I argue here that it is possible to relate to childbirth either as an event requiring women to sacrifice themselves in the patriarchal sense (forced to choose between experiencing birth as pathological or as essentially “natural” and “feminine”) or as one that allows for a “feminist sacrifice” – a deeply embodied and painful but also creative and redeeming self-sacrifice, chosen by a woman herself. On the other hand, some recent feminist analyses recognize sacrifice as a potentially empowering tool for women, so long as it is freely chosen and experienced as positively transformative. On the one hand, it seems that women should reject self-sacrificing practices, along with myths prizing women’s sacrifices, since historically the imperative for women to be sacrificed and to sacrifice themselves has constituted an important patriarchal device for keeping women oppressed and powerless.
The concept of sacrifice poses an interesting challenge to feminist theory.
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