Motherhood Studies

Why do women in contemporary western societies experience contradiction between their autonomous and maternal selves? What are the origins of this contradiction and the associated ‘double shift’ that result in widespread calls to either ‘lean in’ or ‘opt out’? How are some mothers subverting these contradictions and finding meaningful ways of reconciling their autonomous and maternal selves?


In Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities, Petra Bueskens argues that western modernisation consigned women to the home and released them from it in historically unprecedented, yet interconnected, ways. Her ground-breaking formulation is that western women are free as ‘individuals’ and constrained as mothers, with the twist that it is the former that produces the latter.


Bueskens’ theoretical contribution consists of the identification and analysis of modern women’s duality drawing on political philosophy, feminist theory and sociology tracking the changing nature of discourses of women, freedom and motherhood across three centuries. While the current literature points to the pervasiveness of contradiction and double-shifts for mothers, very little attention has been paid to how (some) women are subverting contradiction and ‘rewriting the sexual contract’. Bridging this gap, Bueskens’ interviews ten ‘revolving mothers’ to reveal how periodic absence, exceeding the standard work-day, disrupts the default position assigned to mothers in the home, and in turn disturbs the gendered dynamics of household work.


A provocative and original work, Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities will appeal to graduate students and researchers interested in fields such as Women and Gender Studies, Sociology of Motherhood and Social and Political Theory.


Endorsements:


Petra Bueskens has been in the forefront of the new, and very welcome field of motherhood studies.  In Modern Motherhood and Women's Dual Identities: Rewriting the Sexual Contact [she analyses] the psychic, social, cultural and political challenges posed by the dual identities of mother and citizen, elegantly and capaciously ranges across 400 years of theory, up to the present, that address them, as well as providing psychologically-attuned interview documentation of how women feel and think, daily and throughout their maternal lives.
Nancy J Chodorow
Author, The Reproduction of Mothering, The Power of Feelings, Individualizing Gender and Sexuality, and other works Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley


This creative and theoretically rich book re-examines the social contradictions and penalties faced by women who want to be both caring mothers and autonomous public individuals.  Taking us beyond the logic of the "sexual contract," Bueskens introduces us to the "revolving mothers" who offer a glimpse of the social revolution required to undo the gendered separation of spheres.  A fascinating and compelling study.
Dr. Sharon Hays, author of the The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood



In this lucid, timely and important new book, Petra Bueskens takes up the formidable task of investigating the 'new sexual contract' in late modernity that leaves women strung out between the promise of autonomy in the public sphere, and the demands of motherhood that isolate and intensify mothering work in the home, both freeing and constraining women at once. Bueskens brings into view this impossible contradictory duality by producing both a new social theory of dualism, and the empirical evidence to show that it is possible to force changes in the sexual contract at the level of individual family organization. Through tracking a small group of women who both choose to mother and also spend protracted periods of time away from the family, she shows how these women produce radical shifts in the gendered dynamics of the household. Her bold and vital claim is that we can rewrite the sexual contract only if we understand the historical and contemporary double-bind that produces women's liberty as it undermines it, making motherhood still the unfinished business of feminism.
Dr. Lisa Baraitser, Reader in Psychosocial Studies, Birckbeck University, author of Maternal Encounters


Modern Mothers' Dual Identities: Rewriting the Sexual Contract cogently and compellingly elucidates a central debate in motherhood studies and a persistent dilemma in most mothers' lives; namely the contradiction between women's maternal and individualized selves.  Through her lucid theoretical ruminations on the 'new sexual contract' in late modernity and by way of an innovative empirical study on 'revolving mothers', Bueskens delivers the needed blueprints to actualize the potential of what she incisively terms 'the individualized mother'.
Dr. Andrea O'Reilly, Professor of Women's Studies, York University, Toronto, Founder and Director of the Motherhood Initiative and author of Matricentric Feminism.



In this engaging and timely book, Petra Bueskens tackles a central challenge of modern life - how to reconcile the contradictory roles of women as citizens, individual workers and mothers. She traces the history through the theoretical views of motherhood, integrating the multiple strands in a sophisticated and fascinating synthesis. She highlights periodic maternal absence as a bridge between individualism and constraint, revealing both the ambiguities and a potential way to progress women's liberation. The book is an absorbing read that makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of contemporary motherhood.
Dr. Lyn Craig, Professor of Sociology/ARC Future Fellow, The University of Melbourne, author of Contemporary Motherhood.

This article examines seventeen children poems by Sylvia Plath written in the years 1960-63, in relation to the poetics of romantic love. Drawing on motherhood studies (Klein, 1975; O’Reilly, 2010; Rich, 1976; Winnicott, 1956, 1965, 1967), the maternal shift in psychoanalysis (see Bueskens, 2014: 3-6), and attachment theory (Bowlby, 1950, 1969, 1988), it reads love as a continuous human disposition, informed by one’s attachment history, and realized at different stages of one’s life (Hazan & Shaver, 1987). It specifically refers to Daniel Stern’s and Anthony Giddens’s largely overlapping concepts of maternal and romantic love to argue that Plath’s children poems are significantly infused with a poetics of romantic love. This poetics, however, becomes gradually compromised by a poetics of ambivalence, withdrawal, and self-effacement.

