Carolin
Schurr

READ MORE

Carolin Schurr is professor of Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. She is the principal investigator of the SNSF project "Reproductive Geopolitics" project. MORE

Laura
Perler

READ MORE

Laura Perler is a postdoctoral researcher in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. In her research she investigates inequalities in relation to reproductive technologies and the Swiss asylum system.  MORE

Nora
Komposch

READ MORE

Nora Komposch is a PhD student and assistant in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. She researches about migrant workers in Spain's strawberry industry. MORE

Mirko
Winkel

READ MORE

Mirko Winkel is the coordinator of the mLAB. The artist and curator teaches at the University of Bern and other places with the aim of synthesizing art with scientific research and socio-political concerns.

Yolinliztli
Pérez-Hernández

READ MORE

Yolinliztli Pérez-Hernández is a PostDoc in Social and Cultural Geography. She researches the experiences of sterilization (tubal ligation and hysterectomy) of low-income, rural, peasant, and indigenous Mexican women as part of national family planning and global birth control policies in developing countries. MORE  

Milena
Wegelin

READ MORE

Milena Wegelin is a social anthropologist and research associate at the Department of Perinatal and Maternal Health of the Bern University of Applied Sciences. Sie is collaborating with Laura Perler in her subproject “Governing and Contesting In/fertility within the Swiss Asylum Context”

Susanne
Schultz

READ MORE

Susanne Schultz is lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the Goethe University Frankfurt a.M. She is a visiting researcher who collaborates with the team of the project „Reproductive Geopolitics“ with a SNSF Scientific Exchange Grant in 2023. MORE

Veronika
Siegl

READ MORE

Veronika Siegl, holding a PostDoctoral position in Social and Cultural Geography, is a social anthropologist and gender researcher. Her research focuses on ethics, inequality and self-determination in the context of reproductive medicine.   MORE

CLOSE
Yolinliztli Pérez-Hernández
2023
egg sharing
France
medical egg freezing
normative motherhood
qualitative research
reproductive trajectory
social egg freezing

Imagining Motherhood and Becoming a Mother After Egg Freezing. An Anthropological Study in the French Context

Yolinliztli Pérez-Hernández

Abstract

This paper examines how women accessing social egg freezing (SEF), medical egg freezing (MEF), and egg sharing (ESH) imagine becoming a mother (normative motherhood) in contrast to how they become a mother (reproductive trajectory). It uses data collection from 43 semi-structured in-depth interviews with French women who have had their eggs cryopreserved in France and abroad, five of whom have had children. It was found that most of the women interviewed associate motherhood with heterosexual coupledom, the nuclear family, and a normalized desire for biogenetic motherhood. Nevertheless, ontological disruptions caused by infertility, singlehood, or illness introduce the possibility that they will be unable to have children as expected, which leads them to imagine (and consider) both medical and non-medical ways of having a child. Women’s narrations of alternative paths toward motherhood describe a fragmentation of motherhood into genetic, biological, and social components, which are combined and hierarchized in unexpected ways. I argue that, although alternative reproductive trajectories might modify the kinship ties between the parties involved, they do not necessarily defy normative motherhood. To my knowledge, this is the first empirical study conducted among French women undertaking egg freezing. It seeks to contribute to a growing corpus of empirical research that analyzes egg freezing and its links with motherhood. Second, it mobilizes an innovative approach by examining similarities between SEF, MEF, and ESH. Furthermore, it proposes that women who freeze their eggs for medical reasons or in exchange for an egg donation also inscribe their egg freezing procedure within a heteronormative, biogenetic ideal of motherhood, and a normalized desire for a nuclear family. Finally, it contributes to analyzing the decision-making processes of women who become a mother after egg freezing.

Full Text

Pérez-Hernández, Y. (2023). Imagining motherhood and becoming a mother after egg freezing. An anthropological study in the French context. Feminismo/s, (41), 241–270. https://doi.org/10.14198/fem.2023.41.10