Doing The Month, Doing The Body: Postpartum Experience, Mothering Narratives, And Gender Inequality In Shanghai

This paper explores the bodily experience of female white-collar employee during the postpartum period in the context of sociology of the body. Eighteen women were interviewed and asked to reflect on their self-care practices within the family home. Content analysis was used to the in-depth interviews and major categories identified: body management, body identity and interpersonal relationships. Based on these aspects, I map a “field of doing the month” in which parturient are “doing the body” in everyday postpartum life.According to the analysis of qualitative data, this article describes the experience from two sides: 1) body- self and 2) body – society. First, by using the perspective of the body management and starting from women’s individual experience, this paper focuses on the meanings of food, body practice and body identity in the postpartum period. In the women’s experience the body would be unique. When the women give a birth to a baby, the traditional culture would regard them as passive acceptance of treatment, but the women want to manage their own body. For example, they like to do exercise to keep thin body. There is the profound interaction among body management, body practice and body identity. Different body management often brings about different body identity. Effort to keep gender identity is often accompanied by body practice. Second, according to the women’s social interaction with others(the baby, the husband and the mother-in-law), doing the month will not only change the women’s body, but also alter the women’s existing social relations, and prompted them to adjust for the change of social interaction.