‘Corporeographies’ of Pregnancy: ‘Bikini Babes’

Abstract

Drawing on Judith Butler's notion of performativity I examine some of the ambivalences and contradictions surrounding the exposure of pregnant bodies in public places. I focus on a bikini contest that was held on 7 October 1998 for pregnant women in Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand. I also focus on the narratives of thirty-one women who were pregnant for the first time and living in Hamilton, Aotearoa/New Zealand. There are normative expectations that women will do pregnancy in specific ways. For example, when occupying public places they are expected to act in a manner that is demure and modest. Such behaviours are repeated over time, eventually taking on the appearance of being ‘natural’. The pregnant women who entered the bikini contest momentarily destabilised these expected behaviours causing ‘pregnancy trouble’. The contestants were described by organisers of the contest as “pregnant women with attitude”. Parodying more normative beauty pageants the contestants (im)pregnated the streets. Yet at the same time the contestants reiterated hegemonic discourses of pregnancy by celebrating motherhood as a glorious and beautiful thing. This indicates the multiple ways in which pregnant women and others negotiate pregnancy resulting in a variety of complex subject positionings.