The ‘Joy’ of Motherhood, the Violence in Motherhood: A Decolonial Feminist Analysis of Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Drawing strands from feministFeminist theoretical contestations around ‘motherhoodMotherhood’ and located within the context of intersectional queer decolonial third world experiences and identitiesIdentity, this chapter will examine ‘motherhoodMotherhood’ as an institutionInstitutions and its intersections with lawLaw and its instrumentalities. Beginning with a feministFeminist critical exploration of the terms ‘joy’ and ‘violenceViolence’ as used in the context of motherhoodMotherhood and by ‘motherhoodMotherhood’ as an institutionInstitutions, the chapter attempts to bring to the fore, and therefore, asks the question: what does it obfuscate and what is its corollary? The chapter then goes into an exploration of what ‘violenceViolence’ means in the context of ‘motherhoodMotherhood’ as an institutionInstitutions. It probes the layers of discrimination and violenceViolence embedded in ‘motherhoodMotherhood’ as an institutionInstitutions, using reproductive rightsReproductive rights as the broad framework for analysis. Specifically, the way this is brought into sharp focus in cases involving marginalized ‘bodiesBody’ of womenWomen and others, capable of becoming pregnant and ‘motheringMothering’. This is explored through discussion on obstetric violenceObstetric violence, coercive sterilizationCoercive sterilization practices, rights of queer persons to marry and form familiesFamily, and denial of one’s reproductive autonomyReproductive autonomy. The chapter looks into these issues within the overarching role of lawLaw as an instrument of social change, but also as an instrumentality of the StateState that it employs in specific and intentional ways.