Abstract
Qualitative study with a Thematic Oral History approach, aiming to understand women's health care from the point of view of childless women, considering public health policies. The snowball technique was used to define the 19 participating women, without children, aged between 18 and 90 years, who know or use public health policies. The narratives were collected through interviews, with a semi-structured script, and submitted to the narrative analysis method. Among the findings, there are the discourses and representations of motherhood, produced and conveyed in public health policies, in which the biological characteristics of women are implicit in the fragmentation of the female body into uterus and breast. Also noteworthy is the perception of childless women that health programs and policies, by focusing on reproductive aspects, reaffirming the female ideal of a woman-mother, neglecting other aspects and disregarding the woman who chooses no maternity. The representations of the feminine focus on the body, the target of power, linking the condition of being a woman to motherhood, based on biological determinism. It is necessary to re-elaborate these policies, considering the transformations in the female role and women's freedom of choice in contemporary times.
Keywords:
Public policy; Female body; Maternity.