Intersections of Mothering

Feminist Accounts

Carole Zufferey, Fiona Buchanan, Carole Zufferey, Fiona Buchanan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781138366268
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429772894
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book presents new interdisciplinary and intersectional research about women as mothers, highlighting that alternative accounts of mothering can challenge normative societal assumptions and broaden understandings of women as mothers, mothering and motherhoods.

Mothering occurs within unequal power relations associated with the disadvantages and privileges of an unjust and patriarchal society. Social inequalities associated with gender, race, class, age, ability, sexuality, violence and nationalism intersect in the lives of women as mothers, to shape their lived experiences and perspectives on mothering. Showcasing the breadth and depth of feminist research on mothering, this book gives attention to the diversity of ways in which mothering is constructed and responded to as well as how mothering is experienced. Drawing on intersectional feminist thought, the book challenges normative visions of 'good mothering' and interrogates constructs of 'bad mothering'. It brings together insights from multidisciplinary scholars who use feminist approaches in their research on mothering, to inform policy development and practice when working with women as mothers in diverse circumstances. Intersections of Mothering highlights the complexities of mothering in a contemporary world, show the benefits of considering mothering through an intersectional feminist lens, make visible lived experiences of mothers and provides challenges to dominant imaginings of and service responses to women as mothers.

Intersections of Mothering will be essential reading for interdisciplinary scholars and students in criminology, gender and women's studies, motherhood studies, social welfare, social work, social policy and public health policy, in addition to practitioners and policy workers that respond to women as mothers.

1 Introduction

Theorising intersectional feminism and mothering

Carole Zufferey and Fiona Buchanan

This introductory chapter positions the book within debates in feminist literature on mothering, including the interrogation of dominant constructions of good/bad mothers as dictated by westernised, middle class ideas of mothering. It discusses the intersectional feminist theoretical lens, from a social constructionist and radical perspective, arguing that intersectional feminist knowledge is pertinent for researchers, policy-makers and practitioners working with women as mothers. As well, this chapter outlines the aims of the book and introduces the chapters contributed by multidisciplinary scholars from different countries. The introduction provides a rationale for focusing on the complexities of the lived experiences of mothers; it challenges dominant representations of mothers and mothering, and highlights that mothering occurs within diverse situations of multiple social inequalities. It argues that women’s experiences are positioned within political contexts that function to socially discriminate against women who are mothering in difficult circumstances and diverse contexts. These contexts include women experiencing different forms of violence when mothering, mothering when incarcerated, when homelessness, when under surveillance of child protection services and when experiencing mental illness, to name a few. This book theorises mothering by centring the lived experiences and perspectives of mothers themselves.

The book builds on previous feminist literature on mothering and motherhoods that critically discuss depictions of good and bad mothers. The ‘good mother’ construct is institutionalised in gendered social arrangements and practices, contributing to the subordination of women (Goodwin & Huppatz, 2010, p. 2). Mothering occurs within unequal power relations associated with the disadvantages and privileges of an unjust and patriarchal society. Social inequalities associated with gender, race, class, age, ability, sexuality and nationalism intersect in the lives of women as mothers, to shape their lived experiences and their perspectives on mothering. Giving voice to the experiences and perspectives of women as mothers is an important component of feminist scholarship. This book also gives attention to the diversity of ways in which mothering is constructed and responded to as well as how mothering is experienced.

Drawing on intersectional feminist thought, the book challenges normative visions of ‘good mothering’ and interrogates constructs of ‘bad mothering’. It brings together insights from multidisciplinary scholars who use intersectional feminist approaches in their research on mothering, to inform policy development and practice when working with women as mothers in diverse circumstances. Feminist approaches to mothering promote social justice with a view to influencing social change. This book highlights new interdisciplinary research scholarship about women as mothers, mothering and motherhood. The aims of this book are to make visible the:

1. complexities of mothering in a contemporary world
2. benefits of considering mothering through an intersectional feminist lens
3. diverse lived experiences of and service responses to women as mothers
4. challenges to dominant imaginings of and responses to women as mothers.

Significance of this book

Feminist scholars have published numerous books that have aimed to disrupt hegemonic understandings of mothers, mothering and motherhoods. Many earlier books have been published on mothering and feminism, particularly in the USA. There are seminal books on mothering such as: Adrienne Rich’s book Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1976), which set the stage for theorising motherhood as both a social institution and a lived experience. Lauri Umansky’s book on Motherhood Reconceived (1996) provided a historical analysis of feminist activism in the 1970s and 1980s and spoke of the tensions of critiquing biological reductivism as well as trying to incorporate the perspectives and experiences of women as mothers. Molly Ladd-Taylor and Lauri Umansky also published an edited book ‘Bad’ Mothers: The Politics of Blame in Twentieth Century America (1998), which contributed to understanding the demonisation of those represented as ‘bad mothers’. Sharon Hays’s book The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood (1996) discussed the notion of ‘intensive mothering’ and contemporary expectations of mothers. Motherhood scholarship has particularly covered debates on how women balance paid work and mothering, such as Ann Crittenden’s The Price of Motherhood (2001) and The Truth behind the Mommy Wars (2005) by Miriam Peskowitz. This includes recent books that challenge the sexual contract, such as Petra Bueskens’s 2018 book on Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities: Rewriting the Sexual Contract.

