Representation In TV

On January 22, 1973, an estimated 5,000 people, women and men, marched around the Minnesota capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota, protesting the u.s. supreme court's roe v. wade decision. the marchers formed a "ring of life" around the building. (ap photo / usa today)

Austin Protests - June 24, 2022

An abortion rights demonstrator sits on the street in protest near the Austin State Capitol after the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the supreme court. Soon after the court's ruling, gov. Greg Abbott declared Texas a "pro-life state" and one of over a dozen to have "trigger bans" in place following the repeal. Texas' ban is especially harsh, with no exceptions for rape and incest.

Image: Suzanne Cordeiro/afp via Getty images / source: Rolling Stone

When we reflect on the characteristics of female characters in American television, we may often recall passive, apologetic, and inevitably forgettable women. Their identity only exists within the constraints of the male protagonist. Over time, the medium of television has caught up to reflect authoritative, self-assured women among us in society. As American society shifted into the fourth and current wave of feminism, it has become increasingly important for film scholars and feminist theorists alike to explore the significance of gender representation in popular media.

One modality of this is how legislative action and societal perception have shifted the ideals of motherhood in contemporary television. This can be well demonstrated in the renowned US medical drama series Grey’s Anatomy through the character of Dr Cristina Yang.

U.S. policy surrounding reproductive laws abide by the social norms that coagulate white supremacy and the nuclear family. So, when Roe v. Wade (1973) was passed as law in the Supreme Court it threatened the fundamental American ideology that feminists are arguing against today. Postmodern feminists insist that the socio-political functions of motherhood “maintained the modes of capitalist, patriarchal, and colonial production and the hierarchical power structures inherent in them”. And through Roe v. Wade, women combatted the “injustice of taking away bodily autonomy''. In other words, Roe v. Wade provided women with the decision of whether they wanted to bear children or not. Yet, as we examine reproductive legislation in the present day, this is no longer the case. Between Ronald Reagan’s presidency and the Trump Administration, several laws have been enforced to dismantle the foundation set by Roe v. Wade in the 70s. These enforcements were eventually successful as Roe v. Wade was overturned in June of 2022 meaning “the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives”. But I’d like to focus on the socio-politics of reproductive rights leading up to the overruling of Roe v. Wade, particularly, 2005-present, as it provides insight leading up to the point women ultimately lost their constitutional right to choose. The first federal legislation to criminalise abortions is known as Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America (2007). This law allowed Congress to ban certain second-trimester abortion procedures – “which overruled a key component of Roe v. Wade: that a patient’s health must be of paramount concern in laws that restrict abortion access.'' Therefore after women experiencing years of “political powerlessness” birth rates continue to decline.

A New York Times article entitled ‘Why American women everywhere are delaying motherhood’, reports that “since 2007, the birth rate for women in their 20s has fallen by 28%”. Now with the information on legislative action in 2007, it quickly offers a possible explanation for why women have taken this decision. The statistic combined with policy change proves that the decline in birth rates is not a coincidence but a domino effect on a loss of autonomy. “Women of all social classes have prioritised education and career, delaying childbearing has become a broad pattern among American women almost everywhere.” Women became dissatisfied with their constitutional right to choose being slowly stripped from them. My case study Dr Cristina Yang works in tandem with this political feminist observation because she falls into this statistic of women who opt against motherhood. Theorist Samira Kawash identifies that “the marginalisation of motherhood in feminist thought was not only a political rejection of maternalistic politics constructed as a conservative backlash to feminism. It was also the result of dramatic upheavals in feminist theory.” Ultimately, this expands on the idea that due to restrictive laws on female reproduction, women approach motherhood carefully and in which case are choosing to reject motherhood.

So, you tell me, when does life begin?

Next, dissecting the ‘Maternal Instinct Myth’ theory allows for the progressive shift of focus from legislative action to the private lives of women. It dissects the reasons why women are deciding not to have children and how these fall on the backs of the ‘Maternal Instinct Myth’ and the politicisation of foetal viability used as an exploitative tactic. This concept, examined by Chelsea Conaboy (2022) states that “The idea of maternal instinct as something innate, automatic and distinctly female is a myth”9 Which contradicts the neotraditional ‘Mommy Myth’ claim that decides women were “incomplete without children.” Conaboy rejects this dated claim in a New York Times article and reinforces that “motherhood is neither duty nor destiny”. The character of Dr Cristina Yang illustrates that the “Maternal Instinct Myth” is exactly that of a myth. The series entails an ensemble cast of often problematic, but intense surgeons who lead different specialities. Cristina is a cardio-thoracic surgeon, the speciality with personalities that are notoriously (for lack of a better descriptor) heartless. Yang is stern, authoritative, and proves the inconsistency in the narrative that the selflessness and tenderness that babies require is uniquely ingrained in the biology of women.

An examination of the following scene should highlight Dr Yang as a paradox of the “Mommy Myth”. At the hospital, Cristina pulls her husband Dr Owen Hunt into an on-call room to tell him that she’s pregnant, he doesn’t allow her to finish the sentence before he expresses his overwhelming enthusiasm about the news. She is taken aback, questioning his reaction because he knows that she doesn’t want children and has made that clear. She explains, “I don’t want one. I don’t hate children. I respect children. I think they should have parents who want them”. We immediately gauge an understanding of who Cristina is as a woman here. Owen asks how late she was as he struggles to come to terms with the idea of an abortion. “So, you tell me, when does life begin?” She amuses him. He responds frankly, “I don’t know, does it have hands”. His vernacular is key here as he specifically says “hands” in reference to the foetus in order to elicit guilt which is also an identifiable tactic in the political sphere. Politicians have been reprimanded for “cherry-picking” phrases to provoke the claimed innate biological reaction that women have. For instance, using “Unborn humans” in place of the word "foetus".

This issue expanded into wide-scale legislative action as Republicans attempted to pass the ‘Fetal viability’ bill shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned. This is defined as codifying abortion at “the point in pregnancy that survival is possible, should birth occur '' which is alarming as it continues to threaten women’s safety. Correspondingly, a culturally relevant podcast, I Said What I Said, distinguishes how men and women are socialised. They explain that “men aren’t socialised to edit themselves for comfortability, whereas we’re socialised to be nurturers and coddlers. Women are a lot more willing to overstep our boundaries just to make people comfortable”. Hence, the provocative wording used by Owen to convince her to have their child. Moreover, Cristina defies the conventional attributes of women that make them want to have children. The concept of humanising foetuses by politicising foetal viability works strategically to trigger a woman’s guilty conscience. Finally, by examining how the ‘Mommy Myth’ concept and ‘Politicization of Fetal Viability’ are used in tandem against women, a catalyst of women rejecting motherhood is distinct.

Drawing on feminist scholarly readings such as ‘The Politics of Motherhood’ and ‘Rethinking Feminist Attitudes Towards Motherhood’ has been useful to explore and expand on the pre-existing debate of motherhood as a socio-political construct. And not simply a compulsory component of female identity or a woman’s biological right. Dr Cristina Yang takes from postmodern feminists to establish a reaffirmed sense of autonomy. These women are the pinnacle of redefined female characters as they step out of the constraints of femininity that feed the male gaze and into their own reconstructed female identity.

Written by Ashley Zibiza