Nevertheless, what struck me as I explored the narrations was how extremely congruous they were to the media discourse on Malay Muslim maternity. I have elucidated in Chapter Three that the way in which I gained access to my informants resulted in me interviewing mostly middle class Malay women. So even if I am not looking from the lens of class, the desire to inhabit the dominant discourse could be indicative of a middle class lifestyle. Therefore, the concept of the „sacrificing mother‟ could be suggestive of a middle class phenomenon. Such an assumption was based on Stivens‟ (1998, 2007) analysis of the modern Malay Muslim mother. She saw how the middle class Malay mother is designated as the bearer of the Malay-Muslim concept of modernity. She is modern, chaste and successful. She dotes on her children and husband and always safeguards their health and safety. Consumption is an important aspect of this venerated middle class lifestyle. Stivens (1998, 2007) then concluded that through consuming knowledge on maternity and motherhood, Malay women are able to transform themselves into the image of good mothers. My informants had a thirst for knowledge that will help them achieve their desire of becoming a good mother. They depended on the services of an expensive doula in addition to that
154
of a gynecologist. Some like Salena and Dijah could negotiate for favorable work and family arrangements. Others like Hasanah and Nur resigned from their work with minimal financial repercussion. These then made me question whether the relationship between their class status and the concept of the „sacrificing mother‟
is simply a correlation or a model specific to the middle class. Such a query then further broadens the need for future scholarship on Malay maternity.
Additionally, although it was not my intention to look at the maternity experiences of middle class women, the possibility that their form of agency is indicative of a class phenomenon stimulates further research on how class influences Malay women‟s maternal careers. How does the middle class maternity experience then influence the maternal embodiment of those from other class backgrounds? Such a query was based on how I saw my younger informants‟
construction of the hierarchy of knowledge affected the maternity narratives of my older informants, some of whom belong to a lower class background. As the answer to this is beyond the scope of this thesis, future research projects on the effects of class on maternal narratives are warranted.
7.3 My…. Our…. Their Maternal Career: Some Reflections
Finally, it was my own maternal career that first drove me to conduct a project exploring the maternal careers of other Malay women. At first, I found it easy to connect with my informants since I too came from a middle class
155
background and I too was a new mother trying to learn the ropes of motherhood and maternity.
I became pregnant for the second time in the midst of writing this thesis. I realized how much of my informants narratives had affected my second foray into maternity. Having possessed experiential knowledge from my first pregnancy, I realized how I was more relaxed in handling my second pregnancy. I did not want to subject my second child to the same medical intervention as my first. I especially wanted to limit the amount of medicine that I had to take. Taking a cue from Hasanah, I decided not to go to the gynecologist until I was 5 months pregnant. I knew what vitamins I had to take and requested my husband to buy them at the local pharmacy. Similar to Ms. Zai, I also wanted to control my food intake this time. I wanted to eat healthy. I did not want to gain as much weight as I did when I was pregnant with my first child. I feared that my extreme weight gain would this time have detrimental effects on my baby. I was even more prepared for the confinement period. I made sure that I followed the confinement rules that I frequently broke during the first encounter. I was influenced by Hasanah‟s claim that one‟s strict adherence to the confinement rituals would affect one‟s role as a mother. I got sick and had body aches often after my first pregnancy. I learnt my lesson. I should have heeded my mother-in-law‟s and mother‟s constant badgering about adhering strictly to their confinement rules.
Additionally, I wanted to lose weight and regain my slimness. Not only would it boost my self-esteem, I would also be fit enough to run around with my extremely
156
inquisitive son. However, I refused their advice to drink as little water as possible.
They said it would prevent bloating and hence helped me lose my excess weight but I knew it would severely reduce my breast milk content. I did not want to deprive my child of the nourishment that he needed. He was my main priority.
