood in general. In this respect, it is a fact that the identification of the human with the rational, and the following interest of philosophy in rationality, has left out of consideration other aspects of the human. On the other hand, it must be emphasized that the argument according to which, first, a woman¿s capacity to create is equivalent to her capacity to give birth; and, second, that giving birth is not a rational process, is a highly extended topic of misogyny or patriarchy. Thus when I say that pregnancy, labor, and birth are rational processes that need to be reflected upon, I mean that the subject¿s desires, wishes, expectations, intentions, volitions, thoughts, judgments, points of view, values, etc. are inherent parts of the process of birth. So I claim that birth and labor, as many other human experiences, are not only natural processes, but human acts and behaviors. As such, they can-or cannot- be experienced and lived by the subject in a creative, free, valuable, worthy, humanizing way, or quite the opposite, in a submissive, subjected, inertial, humiliating, and reifying manner. The pregnant subject, simply on account of being pregnant, is no less a subject. Her behavior, as well as the space of action she enjoys, can and should be judged and valued, according to human freedom and its exercise. In my opinion, both philosophy and feminist thinking must still walk a long path to achieve a conception of the pregnant subject that is truly a human subject (not just a human body). To start with, they must question the concept of pregnancy, labor, and birth as a non-rational process that is more comfortably placed in the field of nature than in the field of subjectivity and humanity. Furthermore, they can warn us against the use of the metaphor of a container and its (sic) content to describe the relation between the pregnant woman and her baby. Lastly, they could criticize the conception of babies as being independent entities whose survival is best promoted through medical, technological, and institutional intervention rather than by leaving free space and time for the bond between mother and baby to develop. For only if we accept that a mother and her baby build a special kind of unity during pregnancy, delivery, and the first stages following birth, can we understand what is going on in that special period of life. In sum, the discourse on maternity has many hidden places that have been very little studied, analyzed, or criticized. Birth concerns all of us. We all were born; and many of us encounter birth again when laboring our own children. Birth issues are indeed very influential to our values, worldviews, concepts, and forms of life. The importance of such a topic as the dehumanization of birth with respect to the research on values is thus worth considering. This would, in my opinion, make for a significant contribution to value inquiry in an expanding world.