Making Sure She Eats Right: Absent-Presence, Articulation, and Surveillance-Care in Senegalese Men’s Maternal Support

In Senegal, where pregnancy is "women's business," men's roles in prenatal and postpartum care are mediated by gendered expectations of what expectant fathers are allowed to know and do. Expectant fathers' roles map onto masculine expectations of the authoritative, sovereign head-of-household. Using the state-authored <i>Handbook of Mother and Child Health</i>, I argue that state surveillance is refracted through preexisting masculine prenatal care roles, and that men willingly articulate themselves to the role of the surveillance state by relying on the Handbook as a guide for how to watch their pregnant partners and make sure they are adhering to its guidance.