This is a forward to Andrea O'Reilly's new book Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, Practice (Demeter Press, 2016)

"Mothers are, O’Reilly contends, the unfinished business of feminism.
Perhaps this is why there is still such ambivalence around the
topic and why motherhood is so often conflated with “essentialism”
and dismissed as the realm of the privileged. Sadly, as O’Reilly
shows, such charges often come from within academic feminism
itself. Could anything be further from the truth? Motherhood is
itself an index of oppression as we can see in the career profiles and
interrupted work histories, income, leisure (or lack thereof), and
domestic inequality of mothers. Indeed, it is on this basis that a
matricentric feminism is needed!"

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Our aim is to provide an understanding of the experience of women with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who have made the transition to motherhood. A total of 22 mothers with IBD were recruited from around the United Kingdom. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed using thematic analysis. The central concept—Blurred Lines—offers a novel frame for understanding the transition to motherhood with IBD through identifying parallels between having IBD and becoming, and being, a mother. Parallels clustered into three main themes: Need for Readiness, Lifestyle Changes, and Monitoring Personal and Physical Development. Hence, women with IBD are in some ways well prepared for the challenges of motherhood even though, as a group, they tend to restrict their reproductive choices. We recommend health professionals initiate conversations about reproduction early and provide a multidisciplinary approach to pregnancy and IBD in which women have confidence that their ongoing treatment will be integrated successfully with their maternity care.

The mother-son narratives told by the paternal grandmother Ayşe in Emine Sevgi Özdamar's Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei, which draw on two versions of the mythic mouth-vulva analogy, perpetuate more often than undermine phallocentric discourse on motherhood. Her regular stories celebrate mothers who brutally combat the threat that non-mothers' vaginae dentatae (devouring sexuality) pose to their sons and fathers. Yet, in her outlier, a divine mother bird acquires a loving tongue, enabling a womb-like relationship with the boy. The intersubjective relationship between boy and bird, based on an organ (tongue) that is present as a possibility, even when absent, undercuts the phallocentrism of Ayşe's other tales and the (protagonist's) world, and invites a feminist reconceptualization of even the penis itself.

Abstract: By appropriating both medical and communication technologies, the gender- reveal party has recently emerged as a ritual performance centered on a dramatically staged disclosure of the sex of a gestating fetus. The gender-reveal party is an example of the new forms of ritualization that take place during pregnancy in 21st-century North America. Typically, the focal point of the party is when the future parents cut a cake whose inside color (blue or pink) reveals the sex of the fetus. This article examines the ritual dynamics and creativity at work in the preparation, the performance and the mediated dissemination of this festive occasion. Key elements of the ritual will be described, as well as its conditions of emergence in a context where neither medical nor religious institutions offer ritual options deemed appropriate enough for celebrating joyfully and emotionally during pregnancy.

Résumé : À travers une appropriation combinée de technologies médicales et des technologies de communication, la gender-reveal party (« la fête où l’on révèle le genre ») a récemment émergé comme une performance rituelle centrée sur la révélation par une mise en scène dramatique du sexe du fœtus en gestation. La gender-reveal party est un exemple des nouvelles formes de ritualisation qui prennent place pendant la grossesse au 21ème siècle en Amérique du Nord. Son point culminant consiste généralement à découper un gâteau dont la couleur intérieure (bleue ou rose) révèle le sexe du fœtus. Cet article examine les dynamiques rituelles et la créativité à l’œuvre dans la préparation, la performance et la dissémination médiatisée de cette occasion festive. Les éléments clés de ce rituel seront soulignés, ainsi que ses conditions d’émergence dans un contexte où ni les institutions médicales ni les institutions religieuses n’offrent d’options rituelles considérées comme appropriées pour des célébrations joyeuses et émotionnelles pendant la grossesse.

The study of motherhood has had an uneasy and ambivalent relationship to feminism and feminist theory. Ranging from radical feminist rejection of motherhood on the perceived basis of its inherent oppression of women, and the view that “motherhood has everything to do with a history in which women remain powerless by reproducing the world of men” (Allen 316), to more moderate accounts of that ambivalence that caution against the “recent positive feminist focus on motherhood” that romanticizes motherhood by drawing heavily on sexist stereotypes (hooks 135), feminist thought continues to traverse with difficulty the complex terrain linking motherhood and maternal activity to feminist concerns. In this paper, I argue that there are complex intersections between feminist theory and motherhood studies that become particularly evident when motherhood is considered within a “third wave” context. By highlighting the development of motherhood studies within the context of third-wave feminism ...

Dahvana Headley's novel The Mere Wife explores different approaches to maintaining selfhood. This essay argues that the novel perceives selves – and artistic works – as simultaneously absolutely individual and profoundly composite, interwoven networks. In particular, the essay argues that this is presented through the twinned-but-opposed maternal figures of Dana and Willa, and by its use of plural voices for the mountain, the mothers, and the dogs.

This article takes as its starting point the paradoxical representation of mothers in popular culture. On the one hand the mother is constructed as central to the physical and emotional development of the child; on the other, she is routinely rejected or elided, questioned and vilified. One expression of this ambivalent attitude is the re-circulation of the trope of the dead mother. The trope, which ostensibly is employed to create sympathy for a character, or simply to drive the plot, often also privileges fathers, suggesting that children are better off without mothers. After a brief genre overview of the use of the trope of the dead mother on film and television, the article analyses how the BBC serial Single Father (2010), with its repeated depictions of the mother’s violent death, develops the trope, by not only privileging the father and vilifying the dead mother, but also reducing her death to a plot point, a backdrop for romance.