Yet, my maternity narrative also deviates from theirs. I had to go through two emergency C-sections. I was informed by my gynecologist that this would render it impossible for me to deliver vaginally in the future. I suddenly felt less of a woman, never having had the opportunity to feel the pain of birth. The conviction in which my informants felt about the noble virtues of sacrifice and how it is emblematic of the good virtuous Muslim mother made me feel disappointed. I was crushed by my bodily deficiency. I felt like a bad mother, a failure. It then dawned on me how several feminist studies have also exacerbated the silence of women‟s experiences. Some have tended to showcase the medical profession of obstetrics as edging out the occupation of midwifery and hence women‟s experiences into oblivion (see Oakley, 1984 for example). Many feminists argue that the uterus has been objectified by obstetricians (Crouch and Manderson, 1993). They romanticize the midwife as a healer who ensures the best for the maternal woman (Oakley, 1990). Moreover, they believe that hospital births administered by the obstetrician would remove the powers of the supportive female kin thereby creating an atmosphere of fear and tension around childbirth (Oakley, 1990; Roziah Omar, 1992).
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Supporting Oakley (1990), most of my informants embraced a natural conception of maternity. They were strong opponents of medicalization. As a result, they subjected themselves to strict pregnancy and birthing regimes. Yet, in doing this, they have further silenced the narratives of other women including my own. These other women are seen as less of a mother, less of a woman. Feminist methodology has helped me “acknowledge the negative and positive aspects of being a mother” (Letherby, 1994: 528). As I continue to showcase my informants‟ stories, I am further entrenching the stories of women who choose, had to succumb to or are happy with having had a cesarean section or other forms of assisted births into the shadows. This includes my own narrative. I am also denying the stories of the many Malay women whose maternal careers did not involve a male partner. The narratives that I have included are only celebrations of children born out of heterosexual, middle class marriage relationships. Ironically, these are the type of women already championed in the Malay popular literature on maternity and motherhood. Spivak‟s (1988) caution came true. As we bring to fore the narratives of subaltern individuals, they no longer become the subaltern.
This process results in further embedding other women in a subaltern quicksand.
However, it is also feminism that reminds me that there is no one solitary voice of women. The confinement period is an example of a cultural event that is experienced in multiple ways as evident by the diverse narratives. Mirroring this, Farhana informed me how “whatever you hear and what you experience might be different”. Shy succinctly described what most of my informants felt; “each
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pregnancy experience is different”. Emphasis on bodily experience, made the women conscious of the subjective aspects of maternity. Such a standpoint that is based on femininity, would then allow for the possibility of opening up discussions on alternative maternity practices rather than rendering them forever silent in the Malay community.
Consequently I agree with Salzman‟s (2002) criticism of the sociological definition of reflexivity. He refutes the idea that only those who are in the same position as their informants produce valid research. He believes that valid research can always be obtained since researchers have “empathy, sympathy, and imagination” (Salzman, 2002: 808). Not having gone through the same form of childbirth does not mean that I am unable to understand my informants‟
experiences. Such a mindset would actually render my informants‟ experiences spurious too. They are also aware that every maternity experience is different but it did not stop them from gaining empathic embodied knowledge. As women they were able to empathize with the experiences of other women that differed from their own. If the point of feminist research is to use every day women‟s tools, then my research cannot be deemed invalid as I utilize the same tools as my informants to understand their experiences; like them I was merely collecting maternity stories.
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What I found were narratives of maternal careers filled with sacrificing performances. In their quest to become „sacrificing mothers‟, “hard work, vigilance and observance of strict standards of behaviour” which started out as
“means to an end” have “subsequently become ends in themselves” (Crouch and Manderson, 1993: 106). My informants talk about “wanting to have an experience” (Diana) or how they “want my experience to be…” (Dijah) epitomize how the body is the locus of such sacrificing acts. It is with this concept in mind that I hope I have achieved in accepting Manderson‟s (1998: 27) invitation for a research that concentrates on Malay women‟s “maternal careers”.
Yet, this by no means marks the end of research on Malay maternity. I have only carved out a space for the maternity perspectives of my informants to be heard.
There are many more Malay women‟s maternity voices that have yet to be revealed. By putting emphasis on the Malay “mother as subject”, her voice, her
“own experiences of her maternity and her relation to her child and her own body”, I can say with great optimism that I have opened up the space for further studies on Malay “maternality-for-the-mother” (Edelstein, 1992: 29).
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