Our
shared predicament— which I generally refer to as
the “motherhood problem”— is actually a constellation
of interconnected problems, most of which can be roughly sorted
under the headings of “women,” “work,” and
“family.” Mothers, of course, are women— and for
most of human history, women's social position was defined by their
reproductive roles, period. And while we’ve finally reached
a point in the development of human consciousness when it's possible
to imagine a more egalitarian world for women, we’re just
kidding ourselves if we entertain the crazy notion that the patriarchal
mindset is a thing of the past, or that mothers’ social and
economic displacement is simply the by-product of individual “choice.”
That leads us to the
whole question of work— why is it that in our culturally sophisticated,
economically advanced, postmodern society, almost all of men’s
work is regarded as “real” work, while most of women’s
work, whether it’s paid or unpaid, is either undervalued or
dismissed as a vocation? Of course, this harks back to the “woman
problem”— we are not yet living in a society that welcomes
women into the fold of productive citizenship on the same level
at which men— at least men in the dominant social class—
can freely enter. And we definitely haven’t figured out what
to do about the caregiving problem: if we can no longer depend on
mothers to prioritize the physical, developmental and emotional needs of the nation’s
young, then whom can we depend on?
That brings us to the
“family problem” and our cultural tendency to emphasize
the social value of families by obscuring their economic function.
It’s not very warm and fuzzy to think of marriage and parenting
as economic systems (although they are), and, that, too, ties into
the women/work/family matrix. Somewhere deep within our collective
psyche, we’re afraid that if we allow mothers full agency
in the hard-minded world of the public sphere, there will soon be
no one left to uphold the values of connection and altruism in everyday
life— no one left to live by the conviction that care
matters, that feelings have meaning, that relationship is central
to healthy human development, that caregiving counts.
And of course, care does
matter, not just to children and dependent adults, but to everyone.
I think we’ve figured that much out; we just haven’t
figured out a fair way to deliver good care to everyone who needs
it— which, once again, is everybody. So mothers are stuck.
But we don’t have
to stay that way. As feminist scholar Miriam
Peskowitz points out in her remarkable new book The
Truth Behind the Mommy Wars, today both mothers and
fathers face tremendous cultural and structural pressures to stream
their lives into either paid work or caregiving,
and durable stereotypes about masculine and feminine capacities
tend to push men and women into the well-worn grooves of the traditional
gender track. This, she argues, is one of the reasons the motherhood
problem must be understood as a feminist issue, and she
calls for a new, inclusive social movement to get the liberty-equality-justice
train rolling again. Don’t miss this month’s full-length
interview with Miriam— and don’t be dissuaded by
the lightweight title of her book. The Truth Behind the Mommy
Wars (which, by the way, is not its original title) is both
a culmination and a continuation of other recent works on motherhood
as a social issue, and it deserves a prominent place in the 21st
century motherhood canon.
Also in this edition,
first-time contributor Kimberly
Tso investigates the prevalence of discrimination against mothers
in the workplace and its causes. Also new in the MMO Features
section: Faulkner Fox, author of Dispatches
from a Not So Perfect Life, writes about judging
other mothers and how and why feminists can stop. Essays by
Jessica
Smartt Gullion and Cindy
DeMerlis explore the trade-offs mothers are forced to make,
whether they continue to work for pay or “sequence”
out of the workforce. Cindy— who writes about reentering the
paid workforce after 17 years as an at-home mom— seems to
be channeling Erma Bombeck, and I hope we’ll be seeing more
of her work in future editions of the MMO.
The April Noteworthy
section is packed with all sorts of tasty information, including
an entry on the history-making
union vote by Illinois child care workers and a listing of Mother’s
Day activities and events for mothers who think about social
change. And by the way, why
is everybody picking on lifestyle columnist Ayelet Waldman?
Of course, you’ll also find the usual assortment of links
to articles and reports on work-life
issues, reproductive
rights, women
and welfare, and other relevant topics.
Please,
please, PLEASE
visit the updated Get
Active page and sign the TakeCare Net Work
and Family Bill of Rights— and if you have not already
done so, I urge you to visit the Family Initiative web site and send
an email in support of the Healthy Families Act to your members
of Congress.
Last but not least, I
hope you’ll find an opportunity to read my in-depth
review of Jerry A. Jacobs and Kathleen Gerson’s The
Time Divide: Work, Family and Gender Inequality. This
groundbreaking study sheds new light on why some Americans are working
longer and harder while others are having a tough time finding jobs
with adequate hours and benefits. It should come as no surprise
that, according to Jacobs and Gerson, our “time problem”
is part and parcel of the “woman problem,” the “work
problem” and the “family problem,” not to mention
the growing problem of income inequality in the U.S. And just in
case you were wondering, worker preference for longer or shorter
work weeks has very little to do with the actual hours most Americans work.
As always, many, many
thanks to our incredible readers and contributors.
In solidarity,
Judith
Stadtman Tucker
Editor, The Mothers Movement Online
editor@mothersmovement.org |
