Wanda A. Wiegers’s research while affiliated with University of Saskatchewan and other places

Since the end of the Second World War, increasing numbers of women have decided to become mothers without intending the biological father or a partner to participate in parenting. Many conceive via donor insemination or adopt; others become pregnant after a brief sexual relationship and decide to parent alone. Using a feminist socio-legal framework, Autonomous Motherhood?probes fundamental assumptions within the law about the nature of family and parenting. Drawing on a range of empirical evidence, including legislative history, case studies, and interviews with single mothers, the authors conclude that while women may now have the economic and social freedom to parent alone, they must still negotiate a socio-legal framework that suggests their choice goes against the interests of society, fatherhood, and children.

Synopsis This article draws on interviews with 29 Canadian women who decided between 1965 and 2010 to parent as sole mothers through adoption or childbirth. The authors examine participants' experience of stigma and social sanctions and explore how perceptions of stigma changed over time. Although the analysis largely reflects the experience of relatively well-educated women, most of whom were white and heterosexual, differences in experience did align with participants' age, race, sexual orientation, poverty or reliance on social assistance and also varied according to religion and local, professional or occupational culture. Different sources or kinds of perceived stigma included stigma based on sexual deviance, irresponsible choices and welfare dependency, a lack of parenting capacity and social exclusion due to father absence. Different forms of resistance to stigmatization are also examined including isolation, secrecy, passing, attempts to minimize assumed disadvantages and more direct and explicit contestation of assumptions about familial norms.