This article explores the treatment of unmarried mothers by the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) at the Cape of Good Hope during the VOC period (1652-1795) in the belief that by concentrating on this exceptional group of people much is revealed of normative practices. For most of its history at the Cape during this period the DRC was not overly biased against unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children, continuing to baptise such children and never acting against the mothers. This changed in the 1780s when the Church started to deny access to its two sacraments – baptism and Holy Communion – to illegitimate children and their parents. Through a detailed exploration of baptismal petitions for illegitimate children and censure cases involving unmarried mothers, this article reveals the growing obsession with regulating the conduct of single women. It is suggested that the origins of this movement lie both in local Cape developments, viz. the socio-economic upheavals caused by the Revolutionary wars, and – perhaps primarily – in changing attitudes towards motherhood created by Enlightenment ideas and Pietistic religion. At the Cape this new ideology was disseminated by the DRC minister H.R. van Lier who used existing Reformed dogma about the sacraments to regulate the morals of unmarried mothers.

Recent scholarship has revealed a wealth of maternal imagery in the Middle Ages: God as mother, Jesus suffering as a woman in childbirth, bishops nursing their flocks. From the earliest texts, Christians, both men and women, have used metaphors of mothering and motherhood in their discussions of God's relationship to the world and theirs to God. However, perhaps because the majority of these mystics were celibate, the majority of these references are to God as mother with themselves in the role of children. The question arises as to how holy women who were also mothers, might have responded to this maternal language. Did holy mothers use the language of motherhood in describing their unitive experiences with God? Did the language mothers use in describing their spiritual experiences differ from that used by men and virgins? Did their experiences as mothers give them authority, and allow them to empower other lay women in their spiritual experiences? In the Late Middle Ages there is a shift in mystical expression as, with the rise of the vernacular and mendicant orders, more laywomen were able to express their spirituality. These changes led to a new form of mysticism which was emotional and physical, expressed in the language of the daily life, by both men and women. The visions of these new mystics were also quite different than those of previous mystics. While visions and prophesies in the earlier Middle Ages concentrated on visions of the afterlife, the new mystics related directly to the divine, receiving revelations from Christ first and foremost, but also from the Virgin Mary and the saints. These visions are more personal and familial: Mary is their mother, Christ their bridegroom, the saints act as godparents.

‘Untamed will liberate women - emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It is phenomenal.’ (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls and Eat Pray Love)

For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There. She. Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high but soon she realised they had come to her from within. This was the voice she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions and social conditioning. Glennon decided to let go of the world’s expectations of her and reclaim her true untamed self.

Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanising wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is also the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honour our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts.

Untamed shows us how to be brave. And, as Glennon insists, 'The braver we are, the luckier we get.'

This dissertation examines discursive practices about the highly sensitive person (HSP) from the perspective of knowledge production, categorization and community formation. In contemporary Sweden it has become increasingly common to talk about oneself in terms of being constituted in a particular way, e.g., as having a brain that functions differently than the average. The HSP often represents a person with exceptional capabilities and vulnerabilities, such as a sensitive nervous system and an empathetic disposition. The HSP discourse shares commonalities with the discourse of disability activism related to neuropsychiatric diagnoses. Namely, that by using specific discursive strategies, communities are being formed. The HSP community works to counteract the negative preconceived notions about high sensitivity, and bring to light the ignorance surrounding the needs of HSPs in society.

This compilation thesis consists of a summarizing introduction and three articles. The empirical material covers posts from an online discussion forum for parents, and one aimed at young people, blogs composed by teenage girls, and children’s books written by different types of experts. These discursive arenas are analyzed with concepts from discursive psychology and poststructuralist theory. The results show how psychological and biomedical discourses are producing citizen subjects in relation to governing in specific social contexts. Within a Foucauldian tradition such forms of governance are termed biopolitics and biosociality.

The first article examines how the HSP category is transforming notions of good motherhood. It suggests that mothers’ interaction in an online discussion forum reflects the intensive mothering norms of child-centered parenting. Mothers share their therapeutic narratives while highlighting the problems surrounding an incomprehensible social environment and the ordeals of having a guilty conscience. Through the prism of the highly sensitive child, however, motherhood acquires new anticipatory, considerate and susceptible norms, and strategies that constitute a highly sensitive parenting style.

The second article studies how young people take different stances in discursive struggles concerning the HSP category online. The article illustrates how youths disclose the weaknesses and strengths of being highly sensitive, as well as objecting to norms of biosociality that are connected to the HSP. According to these findings young people are pioneering a new informed ethics of the self as they perform HSP subjectivity.

The third article investigates children’s books that may be used as therapeutic tools aimed at informing and educating both adults and children about girls’ experiences of being HSPs, or of having a neuropsychiatric diagnosis. In these books dis/abilities are often transformed into exceptional capabilities. Through a process of  identification, the girl protagonists may come to manage their behavior and emotions according to the premise of the diagnosis, thus, redefining their personhood as ideal citizen subjects.

