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88 7 Belly Dancing Mommas Challenging Cultural Discourses of Maternity Angela M. Moe I’m waiting backstage. The last minute checks—Shoes? I can’t bend down far enough to reach them. Hip scarf? I can’t reach far enough across myself to adjust it. Veil? If I turn around to ensure it’s draped correctly, I’ll bump into and move the stage curtains. Warm-up hip shimmy? No need. I’m always warm nowadays. My time is close, in more ways than one. The music, and the flutter in my belly, serve as reminders . . . I’m twenty-six weeks along and I’m still dancing. I’m proud of myself. I enter the stage feeling voluptuous and ripe. What an odd and unexpected empowerment. It takes just a few seconds for her to join in. “I can feel you, Baby!” She wiggles. “Are you dancing too?” This is our duet. Nothing else matters. These were my thoughts during my last public performance before delivering my daughter. I had been belly dancing semiprofessionally for more than six years at the time I learned I was pregnant. It was the one form of exercise-recreation I maintained throughout my pregnancy, and it was the first such activity I resumed postpartum. While belly dance is a highly expressive and creative genre (Shay and Sellers-Young 2003, 2005), the public typically views it as a form of erotic entertainment, on par with striptease, burlesque, and cabaret (Carlton 1994; Dougherty 2005). It may thus seem inappropriate for a pregnant woman or new mother to be engaging in belly dance—an unsuitable display of the body and contrary to the asexualized, selfless qualities of maternity. Indeed, pregnancy and early motherhood in the United States are subject to dominant cultural discourses that position them as central to normative femininity, a cultural rite of passage (Letherby 1994). As such, women face a host of gendered expectations about selfless devotion to (impending) motherhood. The pregnant and postpartum body becomes a subject of distinct patriarchal critique, with a range of activities and behaviors related to diet, exercise, and appearance deemed necessary for healthy pregnancy, birth, and postpartum recovery (Bailey 1999). In this chapter I examine the ways in which the act of belly dancing subverts dominant discourses surrounding pregnancy and motherhood. Challenging Cultural Discourses of Maternity 89 Discourses of Maternity A central premise of feminist theories is that women’s bodies are perceived as a mystery , the Other, as de Beauvoir (1952) asserted several decades ago. Thus, they are abstract, unpredictable, suspect, and possibly threatening things that must be regulated and controlled. Through time and the evolution of various social, political, and religious institutions, women’s bodies have become a “direct locus of social control” (Bordo 1990, 13). Activities associated with or performed on female bodies have become a “medium of culture” (Bordo 1990, 13), and the various means through which culture is displayed through and on women’s bodies has been widely discussed by various feminist theorists (see Bartky 1988; Dimen 1989). As products and practitioners of culture, then, women are socialized throughout their lives to “do gender” (West and Zimmerman 1987). Dominant discourses about what is and is not deemed appropriate regarding women’s activities and displays of physicality arise from this rubric. These discourses place various and sometimes contradictory expectations on women’s gendered performances (Bordo 1993; Butler 1990; Dyer 1992). Such paradoxical expectations become particularly salient during pregnancy and shortly after childbirth. For example , women may be expected to suspend certain normative practices related to their non-motherhood identities (e.g., being thin, acting sexually alluring) and prioritize, even if only temporarily, others (e.g., gaining weight, honing one’s “maternal instinct,” becoming asexual) (Bailey 1999; Dworkin and Wachs 2004; Marshall 1991). Thus, while the pregnant woman symbolizes maternal potential, she also becomes aesthetically problematic. She is both an admired subject and a physically unappealing object, according to contemporary standards of beauty. As such, the postpartum torso is to be modestly clothed or masked according to culturally appropriate standards. So while women may find pride and strength in their bodies during and after pregnancy, these same bodies may also become sources of discomfort and shame (Dworkin and Wachs 2004). Dancing in ways that emphasize and reveal the torso may provide a space for overt resistance and physical reclamation. History and Social Context of Belly Dance Belly dance, as it has come to be known in the West, is an eclectic genre with ancient origins...

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