{"id":824,"date":"2015-10-26T18:11:54","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T18:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=824"},"modified":"2015-10-26T18:11:54","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T18:11:54","slug":"shoutyourabortion-shouts-back-at-stigma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2015\/10\/26\/shoutyourabortion-shouts-back-at-stigma\/","title":{"rendered":"#ShoutYourAbortion Shouts Back at Stigma"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_825\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-825\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2015\/10\/Screen-Shot-2015-10-26-at-1.10.07-PM.png\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-825\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2015\/10\/Screen-Shot-2015-10-26-at-1.10.07-PM-600x413.png\" alt=\"Twitter screenshot.\" width=\"600\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2015\/10\/Screen-Shot-2015-10-26-at-1.10.07-PM-600x413.png 600w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2015\/10\/Screen-Shot-2015-10-26-at-1.10.07-PM-300x206.png 300w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2015\/10\/Screen-Shot-2015-10-26-at-1.10.07-PM.png 679w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-825\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Twitter screenshot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the ongoing battles around whether to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/09\/30\/us\/politics\/planned-parenthood-congress-republicans.html\">defund Planned Parenthood<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/profile\/west-lindy\">Lindy West<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ameliabonow?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\">Amelia Bonow<\/a> created the Twitter hashtag <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/seattle-news\/why-shoutyourabortion-is-a-womans-personal-imperative\/\">#ShoutYourAbortion<\/a> to encourage women to share their abortion stories, express their experiences, and recognize the stigma that often silences women who have an abortion. Consequently,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/10\/02\/us\/hashtag-campaign-twitter-abortion.html?_r=0\"> many have criticized the hashtag<\/a> and attacked the women involved. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2015\/sep\/22\/i-set-up-shoutyourabortion-because-i-am-not-sorry-and-i-will-not-whisper\">Supporters of #ShoutYourAbortion<\/a> argue that sharing real women\u2019s stories on social media produces cultural change around an issue surrounded by legal rhetoric. Sociological research details why women have generally felt compelled to stay silent about having abortions and the potential benefits of speaking up.<\/p>\n<h5>Many women believe that disclosing their abortion experiences will lead to negative responses from relatives and friends, due to widely held norms of femininity and motherhood that assert women are \u201cnatural nurturers\u201d and the idea that having an abortion negates those qualities. In a classic study of pro-life and pro-choice activists, Kristin Luker notes that abortion is often seen as a \u201creferendum on the place and meaning of motherhood.\u201d For pro-life activists, terminating a pregnancy may be the ultimate example of being a \u201cbad mother.\u201d Rather than face anticipated judgment and condemnation around moral codes of appropriate feminine behavior, women then choose to conceal their procedures.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.berkeley.edu\/php-programs\/faculty\/facultyProfile.php?facID=132\">Kristin Luker<\/a>. 1984. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/book.php?isbn=9780520055971\"><em>Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood<\/em><\/a>. Los Angeles: University of California Press.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/law.lclark.edu\/live\/profiles\/308-paula-abrams\">Paula Abrams<\/a>. 2015. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/jlme.12231\/abstract\">The Bad Mother: Stigma, Abortion, and Surrogacy<\/a>.\u201d <em>Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics <\/em>43(2):179-191.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>A major source of stress and frustration women experience centers on the gendered imbalance of responsibility for contraception and abortion decisions. Research finds that women are often expected be responsible for providing or taking contraception, but are heavily criticized when they take responsibility by choosing to have an abortion. Thus, Sally Brown argues, where women are held responsible for reproductive decisions, \u201cdecision making, if \u2018decisions\u2019 happen at all, is bound up with notions of hegemonic masculine and feminine roles.\u201d<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.york.ac.uk\/management\/staff\/ra\/sallybrown\/\">Sally Brown<\/a>. 2015. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/13691058.2014.950983\">\u2018They Think it&#8217;s All Up to the Girls\u2019: Gender, Risk, and Responsibility for Contraception.<\/a>\u201d<em> Culture, Health, &amp; Sexuality<\/em> 17(3): 312-325.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org\/scholar-profile\/1471\">Katrina Kimport<\/a>, Kira Foster, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shesource.org\/experts\/profile\/tracy-a.-weitz-phd-mpa\">Tracy A. Weitz<\/a>. 2011. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezp1.lib.umn.edu\/doi\/10.1363\/4310311\/abstract\">Social Sources of Women&#8217;s Emotional Difficulty After Abortion: Lessons from Women&#8217;s Abortion Narratives<\/a>.\u201d <em>Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health<\/em> 43(2):103\u2013109.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>Stigma, however, does not reduce the likelihood that a woman will have an abortion. Cockrill and Nack write that even women who \u201cbelieve abortion is morally wrong and that women who have abortions are careless and irresponsible will still have abortions.\u201d Instead, the primary consequences of abortion stigma are decreased mental and physical health, strained relationships, and loss of social status. Spaces of affirmation and support like the #ShoutYourAbortion campaign allow women to engage in \u201ccollective stigma management,\u201d offering a supportive network where their public presence can work to change social attitudes and shatter the silence surrounding abortion experiences.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/seachangeprogram.org\/about-us\/staff\/kate-cockrill\/\">Kate Cockrill<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adinanack.com\/\">Adina Nack<\/a>. 2013. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com.ezp1.lib.umn.edu\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/01639625.2013.800423\">\u2018I&#8217;m Not That Type of Person\u2019: Managing the Stigma of Having an Abortion<\/a>.\u201d<em> Deviant Behavior<\/em> 34(12): 973-990.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/gretchensisson\">Gretchen Sisson<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org\/scholar-profile\/1471\">Katrina Kimport<\/a>. 2014. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com.ezp2.lib.umn.edu\/science\/article\/pii\/S0010782414000067\">Telling Stories about Abortion: Abortion-Related Plots in American Film and Television, 1916\u20132013<\/a>.\u201d<em> Contraception<\/em> 89(5): 413-418.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the ongoing battles around whether to defund Planned Parenthood, Lindy West and Amelia Bonow created the Twitter hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion to encourage women to share their abortion stories, express their experiences, and recognize the stigma that often silences women who have an abortion. Consequently, many have criticized the hashtag and attacked the women involved. Supporters [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":495,"featured_media":825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,55,33,85],"tags":[738,38543,38545,38544,38546,36873,36872,3397,1969],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-gender","category-health","category-politics","tag-abortion","tag-culture","tag-gender","tag-health","tag-politics","tag-pro-choice","tag-pro-life","tag-reproduction","tag-stigma"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2015\/10\/Screen-Shot-2015-10-26-at-1.10.07-PM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/495"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":826,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions\/826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}