In conclusion, norms of biosociality and biopolitical governance regulate citizens to confess and assert their capabilities and dis/abilities, yet the discursive practices also reflect the construction of social problems and their potential solutions. Citizens appear to struggle to (re)define such problems in an identity political manner in order to (re)produce knowledge on their own terms.

Il volume "Elena Ferrante. Parole chiave" si rivolge allo stesso pubblico trasversale e composito a cui ha parlato, in ogni parte del mondo, il ciclo dell’Amica geniale. L’Introduzione situa la scrittrice all’interno dell’immaginario contemporaneo ed entra nel merito di alcune polemiche sollecitate dal suo successo e dalla complessa questione della sua identità reale e autoriale. Il volume racconta la quadrilogia anche tramite i primi tre romanzi della scrittrice - L’amore molesto (1992), I giorni dell’abbandono (2002), La figlia oscura (2006) -, la fiaba La spiaggia di notte (2007) e la raccolta di saggi critici, epistolari e interviste La frantumaglia (2003-2016). Il secondo e il terzo capitolo (2. L’amicizia femminile  3. Smarginatura frantumaglia sorveglianza: tra figlie e madri) spiegano infatti come la sua intera scrittura abbia saputo dare voce ai tratti decisivi della differenza femminile, una alterità storica, esistenziale e biologica che disegna nuovi equilibri e risemantizza quelli ereditati dal millenario repertorio dell’immaginario maschile. Il secondo e il terzo capitolo ritrovano i segni di questa alterità nella pratica dell’amicizia tra donne, nella sua forma controversa e spiazzante, nella dimensione molesta dell’amore e dell’abbandono, nella frantumaglia, nella smarginatura e in una nuovo tipo di sorveglianza, nel canale sotterraneo tra tutte queste esperienze ed emozioni, nella relazione conflittuale ma fondativa tra madri e figlie, nella maternità come cornice e gabbia della vita pubblica, dei suoi successi come dei suoi fallimenti. Ma la differenza è anche un punto di vista, è la costruzione di nuove categorie percettive attraverso le quali riscrivere contesti solo apparentemente distanti tra loro: le forme letterarie come  il bilinguismo, gli spazi urbani come gli snodi della storia italiana ed europea. È a partire da questa differenza che il primo capitolo (Una narrazione  geniale e popolare) analizza il meccanismo narrativo dell’Amica geniale e la novità di questo racconto al tempo stesso coinvolgente e originalmente creativo: non riducibile quindi alla letteratura di consumo e alle sue strategie. Gli altri quattro capitoli (4. Napoli, la «città labirinto», 5. Le due lingue, l’emigrazione e lo studio, 6. Violenza immagini sparizioni e 7. La Storia e le storie) si soffermano infine sulla lunga durata temporale della quadrilogia e sui frammenti di storia che da essa emergono: Napoli come città di confine, come labirinto dentro e fuori il disciplinamento della modernità; il conflitto e il travaso tra lingua nazionale e dialetto; l’emancipazione delle nuove voci femminili e bilingui; l’identità nazionale come racconto di emigrazione; la scuola come esperienza formativa e alienante per una subalterna; il linguaggio della violenza maschile e il suo intreccio di dominio fisico e simbolico; la dispersione della Storia dagli anni Cinquanta del Novecento fino al primo decennio del nuovo millennio.

This paper considers how We Need to Talk about Kevin disturbs and deconstructs the patriarchal mandates of essentialization, naturalization, and idealization. In patriarchal motherhood, it is assumed (and expected) that all women want to be mothers (essentialization), that maternal ability and motherlove are innate to all mothers (naturalization), and that all mothers find joy and purpose in motherhood (idealization). Although feminist criticism of the novel has examined various motherhood themes—including mother blame (Cusk), ideologies of good-bad mothering (Murphy; Muller; Robbins), maternal subjectivity and practice (Messer), and maternal ambivalence (Almond)—my reading of Kevin will seek to uncover " what lies beneath " the maternal angst discussed in the above criticism. I argue that the mother blame, " bad " mothering, and maternal ambivalence so evident in the novel and so central to discussions on the novel are the symptomatic manifestations of the essentialized, naturalized and idealized mandates and expectations of patriarchal motherhood. Eva is blamed and regarded as an ambivalent or bad mother precisely because she is seen as lacking the assumed innate desire and ability to mother as well as the happiness expected of women in and through motherhood. Kevin, thus, not only compellingly and convincingly conveys the discontents of patriarchal motherhood but, more importantly, it uncovers the cause of and reason for this maternal discontent: namely, the essentialization, naturalization and idealization of patriarchal motherhood. In moving beyond the representation of the symptoms of women's oppression in motherhood—ambivalence, blame, guilt, judgement—to an

In this chapter, I offer suggestions toward creating a theoretical
space in which a fundamentally new conception of good motherhood
can appear. To this end, I present a metaphilosophical discussion about the relations between ethics and political critique
in the context of the feminist discussions of bad mothers.
As such, I do not discuss the women who are considered to be
bad mothers or good mothers. I do not focus on how institutions
shape and use these categories. My focus is on how the discussion
of “bad mother” as a social category, an institution and a
control mechanism reveals what I consider to be a challenge to
the feminist critique of motherhood.