There are also books focusing on different experiences of mothering that draws on feminist thought. For example, books about single women living in poverty becoming mothers because they want to, such as Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage (2005), by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kafelas. The positive value of motherhood for marginalised black teenage women was highlighted by Elaine Bell Kaplan’s in Not Our Kind of Girl: Unraveling the Myths of Black Teenage Motherhood (1997). Books have been published that challenge the stigma surrounding single mothers such as Unsung Heroines (2006), by sociologist Ruth Sidel. As well, challenging heteronormative assumptions in motherhood, are books about lesbian couples being mothers such as Ellen Lewin’s book, Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture (1993) and New Choices, New Families (2008) by Nancy Mezey. Other books include mothering and the criminal justice system such as War on the Family by Renny Golden (2005), noting that more than 80% of incarcerated women are mothers. There are books about feminist young mothers reflecting on their experiences and dilemmas of mothering such as Mothering in the Third Wave by Amber Kinser (2008). Lastly, Andrea O’Reilly’s extensive work as the pioneer of modern motherhood studies (2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010), has set the stage for this book, which combines a range of studies, disciplines and themes influenced by intersectional feminist thinking.

This edited book differs from other books because it presents current intersectional research work on mothering, highlighting the interdisciplinary knowledge of scholars researching in different countries, including Australia, Canada, South Africa, the USA, the UK and Bosnia. It considers how intersectional feminist approaches can be useful for researchers, policy-makers and practitioners working with women and their families, as well as providing thought-provoking insights for women to utilise when empowering themselves. This book interrogates negative social and systemic representations of women as mothers. These representations are dictated by prescriptive doctrine which sets criteria for ‘good mothering’ in isolation without consideration of the contexts of mothering (Buchanan, 2017). In contrast, this book acknowledges discrimination and violence towards women in their mothering role based on their family structure, gender, ability, race, ethnicity, class, poverty and sexual orientation. Women’s personal experiences are positioned within a patriarchal society that discriminates against women who are mothering in difficult circumstances, including when experiencing violence. This book argues for intersectional feminist approaches to mothering because contemporary individualising, mother blaming and risk adverse service responses to women as mothers conceal the complexities of mothering associated with unequal power relations. As well, the book highlights that alternative accounts of mothering can challenge normative societal assumptions, advocating for broadening understandings of women as mothers and of motherhood.

As Kawash (2011, p. 995) argues, scholarship on mothering and feminism is ‘mixed, heterogeneous, and mostly disconnected’. She advocates for motherhood studies to be incorporated into mainstream academic feminism. While our intention is to promote social justice consistent with previously published feminist books, this book also focuses on how a range of multidisciplinary scholars utilise intersectional feminist thought to shape their research on mothering in diverse circumstances. The book focuses on mothering narratives, social conditions, policy debates and patterns of disadvantage that shape ideas of motherhood, affecting mothers in a variety of contexts, including when experiencing violence. The threads of this book include both theoretical approaches to motherhood (that consider maternal love and maternal agency, for example) and policy-oriented approaches (chapters that focus on childcare policy, medical approaches to mental illness in motherhood, child protection and domestic violence services). The chapters draw on a multiplicity of research methods and sources, including ethnographic and participatory research and the analysis of narratives, legal and policy documents. The book highlights feminist knowledge that is pertinent for researchers, policy-makers and practitioners working with mothers, with the aim to make visible and challenge dominant representations of women as mothers, mothering and motherhoods.

