In my bachelor's thesis, I considered how Japanese and American women experience marriage, childbirth, and post-partum recovery. This paper was written to fulfill requirements in both anthropology and sociology, and is available online at <www.focusanthro.com>.
Transitions into Motherhood:Women's Experiences of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Postpartum Recovery In Japan and the United States
Bachelor's Thesis for Anthropology and Sociology
University of Chicago
Spring 2001
Advised by:
Norma Field (East Asian Languages and Civilizations);
Susan Gal (Anthropology);
Joseph Hopper (NORC);
Linda Waite (Sociology)
Abstract
In this thesis, I compare how Japanese and American women experience pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum recovery, specifically analyzing dissimilarity in incidence of postpartum depression. Because American women are more likely than Japanese women to become depressed during the postpartum period, I suggest that biology or endocrinology cannot fully explain this depression. Using Margaret Lock's idea of a "local biology," I propose that high American incidence of postpartum depression results partially from women's struggles to embody a new maternal identity and the conflictual shift in performance of sexuality that occurs with childbirth. For Japanese women becoming a mother is less of a dramatic social transformation because women can more easily assume proto-maternity with marriage. Upon marrying, an ideal Japanese wife provides her husband with the style of support she will later provide their children; thus having children causes very little change in her social identity. I analyze modern challenges to and discourses about this social norm, particularly considering the murder of Wakayama Haruna as a focal point for public conversation.