"Unwed Mother": Sex, Stigma, and Spoiled Identity

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This paper focuses on the postwar "unwed mother," the discursive construction of her identity in the twentieth century, and the resulting policies and practices that led to the loss of her (usually) firstborn infant to adoption in the postwar adoption mandate. The stigma and spoiled identity attached to being an "unwed mother" had a negative impact on the lives of these mostly teenaged young women and girls, the majority for their entire lives. This paper uncovers the illegal, unethical, and human rights abuses perpetrated against these "gender traitors," sexual agents who became pregnant out-of-wedlock, disrupting normative gender roles during a period in which women were expected to create nuclear families within heterosexual marriage.