The book contributes to scholarship in this field, by taking an intersectional feminist approach to mothering in theory, research, policy and practice, as well as highlighting the lived experiences and perspectives of mothers affected by violence in the private and public sphere. Intersectional feminist thought is used to show how interlocking systems of power can shape constructions and experiences of mothering. Before the term intersectionality was invented by Kimberley Crenshaw (1991), the black and Latina feminist movements of the 1970s and early 1980s argued that (mainstream) feminism advanced the cause for white women, while silencing the voices of women from multiple minority groups. For example, the Combahee River Collective in the USA as a black feminist lesbian collective coined the term ‘interlocking systems of oppression’ in a 1977 pamphlet, to emphasise the importance of understanding multiple forms of subordination and interlocking oppressions (Combahee River Collective, 1986). Since then, intersectional theorising has expanded exponentially and is often ‘presented as the feminist theory’ (Carbin & Edenheim, 2013, p. 245). Intersectionality is a study of intersections between different systems of discrimination and a way of thinking about multiple identities and interconnected oppressions/ privileges in both women and men’s lives (Hulko, 2015; Mehrotra, 2010; Crenshaw, 1991). Black feminists in the USA such as Patricia Hill Collins (1994) and Kimberley Crenshaw (1991) focus on how oppressions of race and gender intersect as mutually constructing systems of power. This approach can also highlight multi-dimensional intersections related to for example, gender, sexuality, race/ skin colour, ethnicity, nation/ state, class, culture, ability, age, sedentariness, country of origin, wealth, religion, geographical locations and social development (Lutz et al., 2011).

The scope of intersectionality is contested and debated. Intersectional theorists have particularly drawn upon structuralist approaches to identity (or subjectivity) ‘as informed by various systems of oppression relating to race, class, gender and sexuality’ (McKibbin et al., 2015, p. 99). Winker and Degele (2011) argue for a multi-layered analysis of power dynamics that involves examining how multiple positionalities or subjectivities (in this context, of mothers) intersect with symbolic social representations (such as about mothers) and structural inequalities, that, for example, shape how mothering is experienced and understood. However, there has also been some critiques of intersectionality. UK sociologist Floya Anthias (2012) argues that there are pitfalls in intersectional theorising. For example, she notes that ‘there is a danger that race, class and gender become taken-for-granted categories of social analysis, leading not only to their essentialization but also to presumptions about their saliency’ (Anthias, 2012, p. 128). As well, there is the danger of conflating economic, cultural and political social positions (e.g. structural aspects), with how we articulate, understand and interact with this positioning at identity levels (Anthias, 2012, p. 128). Nash (2016, p. 18) argues that intersectionality is continually being reinterpreted and it is an ‘analytic that has lives – theoretical, political, methodological, and institutional – and we are all making the analytic as we deploy, critique, or safeguard it’. As Davis (2008, p. 79) notes ‘intersectionality has precisely the ingredients which are required of a good feminist theory. It encourages complexity, stimulates creativity, and avoids premature closure, tantalizing feminist scholars to raise new questions and explore uncharted territory’. This approach resonates with the intended aims of this book, to explore uncharted territories that include intersecting theoretical, political, institutional and structural dimensions of motherhood as well as individual experiences of mothering.

Theoretical debates

Feminist scholars have long made a distinction between the institution and status of motherhood and the lived experience of mothering, including women’s ambivalent feelings about being mothers (Letherby, 1994; Rich, 1976). Whilst motherhood is increasingly understood as being diverse, biological determinism has shaped constructions and images of mothers and mothering as being a natural and a biological imperative (Goodwin & Huppatz, 2010). Women live their lives amongst dominant gendered, heterosexual and cultural assumptions that all women want to become biological mothers, as a natural consequence of partnering with a man (Letherby, 1994). Numerous feminist scholars such as Butler (1990) and Jackson and Scott (1996) have challenged these ideas and disrupted assumed connections between womanhood and motherhood that are historically, socially and culturally reproduced.

As Arendell (1999, p. 3) notes, there exists a hegemonic notion of the good and ‘natural’ mother, that she is ‘heterosexual, married, and monogamous … White and native born … not economically self-sufficient … not employed’. ‘Good mother’ discourses and images are culturally and temporarily located. In affluent, Western societies, good mother discourses are also implicated in constructing good mothering practices as ‘intensive’ (Hays, 1996). Good mothers are positioned as intuitive nurturers and intensive mothers, constantly emotionally available for their children, providing them with endless activities, investing in their development and are held individually responsible for the care of children (Hays, 1996). In attachment theory terms women as mothers are expected to be constantly wise and kind, putting their needs aside as they exclusively focus on nurturing their children (Buchanan, 2017). As Goodwin and Huppatz (2010, p. 2) note, the good mother being ‘white, heterosexual, economically dependent, and child focused’ obscures from sight diverse motherhoods. The constructed dichotomy between good and bad mother also upholds heterosexual notions of nuclear families, mono-maternalism and supports heteronormative practices (Park, 2013). Social divisions between genders and binary constructions around being a man (father) or a woman (mother) as well as being heterosexual or ‘homosexual’ persists. These imagined binaries are enmeshed with other social categories such as class and ethnicity but vary with individual ‘socially located biographies’ (Jackson, 2006, p. 106). Thus, mothering exists within heteronormative, sexist, ra...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• 1. Introduction: theorising intersectional feminism and mothering
• PART I: Repositioning motherhood
• PART II: Diverse contexts and responses
• PART III: Violence and mothering
• Index