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A. Motherhood
- Temple University Press
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A. Motherhood Introduction MOTHERHOOD HAS OCCUPIED a central place in feminist practice and theory.\ From its beginnings, the women's liberation political agenda targeted the problems faced by working mothers. At the second annual conference of the National Organization for Women in 1967, feminists advocated the establishment of daycare centers in the belief that government-subsidized childcare was necessary in the fight for equality.2 Continuing the battle during the 1970s, feminists allied with church groups, unions, civil rights organizations, and child welfare advocates to promote legislation. Many believed that the right kind of child care could reshape the society.... Liberals and feminists believed that racially mixed centers could help put an end to racism [and] combat sex stereotypes: In feminist-run centers, girls wouldn't be relegated to the housekeeping corner. And, of course, affordable child care would free women so that they could compete in the job market.3 These early legislative efforts, however, were unsuccessful. Comprehensive reform would take two decades.4 Second wave feminists criticized women's role in the family, subscribing to the view that the transformation of social, especially familial, relationships would ameliorate the quality oflife.5 The patriarchal family was seen as a primary source of women's oppression -both creating it and perpetuating it. Feminists viewed the transformation of the family as essential because the family is the primary institution for organizing gender relations in society. It is where the sexual division of labor, the regulation of sexuality, and the social construction and reproduction of gender are rooted. Gender hierarchy is Copyrighted Material 865 866 I MOTHERHOOD created, reproduced, and maintained on a day-to-day basis through interaction among members ofa household.6 Feminists' criticisms of the family, sociologist Evelyn Nakano Glenn suggests, were influenced by the literature of both Marxism and radical psychology.7 Echoing Marx and Engels, Marxist feminists blamed the ills of the family (such as alienation and oppression ) on changes in the modes ofproduction.8The radical psychology movement highlighted the pathological nature offamily relationships.9 However, the latter school of thought, Glenn maintains, "grossly distorts" the picture by labeling women as the primary perpetrators of families' harmful effects on children.1O Ann Snitow identifies three stages offeminist scholarship about motherhood. The first stage was characterized, she explains, by antifamilism.ll Snitow points to publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (which identified the malaise ofthe middle -class housewife) as marking the beginning of this period.12 She terms this first period of "early feminist mother-hating," from 1963 to 1975, a stage of "demon texts."13 Feminists were "on the defensive"14 and "spoke skeptically about the importance of motherhood."15 Positive descriptions of mothering were "taboo"16 or the subject of apology. In feminists' quest to improve the status of women, they subscribed to "moving beyond, or avoiding altogether, home and motherhood."17 Snitow identifies 1976 as the beginning of the second period offeminist theorizing about motherhood.18 However, Snitow here appears to overlook the importance ofthe transitional work byJessie Bernard, The Future ofMotherhood.19 Bernard explored motherhood as a role, a symbol, and an institution. With Bernard's classic, we witness the recognition of motherhood as a social construct, influenced by social conditions such as declining fertility rates and the increasing proportion of mothers in the labor force.2o Bernard heralded more theoretical assessment ofmotherhood as ideology and institution. In this second, more focused stage offeminist theory, according to Snitow, mothers became worthy subjects of study in their own right.21 Feminists "tried to take on the issue of motherhood seriously, to criticize the institution, explore the actual experience, theorize the social and psychological implications."22 Glenn concurs that feminist writers in this period challenged the foundations of motherhood as a social construct,23 A significant benchmark is Adrienne Rich's OfWoman Born24 in 1976. Like Bernard, Rich explored motherhood as an institution. However, Rich enriched the analysis with her own experience.25 This stage of feminist inquiry is also social-psychological in focus. Two classic psychoanalytic explanations of gender differences appear: Nancy Chodorow's The Reproduction ofMotherint6 and Dorothy Dinnerstein's The Mermaid and the Minotaur.27 In addition, we witness the cross-fertilization ofAmerican feminism and French feminism.28 Such French writers asJulia Kristeva, Helene Cixous, and Luce Irigaray "emphasized the salient role that motherhood plays in providing access to unappreciated and previously unspoken female experiences."29 Feminists in the third stage, beginning in 1980, according to Snitow, continue the exploration of...