Sexual subjectivities of British mothers, 1840-1939
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: History and Cultures
Abstract
Sexuality and motherhood have often been presented as incompatible, with a woman's identity as a sexual being-her sexual subjectivity-expected to become subsumed to her identity as a mother as soon as she has a child. This is especially true of mothers whose sexual subjectivities are classed as 'deviant' or 'non-normative,' including same-sex attraction and relationships and/or 'deviant' sexual practices as kink, fetish, and BDSM. During the American 'lesbian baby boom' of the 1980s and 90s, for example, the fact of being in a lesbian relationship could result in the loss of parental custody for many formerly heterosexually married lesbians (see Hanscombe 1981). Non-heterosexual and non-'vanilla' sexual desires and behaviours are positioned as especially incompatible with motherhood, and the imperative to discard this (sexual) part of one's subjectivity is even stronger for these mothers than for more 'normative' ones.
However, it must also be asked: have motherhood and sexual subjectivity always been positioned in opposition? The period 1840-1939 is rich with changing narratives about and definitions of womanhood, motherhood, and sexuality, and it is here that I propose to situate my investigation. I plan to trace the effects of particular cultural trends (e.g., Gothic literature and Decadent art); scientific developments (e.g., the turn towards 'rationalisation'; the birth of sexology and eugenics); and major historical events (e.g., the suffrage movement and the First World War) upon British women's lives across the following sub-periods: mid-Victorian (1840-1880); fin-de-siècle (1880-1914); wartime (1914-1918); and interwar (1918-1939).
While previous scholarship-such as Branca (1975), Peterson (1989), McClintock (1995), Marcus (2007), Nelson and Holmes (eds., 2007), and Rosenman and Klaver (eds., 2008)-has variously addressed 19thand 20th-century British motherhood, womanhood, and sexuality, these concerns have rarely been considered together, as coterminous forces within a woman's life. I will argue that between 1840 and 1939 British women's sex lives neither began nor ended with motherhood. Simply put, I hope to locate sex in motherhood and motherhood in sex, and in so doing disrupt conventional perceptions of mothers both in the period of study and in our own time.
Throughout the project I will employ a methodology, informed by queer history, queer theory, and queer literary studies, of reading 'against the grain' and 'between the lines' to discover hidden and transgressive subjectivities. The objects of my proposed analysis will include didactic texts-women's magazines, household guides, and advice literature-as well as sexological scholarship. The legal and medical records of women institutionalised and/or incarcerated on grounds of 'sexual deviance' and/or 'mental deficiency,' for example at Holloway Sanatorium and Ticehurst House Hospital, may also prove useful; trial records from divorce cases should also offer valuable insight into women's experiences of marriage. Additionally, I believe that women's life-writings such as the 1850s diary of Mrs Isabella Robinson, and the papers of the physician and sexual reformer Marie Stopes, including correspondence from and with her female readers, will provide further opportunity for critical analysis of the ways in which maternal sexuality was constructed and experienced between 1840 and 1939.
However, it must also be asked: have motherhood and sexual subjectivity always been positioned in opposition? The period 1840-1939 is rich with changing narratives about and definitions of womanhood, motherhood, and sexuality, and it is here that I propose to situate my investigation. I plan to trace the effects of particular cultural trends (e.g., Gothic literature and Decadent art); scientific developments (e.g., the turn towards 'rationalisation'; the birth of sexology and eugenics); and major historical events (e.g., the suffrage movement and the First World War) upon British women's lives across the following sub-periods: mid-Victorian (1840-1880); fin-de-siècle (1880-1914); wartime (1914-1918); and interwar (1918-1939).
While previous scholarship-such as Branca (1975), Peterson (1989), McClintock (1995), Marcus (2007), Nelson and Holmes (eds., 2007), and Rosenman and Klaver (eds., 2008)-has variously addressed 19thand 20th-century British motherhood, womanhood, and sexuality, these concerns have rarely been considered together, as coterminous forces within a woman's life. I will argue that between 1840 and 1939 British women's sex lives neither began nor ended with motherhood. Simply put, I hope to locate sex in motherhood and motherhood in sex, and in so doing disrupt conventional perceptions of mothers both in the period of study and in our own time.
Throughout the project I will employ a methodology, informed by queer history, queer theory, and queer literary studies, of reading 'against the grain' and 'between the lines' to discover hidden and transgressive subjectivities. The objects of my proposed analysis will include didactic texts-women's magazines, household guides, and advice literature-as well as sexological scholarship. The legal and medical records of women institutionalised and/or incarcerated on grounds of 'sexual deviance' and/or 'mental deficiency,' for example at Holloway Sanatorium and Ticehurst House Hospital, may also prove useful; trial records from divorce cases should also offer valuable insight into women's experiences of marriage. Additionally, I believe that women's life-writings such as the 1850s diary of Mrs Isabella Robinson, and the papers of the physician and sexual reformer Marie Stopes, including correspondence from and with her female readers, will provide further opportunity for critical analysis of the ways in which maternal sexuality was constructed and experienced between 1840 and 1939.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Matt Houlbrook (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Sydni Zastre (Student) |