Motherhood

Readings:
1. Sharon Hays. 1996. “From Rods to Reasoning.” Pp. 19-50 in The Cultural Contradictions of Mothering. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
2. Ann Crittenden. 2001. “Introduction.” Pp. 1-12 in The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued. New York: Metropolitan Books.
3. Patricia Hill Collins. 2000. “Black Women and Motherhood.” Pp. 173-200 in Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd edition. New York: Routledge.4. Edin, Kathryn, and Maria Kefalas. 2005. Unmarried with Children. Contexts, 4, 2, 16-22.

Questions:
1. According to Hays, what were the four historical stages of development in the cultural notions of appropriate mothering in America in 17-20th centuries? What is intensive mothering, and does this concept apply to your mother or mothers of your friends?

The historical stages that Hays speaks of are that from the earliest discovery of childhood innocence in Western Europe, to the religiously grounded model of the American Puritans, the 19th century valorization of mothers, and the turn-of-the century establishment of expert-guided child rearing, to the permissive era (child-centered families).

Intensive mothering is an ideology that holds the individual mother at the forefront in responsibility for child rearing and influences the process to be child-centered, emotionally absorbing, labor intensive, expert-guided, etc. To me, Hays maybe arguing that these very ideas about appropriate mothering may stem from the ambivalence toward a system that is based solely on the competitive pursuit of individual interests.
This belief that a mother should focus all her time and energy on raising children is something that I have definitely witnessed, especially in single parent households. The father whether proven to be the father or not can get away with just paying a monthly check but the female has no way out. If a man doesn’t want to be apart of childrearing the woman is supposed to suck it up and no matter how hard survival maybe, she’s supposed to do anything and everything to ensure the survival of both herself and the child. No matter how any of us put it, we all know that there is an underlying belief in society that in a large majority of situations unless she up and disappears, is killed, or strung out on drugs, the mother is almost always destined to be the primary caregiver even if she can’t handle it.


2. In Crittenden's view, what are the main indicators that mothering is devalued in the United States? Do you agree with her?

Crittenden believes that though people claim that motherhood and childrearing is one of the hardest jobs, most people take motherhood for granted and when women do decide to dedicate all their time towards such a task, the idea of a stay at home mom is looked down upon and devalued. She thinks that even children have absorbed the cultural message that mothers have no stature. A mother’s work is almost invisible and can become a handicap and people don’t consider this. “The idea that time spent with one’s child is time wasted is embedded in traditional economic thinking. The devaluation of mothers’ work permeates virtually every major institution. Not only is care giving not rewarded, it is penalized.” (Crittenden) She mentions that in our society there is a contradiction we speak of the importance of nurturance but at the same time we disregard the work it takes to do so. For example, the inflexibility in the workplace that causes a lot of women on the road to motherhood to cut back on and sometimes quit their employment. Next she goes into the idea that marriage is still not an equal financial partnership. A mother’s unpaid work doesn’t entitle her to the primary income and finally the role of a primary caregiver is not considered a full productive citizen and social policies don’t define this type of unpaid care/ work as work. “The only safety net for a caregiver who loses her source of support is welfare, and even that is no longer assured. (p.4)

In my opinion, this author is right on point and if not right on point, she’s definitely on to the something. I agreed with a large majority of the points that she made. Reading this made me realize that personally share some of these negative views toward motherhood myself and that’s very unfortunate seeing that I will hold that position one day soon. One quote that stood out to me was when she stated that, “American mother’s may have their day, but for the rest of the year their values, their preferences, and their devotion to their children are shortchanged.” It’s funny to think that females in our society are embracing an economy that relies on what Crittenden describes as free and badly paid female labor. Our ideas of what maternal love should entail may very well put our women at a risk of maternal slavery.


3. According to Collins, what are the two types of mothering that Black women tend to do? How are these related to the notion of "motherhood as a symbol of power"?

The two types of mothering that Black women tend to do are said to be that of a blood mother and serve the role as “the othermother.” In African-American communities, it has been traditionally essential to have someone else to share mothering responsibilities. Having one person hold all the responsibility may not be wise if at all possible. “The centrality of women in African American extended families reflects both a continuation of African-derived cultural sensibilities and functional adaptations to intersecting oppressions of race, gender, class, and nation. Women’s centrality is characterized less by the absence of husbands and fathers than by the significance of women.” (Collin, p.4) Sisters, grandmothers, cousins, neighbors, aunts, etc may act as “othermothers” by taking on child-care responsibilities for one another’s children. Sometimes this arrangement entailed temporary child-care, discipline of the kids, and sometimes long-term care or informal adoption.
The idea of motherhood, whether taken on by bloodmothers, othermothers, or community othermothers definitely invoke a symbol of power for African-American women. Through participating in such network, these women gain high respect in their communities because of their activist mothering as community othermothers. Community othermothers work on behalf off the children, the women, and the men in their communities these women will never be nationally recognized for what they do, this status helps them gain a lot of respect and recognition within their communities. This is what forms the basis within black civil society. These women are seen as those to bring people along and “uplift the race.”