Döda mammor och ensamstående pappor: föräldraskap i tecknad film Mammor i tecknad film lever farligt. De blir skjutna, (Bambi, Micke och Molle), dödade med spjut (Björnbröder), uppätna (Hitta Nemo); de drunknar (Ice Age), eller bara dör oförklarligt från en scen till nästa (Det regnar köttbullar). Om de inte dör under filmens gång så är de döda innan den börjar (Lilla Kycklingen, Draktränaren). Ibland har de varit borta så länge att ingen ens verkar komma ihåg att de någonsin existerat (Hajar som hajar, Ratatouille). Av de animerade filmer som Disney producerade under 1900-talet var det ett försvinnande fåtal som innehöll mammor som överlevde till slutet, i och andra produktionsbolag, som Twentieth Century Fox, Sony, DreamWorks and Pixar, har fortsatt trenden in på 2000-talet. Journalisten Sarah Boxer räknar i en artikel med titeln "Why Are all the Cartoon Mothers Dead?" upp nitton filmer i vilka mammorna dör, eller redan är döda när filmen börjar, från Snövit (1937) till Herr Peabody och Sherman (2014). I det här kapitlet kommer jag till viss del att beröra frågan om varför, men jag kommer också att nysta i hur. Hur framställs mammornas frånvaro? Vad får den för effekter för karaktärerna? Får den alltid samma resultat eller används klichén på olika sätt i olika filmer? Har den något budskap?

This book analyzes Nancy Chodorow’s canonical book The Reproduction of Mothering, bringing together an original essay from Nancy Chodorow and a host of outstanding international scholars—including Rosemary Balsam, Adrienne Harris, Elizabeth Abel, Madelon Sprengnether, Ilene Philipson, Meg Jay, Daphne de Marneffe, Alison Stone and Petra Bueskens—in a mix of memoir, festschrift, reflection, critical analysis and new directions in Chodorowian scholarship. In the 40 years since its publication, The Reproduction of Mothering has had a profound impact on scholarship across many disciplines including sociology, psychoanalysis, psychology, ethics, literary criticism and women’s and gender studies.  Organized as a “reproduction of mothering scholarship”, this volume adopts a generationally differentiated structure weaving personal, political and scholarly essays.

This book will be of interest to scholars across the social sciences and humanities. It will bring Nancy Chodorow and her canonical work to a new generation showcasing classic and contemporary Chodorowian scholarship.

The article analyzes themes of black motherhood through the lens of disability in Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998). It positions the series' protagonist, Lauren Olamina, as a maternal figure with a disability, and argues that her experiences reveal how ableism is used to devalue motherhood in the text. The article connects with larger discourse on controlling images about black mothers such as the "crack mother," a contemporary image with roots in US slavery. It then argues that because of her complex embodiment, Lauren emerges as a strong, black mother figure who births a religion, Earthseed, and carves a space, Acorn, that resists this dominant narrative. Reading Lauren's character in this manner allows scholars to see the connection between, and address issues concerning, the stereotypes of the strong black woman and the supercrip. The article ends by saying that Butler's text suggests a way to grapple with the thorny relationship between black studies theory and disability theory.

This chapter investigates and problematises representations of motherhood in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games-trilogy. The novels depict a range of maternal models, some traditional and conservative, some transgressive. If, as has been argued, young adult literature affects how readers “on the cusp of adulthood” consider society and their place in it (Basu et al.), the way mothers and mothering are represented in the novels may have a substantial impact on the readers’ identity formation.

Characterised by scholars as weak, despondent and overly feminine, Katniss’ mother has been criticised as a failure, abdicating from her maternal role. Conversely, Katniss’ marriage and maternity have been read as a heteronormative cop-out, undoing the character’s gender-transcending work. Drawing on literary and sociological research, I suggest a different reading of both characters, in which the narrative allows Katniss’ mother to explore a way of mothering that allows for maternal subjectivity, complexity of character and reconciliation of personal growth with motherhood. I further interrogate the epilogue, but not, as other scholars have done, from the point of view of the supposed domestication of Katniss, but from the character’s lack of agency and choice. It is suggested throughout the novels that Katniss does not want to have children, and the final decision is framed in terms of (ultimately futile) resistance on her part and coercion on Peeta’s. Analysing the text within the framework of voluntary childlessness as female liberation  as well as the difference between “will” and “consent” in relation to reproduction, I suggest that Katniss’ submission and subsequent emotional distress articulate an ambivalent attitude towards motherhood. Ultimately, it could be argued that Katniss’ mother achieves a maternal role that is more transgressive and liberating than that of her daughter. The novels thus offer up a variety of maternal models, which make it possible for readers to negotiate their own understanding of mothering.

Three distinct but interrelated cultures developed around the Aegean Sea during the Bronze Age, which spanned the third and second millennia BCE: Minoan, centered on the island of Crete; Mycenaean, centered on mainland Greece; and Cycladic, centered on the islands of the Cyclades (Cullen 2001). The geographical landscapes and cultural trajectories of the region were highly diverse, and different ethnic groups interacted and/ or coexisted, as indeed was the case all across the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East at the time (see contributions in Laffineur and Greco 2005; Aruz et al. 2008). Settlement patterns and social developments differed over space and time, encompassing rural communities bonded through kinship; chiefdoms; stratified palatial states; towns evolving prior to, alongside, and long after the collapse of palatial systems; and sites with specialized functions (such as ports, sanctuaries, rural farms, dams, fortifications, and industrial installations). The spectrum of cultural accomplishments included prosperous farming economies; thriving trade and seafaring; politics and diplomacy; military skill and warfare; literacy and bureaucratic administration; advanced technologies and crafts; sophisticated art; and elaborate religion and ritual. Long-term occupation of important sites across the region, including the palatial centers themselves, attests to the special power of these places (cf. Haggis 1993; Day and Wilson 2002), as does the use of their cemeteries over many generations. The links of people to their territory would have been felt on economic, social, ritual, and emotional levels alike. In this variegated world a range of roles and related symbolisms-evident in the imagery, paleoenvironment, and material culture of the period-can be inferred for Aegean women (see contributions in Kopaka 2009b).

