RUC-兴发娱乐官网手机版客户端 gets funding to investigate mothers¡¯ rights

Many mothers in 兴发娱乐官网手机版客户端stern Europe experience some distress during the times of pregnancy, birth and postpartum, a period called ¡°matrescence.¡± Although health, social and welfare laws offer some protection and accommodation to women during matrescence, the approach is fragmented and incomplete, according to Associate Professor C¨¦line Brassart Olsen. 

This is why the researcher, who is affiliated with the Department of Social Sciences and Business at 兴发娱乐官网手机版客户端 University, has received an ERC Starting Grant to map and investigate women¡¯s rights during pregnancy, birth, and eighteen months-postpartum. ERC Starting Grants are designed to support excellent researchers at the career stage at which they are starting their own independent research team. 

According to the researcher, the law has yet to address issues such as early pregnancy loss, obstetric violence, and the ¡°motherhood penalty¡± at work. These experiences have been under-explored and under-theorized in law and feminist legal theory.

She notes that ¡°the lack of a holistic approach to maternal rights during this vulnerable time has implications for women¡¯s rights to health, non-discrimination, dignity, autonomy, work and equality.¡±  

Need for increased legal recognition of the vulnerable transition of becoming a mother 

The overall aim of the project is to develop the first legal framework of maternal rights during matrescence, anchored in women¡¯s embodied experiences during this time, and to re-imagine rights from their vantage point.

Using legal comparative methods and socio-legal methods, the project analyzes health, labor, and welfare laws at national, regional and international levels to uncover which rights women have during this transition.

At the same time, the project investigates women¡¯s experiences of matrescence, including their experience of rights through qualitative methods. Based on the legal and qualitative analyses, the project identifies gaps in the current legal approach, develops new legal language and concepts to translate women¡¯s experiences into rights.

About seventy-five percent of miscarriages happen in the first three months of pregnancy, and at least thirty-three percent of births are traumatic. The lack of legal recognition of these experiences is damaging because it can give the impression that they do not exist, which leads to disenfranchised grief and compounds trauma. Yet laws have been slow to catch up in this area: for example, France and the UK only recognized parents¡¯ rights to a leave after early pregnancy loss in 2024 and 2025 respectively. In addition, countries in Europe do not have specific laws criminalizing obstetric violence.

New legal concepts and language

The project¡¯s goal is to break new theoretical ground by constructing a legal theory of maternal rights during matrescence. Using a gender embodiment lens, it explores for the first time new pathways for the recognition of women¡¯s rights during matrescence. C¨¦line Brassart Olsen highlights that the development of new legal concepts and language, such as inter-dependency rights, right to time, respectful corporal rights, and the interrogation of the legal status of unpaid childcare work, could help create significant changes for mothers.

¡°There has been a general trend in global policy in the last few decades, which has erased motherhood from the agenda to focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights, and gender equality in the workplace. This was to avoid reducing women to the maternal role. However, it has resulted in making many experiences related to pregnancy and motherhood invisible¡± says C¨¦line Brassart Olsen.

She further explains that laws primarily construe women during this period as vectors of the baby¡¯s wellbeing, and ¡°workers with care obligations¡±*, rather than legal subjects in their own right. This leaves out a number of experiences, such as early pregnancy loss, obstetric violence, and the motherhood penalty.

¡°This is an issue, which laws and legal scholarship have largely ignored. As a result, women¡¯s rights are fragmented and incomplete. It is important, that we start considering women¡¯s experiences from pregnancy to early motherhood as a continuum with interconnected needs and phases.¡±

* Nicole Busby and Grace James, A History of Regulating Working Families (Bloomsbury Publishing 2020)