4. According to Edin and Kefalas, what are the poor women's attitudes on and experiences with marriage and childbearing, and what can the society do to help these women get out of poverty? What is your opinion?

Poor women’s attitudes toward this topic are a surprising reality. Poor women consistently have a positive attitude toward the institution of marriage but yet repeatedly choose to bear kids without a marital partner. Most of the decisions made toward this are contrary to those made by nonpoor counterparts who can better afford childbearing without marriage but do so otherwise. Women of lower socioeconomic statuses are continuing to bear children at young ages and do so typically outside of marriage. Marriage for a majority of these individuals rarely follows child birth.
I know that policy makers and our “legislation” is trying to break this “trend” by trying to produce programs that show these individuals how to strengthen relationship skills and encourage marriage but I don’t think that this is going to the best solution. Teaching the poor how to have “healthy relationships” and encouraging them to move into an institution that is in decline is wrong. I don’t think that most of us realize how unfair it is to say to these people that because of our economy and because of your financial status you have no choice, you can’t have kids.
If these people had more money though this wouldn’t be an issue. In our society money is literally everything and it’s because of this that we have inequalities (gender, educational, race, etc), oppressions, marginalizations, and so forth. Just because these people have accepted the fact that society doesn’t give a damn about them besides how what their doing in their lives may affect the nonpoor we can’t be mad or try to control their fertility rates and so forth. Everyone can’t benefit from networking, winning the lottery, or get a golden ticket to leave poverty behind. Just because these individuals are poor, they aren’t supposed to want a family? If this cycle of poverty that surrounds them shows no way out how can we deny these individuals the love and unity that a child might bring to their lives? In all, marriage is not the solution.

Family Violence 3-14

Violence Against Women

Readings:
1. Felson, Richard. 2006. Is Violence Against Women About Women or About Violence? Contexts, 5, 2, 21-25.
2. Ann Jones. 1994. “Why Doesn’t She Leave?” Pp. 129-139, 152-166 in Next Time, She’ll Be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It. Boston: Beacon Press.
3. James Ptacek. 1988. “Why Do Men Batter Their Wives?” Pp. 133-157 in Feminist Perspectives on Wife Abuse. Edited by Kerti Yllo and Michele Bogrod. Sage Publications.


Questions:1. Based on Felson's article, explain the gender perspective and the violence perspective to understanding violence against women. What evidence does Felson use to make his argument? What is your position regarding these two perspectives?

The gender perspective in this article concerns dominance and misogynist men. It theorizes that these men assault women to maintain a wanted status and to maintain their dominance. Our society is believed to be very misogynistic when it comes to this and it’s also believed that this type of violence against women is tolerated which in turn helps offenders get away with it. This way victims fear reporting things to authorities, they are personally blamed for being in the situation, and the guilty party is continuously allowed to be set free of their deviance. This view is commonly believed by people in our society.

In the violence perspective, the basis and strong belief in sexism are not relied upon. The focus here simply seems to be the issues of violence, crime, and the criminals themselves. Important aspects between this are the backgrounds and attitudes that these abusive men have towards women in comparison to criminals. Under this perspective, there is a belief that men in these situations usually have a history of different violent acts (Felson calls these guys “bad guys”). Violence with this men are usually done in private due to their connection with traditional values while also avoiding stigmas associated with such behavior toward women. Felson tells us that traditional values may possibly restrain violence against women rather than encourage it

-When we look at sexism and violence against women, Felson tells us that we need to determine if the men that assault women also have negative attitudes, hatred, or traditional attitudes about gender roles toward women. Evidence suggest that males that assault women are not sexist, but criminals. This can be proven in the fact that men who assault or bring violence upon their wives almost always have similar attitudes towards women like those of other male offenders. Also it is said that violence against women in societies where women have a low status are frequent. But at the same time in when violence is high against one race it is the same against the other, Felson says here that “violence is violence” and surprisingly, men are a lot more likely than women to be victims of violence. This is very shocking.

-The gender approach tells us that men simply assault women because they can and because they believe that they should be dominant. Unfortunately this is only a hypothesis, seeing that the numbers of reports being filed by men who are abused are not filed/ reported as much as those of women even when the offenses may be equally harmful. This view also tells us that even though men and women both participate in some sort of attacking (hitting, slapping, punching, etc.), women above men seem to commit crime against their spouses in defense.
-Sexism may very well be at the top of the list for reasons why violence against women exists but this has yet to be proven. We have to question whether our society unconsciously believes that men rape women because of “sexual motivations,” because women have become completely overly sexualized, etc.