Male chauvinism is the belief that men are morally superior to women. Female chauvinism is the belief that women are morally superior to men. Both depend on the assumption of essential or natural gender differences between men and women with regards to thinking styles, most easily summarized as male principle-based thinking and female empathic thinking. There is no evidence for such a gender difference, however, but there is evidence that differences in experience and circumstances can lead to relevant differences. People who care (often women) become more caring, for example. By implication, gender chauvinism is based on false premises, and therefore, its superiority claims are false as well. Moreover, because both male and female chauvinism imply that it is socially preferable if women focus on caring tasks and occupation before taking on other jobs, both promote the same social inequality, and consequently, female chauvinism is anti-feminist.

In crime fiction, murder is a threat to society that must be neutralized and disposed of. In the case of serial killers, this is usually accomplished by depicting the killer as a unique aberration that can be neatly contained and removed. In The Snowman, however, Jo Nesbø draws on the cultural paranoia regarding paternity uncertainty to reverse the positions of murderer and victims. The result is that the victims, adulterous mothers, become the threat to society, not the killer.

The notion that large numbers of women lie about the paternity of their children resonates very strongly with present-day cultural attitudes towards mothers in the West. In this chapter I analyze how Nesbø uses this willingness to believe in the perfidy of mothers to normalize and recuperate the murderer. The novel presents the adulterous mothers as oversexed, untrustworthy and disloyal, whereas the murderer is shown to be a suffering victim of just such a woman. By lying about the paternity of their children, the mothers have invited their own destruction. Thus, as I demonstrate, in Nesbø’s novel adulterous mothers are a greater threat to society than a man who cuts women to pieces.

The lived experiences of graduate student mothers and their unique challenges in comparison to working or faculty mothers are explored through their own words utilizing the theoretical perspective of Dorothy E. Smith. Their jobs as graduate students are rarely viewed as ‘real’ work outside of academia, they face financial woes due to low pay and high student loan debt. Graduate school and motherhood have cultural expectations of a full-time commitment and these incompatible idealizations leave graduate student
mothers feeling incapable of meeting the cultural expectations of being a ‘good’ mother and ‘good’ graduate student. Through in-depth, semi-structured, intensive interviews with twelve graduate student mothers, I explored how graduate student mothers negotiate conflicting roles, how their lives are shaped by cultural expectations of a ‘good mother,’ departmental, graduate school, and university policies, how they attempt to find balance, and what roles support systems play in their successes or struggles.

The motherhood iconography, appeared long time ago in the western civilization, has shaped the collective imaginary on stereotypes, male perspectives, social and political conventions. This paper focuses on art images of the XIX and XX centuries till the contemporary art made by women managing to analyze motherhood's ambiguity

L'immagine della maternità, apparsa fin dagli albori della civiltà occidentale, si è sedimentata nell'immaginario collettivo spesso appiattendosi su stereotipi, proiezioni maschili, convenzioni sociali e politiche. La ricerca si concentra sulle immagini artistiche realizzate fra Otto e Novecento fino alle produzioni di artiste contemporanee cercando di analizzare in modo critico le ambiguità della figura materna

Critics have tended to dismiss feminist analyses of Cormac McCarthy’s works as misguided, labelling investigations of potential narrative misogyny in his novels as irrelevant. In this article I argue that such investigations are, on the contrary, highly relevant in the current climate of mother-blaming. I specifically explain how McCarthy’s 2006 dystopian novel The Road uses postfeminist fatherhood to valorize the father and vilify the mother, thus participating in a continuing cultural trend of privileging fathers over mothers. The Road invokes traditional cultural expectations of motherhood and fatherhood, presenting the mother as unable and unwilling to care for the boy, in stark contrast to the very competent and able father.

Many literary analyses of this highly acclaimed novel have unquestioningly accepted the postfeminist marginalization of the mother and critics have elaborated on and developed the mother-blaming in the novel in a move I term critical co-writing. Co-writing occurs when critics ally themselves with an author, rather than retaining a critical distance, and re-present the author’s ideas without problematizing them. In the case of The Road, many critics build on postfeminist cues in the novel, adding their own, unreflected, understandings of motherhood and fatherhood. In so doing, they reinterpret and rewrite the novel into an even more forceful presentation of flawed mothering. In a critical discussion of these readings, I demonstrate how these critics transform the novel’s implicit criticism of the mother character into explicit condemnation.

