3 different strands here

1) reworking of Freudian analysis - not women/girls that are screwed up by their rel with their mothers - but men/boys who can’t identify w/her and still be masculine (Chodorow)

2)Motherhood as a discipline (in the academic sense) a practice, way of thinking - AN ETHICS
(Ruddick)

3) Motherhood as a social construct; Source of female oppression (Firestone, Allen)

using women’s reproductive capacity to define her, feminine essence

 
1) motherhood as source of psychoanalysis
Chodorow
gender role learning
easier for girls - women’s family roles more available
more contact with moms
while dads are absent
female roles at home/private sphere
male roles away from home/pub
sphere

boy must break identification with mother to become masculine
eg the disparaging connotation of being “a mama’s boy”

boys more consciously taught to be masculine than girls to be feminine

girls main  problem is to overdue her mother-identification-not develop a separate sense of self

I think we internalize our mother’s values/expectations
eg house cleaning!!!

Men - problem with radical indep from mother really a latent desire to please her - makes them  seek the unattainable - success - but can never get there because can’t admit it is for her
 

gender roles conveniently fit needs of capitalism

earlier stages of capitalism - family more extended - created men not just centered on one person - more entrepreneurial, more inner directed, more initiative

now capit needs “org. man” group goals - achievement oriented - subconsciously for mom

 
conseqs of div of labor in family

girls learn domesticity; *have less access to learning about women’s public roles; makes pt unrealistic since girls will spend much more time in the labor force than their mothers did - is this true for you?

boys reject domesticity/mothering/nurturanc in themselves - obsess about being masculine to differentiate themselves from their mothers

father absence?  effect on boys/girls?
was yours?

how do you feel you were shaped by your socialization to gender roles in your family?
 
3) motherhood as oppression
Shulamith Firestone - The Dialectic of Sex

Leave aside most of what she said about Marxism - for later

But Marx/Engels important as thinkers b/c they rooted beg of class oppression in
SEXUAL DIV OF LABOR
esp. nuclear family
 

Biological family characterized by these fundamentals

1) women before contraception at the mercy of their biology - menstruation, childbirth, nursing
making them dependent on males
for physical survival

2)human infants require a long time to reach self sufficiency
dep on adults for survival
usually the mother

3)mother/child interdep existed in some form in every society
 

thus, shaped the psychology of every mother and child

4)the “natural” reprod difs b/w the sexes led directly to the first div of labor based on sex
origins of all further div into econ/cultural classes
 
?Is it true that bearing children made women nec’ly dep on men for survival?

Is this too a projection, exaggeration based on “biological” need invented to perpetuate heterosexual marriage?

men as a luxury?
female cats/huntresses
women field workers, hunter gatherers?

single moms today?
 
Firestone suggests fertility control doesn’t guarantee liberation - may be used against women to reinforce system of exploitation

liberation requires struggle, revolution of the oppressed
restoration of women’s ownership of their bodies

?In what ways has greater reprod control - contraception, access to abortion, artif insemination enhanced women’s autonomy?
 

In what ways hasn’t it?
(does is encourage men to stay out of parenting?  not his resp?  her “choice”?)

 
prospect of men being artificially inseminated - pros/cons

liberation or violation of women’s sacred rite?

 
Jeffen Allen
Motherhood:  The Annihilation of Women

Inst of Motherhood as the ultim expression of patriarchy

Every woman’s destiny, purpose

that for which she is marked

what is motherhood for her?

Concrete proof that women exist to reproduce men’s needs

Evacuation of motherhood

only way to shed patriarchy is for all women to refuse to be mothers

practicality of this aside
what benefits does she see in the choice not to be a mother

1) time for self development, creativity, creation of radically new alternatives

answer to the question why women haven’t achieved as much as men - because their raising babies!!