WHEN MOTHERHOOD IS UNDER SURVEILLANCE: MATERNAL LOVE AND STATE POWER IN JESSAMINE CHAN’S THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22032146Keywords:
Biopolitics, Emotional Governance, Feminist Dystopia, Institutional Motherhood, Jessamine Chan, Maternal Surveillance, State ControlAbstract
This paper looks into the ways in which The School for Good Mothers (2022) by Jessamine Chan describes motherhood as a place of state surveillance and institutional control. Based on the works of Michel Foucault on the theories of surveillance, discipline and biopolitics, as well as feminist theories of motherhood, the research paper is an examination of how the maternal love and caregiving is turned into a regulated and measurable behavior. The article argues in a quite close text study that the novel not only represents motherhood as a regulated action managed by the state apparatus but also subjecting mothers to a strict criteria of care and emotional conduct. It is a commentary on the current parenting trend as it illustrates how anxiety, self-policing and loss of maternal autonomy are created through surveillance, bureaucracy and gendered expectations. Finally, the research shows that the motherly love turns out to be one of the major processes by which the institutional force controls the lives of women.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Muhammad Bilal Saqlain, Sanniya Batool, Muhammad Abubakar Jamil (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