Stone, Lancaster University, UK Does the experience of being the mother of a daughter differ in kind from that of being the mother of a son? Do mothers feel systematically different towards girls and boys? If so, what are some features that distinguish mothers' lived relations to their daughters? These are the issues I explore in this chapter. I do so by re-reading the work of feminist psychoanalytic thinkers, who have suggested that mother-daughter relations tend to involve close identification and to be especially ambivalent, as mother and daughter seek to reassert their boundaries. I will depart from this psychoanalytic work by focusing on mothers' lived experiences of these relations rather than on the effects of mothers' attitudes upon their daughters.

This dissertation explores narrative strategies of self-identity in autobiographies by six pioneering women writers, each of whom lost what has traditionally been woman’s place: her home. The accounts of emigration, expatriation, and exile by Anna Brownwell Jameson, Catharine Parr Traill, Susanna Moodie, Ada Cambridge, Isak Dinesen, and Alyse Simpson illustrate the implications of this loss, as each woman struggled to recover a sense both of home and of grounded identity. The writings span more than a hundred years, from the 1830s to the 1950s, and tell of lives lived in locations as different as Canada, Australia, and British East Africa (now Kenya), places that variously proved to be confining and/or liberating. By narrating the ways in which identity adapts to and is transformed by a new environment, these texts provide access to the construction and alteration of the self in relation to place. This study probes this process by using the concept of place, rather than the more conventional one of time, as the dominant category of analysis.
My readings are both intertextual and interdisciplinary: they rely on theorizing by sociologists and psychologists concerned with the relationship between place and identity, studies on the same subject by literary scholars, and formulations by women’s autobiography theorists. My investigation reveals, among other discoveries, that the gender-specific aspects of the process of adaptation persistently centre on the notion of homecoming and that they are articulated with reference to the figure of the mother.

The aim of this thesis is to present, explore, and interpret the experiences of women who mother children with disabilities. The experiences of motherhood and mothering children with disabilities are seldom rendered visible in social research, and have rarely informed developments in social theory, motherhood studies, the sociology of personal life, or theories of the self. This research sought to address these issues and foreground the experiences of an under-represented group, through in-depth qualitative interviews and personal community mapping with 18 women who mother children with disabilities residing in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The approach to the study brought together the perspectives of two generally discrete fields of sociological inquiry: Motherhood Studies and the sociology of personal life. The research found that women who are mothers of children with disabilities live within social, cultural, political, and economic contexts which assume they have the capacity to ‘freely choose’ how they live their lives and form their relationships, while also expecting them to remain indefinitely self-sacrificing, primary carers for their children with disabilities. Thus, these women’s lives are framed by competing and highly problematic sets of assumptions and expectations that cannot be solely understood in terms of individualisation theory, which assumes an individual’s agency and freedom of choice in authoring their lives (Beck, 1992/1994). The concept of ‘hegemonic maternality’, an adaptation of Raewyn Connell’s (1995) theory of ‘hegemonic masculinity,’ emerged from the research as a useful framework in understanding and theorising the normative social, cultural, and structural forces that produce and regulate women’s experiences as mothers. It suggests that persistent unrealistic assumptions and expectations around motherhood and mothering translate as obligation and constraint in these women’s lives. Women who are mothers of children with disabilities must navigate and negotiate complex, contradictory, and pervasive assumptions and expectations of how to mother their children, as they conduct their relationships and seek to define their sense of self. The consequences of such endeavours are far-reaching: they expose these women’s consistent struggles to both contest and conform to normative concepts of motherhood. The findings also point to the affordances of theories of relationality (Jallinoja & Widmer, 2011; Emirbayer, 1997) in more fully explaining the topography of their lives. By positioning these women’s lives and experiences in the context of concepts and debates around motherhood, personal relationships, as well as the formation of the self and subjectivities, this research offers a number of original contributions to the knowledge base of the sociology of motherhood, of personal life; and of the self, and contributes to theoretical developments relating to maternal experience in contemporary Australian society. First, this thesis argues for the interdependence of two fields of sociological inquiry in order to forge new understandings within and between both. Second, the study contributes to each field through the development of the conceptual framework of hegemonic maternality. Third, it challenges individualisation theory by demonstrating its inappropriateness for women who are mothers of children with disabilities. Fourth, this research provides substantial evidence that will potentially influence social policy, public attitudes, and future research and scholarship.

This PhD thesis presents an anthropological analysis of informal education activities among two French autochthonous communities: the Wayana-Apalaï people, living in French Guiana, and the Enata people, in French Polynesia. Thanks to the data gathered through a long term ethnographic fieldwork, it was determined the time dedicated to educational interactions in the domestic environment, the dominant educational styles and the educational logic of both communities. The educational dynamic has been interpreted as a process of transmission of cultural data related to a natural and social landscape. The results obtained show that educational strategies applied by Wayana-Apalaï and Enata educators are shaped by the constraints of the post-colonial dynamics and the requirements imposed by the global market economy.

Dominant cultural ideologies of motherhood define the nature of mother love. Recent developments in motherhood studies, and the work of a small number of feminist philosophers and scholars of motherhood, have challenged the tenets of these ideologies by daring to speak the “unspeakable”: that mother love is often and for all mothers, whether consciously or not, permeated by powerful negative and conflicting emotions termed maternal ambivalence. In this essay, relying on recorded personal narratives by Bosnian women who are raising children born of wartime rape, as well as recent studies on empowered motherhood, my aim is to show that maternal love, like love in any other close relationship, encompasses and assimilates healthy ambivalence, and can inform maternal care in a constructive and positive manner. I argue that the acknowledgment of healthy maternal ambivalence as an integral aspect of mother love involves honoring the mother's subjectivity and validates her personhood, and as such it opens up the possibility of redefining mother love in terms that are empowering to mothers.

The present century has witnessed the rapid proliferation of hypermediated communication, one instance being the phenomenon of self-publishing personal internet websites called blogs. The ease of construction and access that characterize blogs have led to many hitherto unheard voices from the margins being empowered to write their selves on the World Wide Web. The paper proposes to explore the dimensions and implications of the growth of the ‘momblog’ in India – blogs written by mothers of Indian location or origin about their mothering experiences. In posthuman terms, the momblogger may be imaged as a cyborg, a hybrid identity created by the interface of human and machine.
The paper will closely study some popular Indian momblogs and refer to many others in an attempt to deconstruct how these evolving texts engage with mothering in diverse and often radical ways: constructing and transforming identities, connecting with peers, resisting patriarchal stereotypes individually and collectively, collecting and perpetuating maternal memories, and providing networks of support and solace.
The paper hopes to establish that, despite certain limitations, momblogs do have creative, supportive and transgressive potential.

Please note the conversation is NOT in final format. The final/complete conversation may be found in my edited collection Maternal Thinking: Philosophy, Politics, and Practice, Demeter Press, 2009. The book also contains 15 plus chapters on the importance and impact of Ruddick's work http://demeterpress.org/books/maternal-thinking-philosophy-politics-practice/ A word about this interview. Our initial conversation took place in my apartment in the

What could our professional lives,
personal lives and social structures look
like if caring for another — be it a child,
spouse, parent or for yourself — were not
thought of as at odds with a professional
life, but as an important part of it? What
would happen if an ethos of care were not
seen as the exception that needed to be
worked around, but as the rule? How would
our institutions expand, change and grow?
And how would our lives do the same?

Singer-songwriter Björk, the most famous Icelander since explorer Leif Eriksson, has been met with both praise and criticism, almost always directed at her difference – from Westerners, pop musicians, adults, even from humans. Known for her innovative, expressive music and quirky persona, Björk both rebels against conformity and yet is drawn to problematic concepts such as nationalism, multiculturalism, and gender essentialism. 

As star musical guest at the 2004 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony, she exposed the international audience to Iceland’s feminist nationalist imagery in a message of peace.  Embodying Nordic scholar Eiríkur Magnússon’s 1864 nationalist icon “Iceland as a Mountain Woman,” Björk became Mother Ocean, uniting countries and athletes as stemming from one source, a metaphor made almost material through her dress, which unfurled as she sang, enveloping the entire field of athletes.  Icelandic feminism developed simultaneously with the move for national independence (begun in the late 18th century and eventually achieved in 1944), through an embrace of traditional gender symbolism that made space for maternal perspectives in sovereign, ethical governance.  However, Björk’s Olympics message utilized this legacy not to invest in nationalism but to perform peaceful world unity as a feminist reaction to the aftermath of 9/11/01. 

Her performance draws on a gender difference model unpopular with contemporary critical theory but informed by both Icelandic feminism’s challenging relationship with nationalism as well as the body-politics of the American Vietnam War-era counterculture.  I use this context to analyze Björk’s avant-garde a capella album Medúlla (2004), which contains her Olympic song “Oceania” as well as two songs “Pleasure is All Mine” and “Mouth’s Cradle” ground-breaking for their sensual maternalist aesthetic, which map out a nuanced politics of peace to challenge both terrorism and counter-terrorism.  Themes of motherhood, terror, and mortality are further developed in her subsequent work, the protest album Volta (2007), which features an array of instrumental collaborators (questionably) symbolizing the artist’s sense of humans as “one tribe.” A collaboration with Malian kora virtuoso Toumani Diabate, “Hope,” explores the troubling Western media reactions to a pregnant Palestinian suicide bomber.

Often misunderstood as an elf-like outsider to human experience or a hysterical extension of Iceland’s dramatic landscape, Björk is musically exploring difficult concepts of nationalism, difference feminism, and multiculturalism to address the most challenging and important questions of our time – the significance of identity and the future of humankind in a culture of war.

This article contrasts the theories of ego formation put forward in Jacques Lacan’s ‘The Mirror Stage’ and Donald Winnicott’s ‘The Mirror Role of the Mother,’ and discusses their methodological implications for the field of American studies. While Lacan theorises subjectivity as irreparably split and (self-)alienated, Winnicott offers an optimistic version of a self which is sustained in its going-on-being by a nourishing maternal presence. These disparate conceptualisations of the human being produce two powerful frames through which to approach culture. Yet, while Lacan is widely recognised in the American studies scholarship, Winnicott remains virtually unknown. This article aims to enhance the visibility of the British author by outlining the productivity of his ideas for any cultural or literary analysis. By stressing the foundational significance of the primary bond Winnicott’s theory intervenes in the recent critiques of neoliberal capitalism which remain halted in a Lacanian-like melancholic mode, masked by a cultural command of perpetual enjoyment. The Winnicottian perspective challenges Lacan’s fixation on the unattainable objects of desire, reiterated by the neoliberal myth of self-perfection through consumption, and offers an alternative pattern of human sociality, based on relational, self-reflexive moderation.