-I agree with a lot of the points that Felson brings up in his article. Women in our society, whether built on a gender perspective or a violence one, fear that they will not be believed by people and society and that they will also be placed with blame. The cycle of violence against women continues to exist I believe, because male offenders continuously get off and face no consequences. I think that it’s hard for us to put either perspective in dominance over such deviant behaviors because for every situation will vary along to the next. Some men will be obsessed with dominance due to their own backgrounds and experiences, some will simply be perverts, some will just be those guys that dwell in what we call deviance and so forth.


2. What is Jones's answer to the question posed in the title of her article, "Why Doesn't She Leave?" What is your opinion? Relate Jones's views to the gender vs violence debate described by Felson.

Jones gives us her views on domestic violence and opens our eyes to how our justice system doesn’t necessarily work hard to protect battered/ abused women or to prosecute their offenders. Jones tells us that police, juries, judges, courts and so forth continuously “blame the victim.” Victims in these situations are suffering/ dying because they have to face denial, ignorance, ridicule, and derision in our world of institutionalized sexism that is destroying women’s lives. “Blaming the victim,” is by far a serious problem and women are definitely losing their lives because of it because this instills fear and leaves women with no where to turn most of the time. When we ask a victim why they didn’t leave, we are still in fact “blaming the victim.”

This read was incredibly eye-opening and disturbing. Jones does a good job of showing us our very own society’s response to abusive men and victimized women. The fact that we ever wonder, why someone didn’t just leave and we in turn feel that they are foolish, weird, that they like it, or that they deserve it, is disturbing, but this is something I believe takes place in our minds even when we don’t notice it. This is where the problem lies. I feel like a lot of us are very quick to pass judgment instead of trying to find solutions and escape havens for these women. We don’t realize sometimes a woman leaving makes matters worst and is sometimes impossible.
The problem is simply why are we asking why someone just won’t leave? Why is it that we don’t ask ourselves first, “what’s wrong with HIM” What is HE doing?” Why do we allow victims (the one’s who are seeking help) to be scrutinized, marginalized, dissected, etc. How can we feel comfortable with ourselves saying that because someone won’t leave, that they are the root of the problem and is therefore responsible for the whole situation. The problem is the man. He’s the one that has created such a situation. It makes me wonder if we need to redefine the meaning of victim in our society.
-In all, I can definitely see that Jones has a lean towards the gender perspective that was mentioned earlier. We can not blame our women form being in such situations as if anyone would simply choose to do so if they knew better. Why is this one of the only situations, that the victims (women) are blamed and questioned so harshly?


3. According to Ptacek, what are the denials and justifications that men use to explain their abusive behavior? What kind of contradictions can we see in the explanations offered by men? Relate Ptacek's findings to the gender vs violence debate.

In Ptacek’s findings of batterers’ excuses and justifications, he found that his interviewees saw their violence as a method of saving their relationships. The program that these men were in contained men that had a good idea/ sense that their behavior was wrong. In a study by Scott and Lyman (1968) it was found that when an individual is questioned about their behavior and the behavior is regarded as socially unacceptable there are two accounts to neutralize this in society. These two accounts are excuses and justifications. In making excuses and justifications, Ptacek tells us that the individual employs “socially approved vocabularies.” “They appeal to standard rationalizations in an attempt to make sense of or normalize their behavior. They tend to excuse themselves of full responsibility, and at the same tine, they offer justifications for their abusiveness.” (p.141)

Batterers attempted to excuse their behavior in this study by claiming and trying to justify the situation by saying they simply lost control, as if it was completely out of their hands. Loss of control in most cases have direct relationships with psychological and physiological factors. Of the 18 men interviewed, 94% of them fell in these categories: alcohol/ drugs, built up frustration, and total loss of control. “Appeals to loss of control and victim-blaming are common ways by which these men excuse their violence. While excuses represent denial of responsibility, justifications are denial of wrong doing on the part of the offender.

-I found it interesting that a majority of these men justify their situations by denying the level of injury. They claim that the women bruise easily. By the men justifying this within themselves, they avoid denying the significance of the situation they avoid fear, humiliation, degradation, etc on the woman. Some of the main issues in such abusive relations are that of the availability of sec, on the woman not knowing the “role” that she is supposed to lead under the man, those of faithfulness and so forth.

As far as contradiction is concerned, one of the best examples I found was of a man who grabbed his wife around the neck. In this example we see a man that goes from denying responsibility to semi-accepting the responsibility while at the same time minimizing his deviance, then denies responsibility again. Batterers seem to be obsessed with applying verbal strategies in an attempt to make the violence appear as something normal. Ptacek states that it is necessary that we trace the extent to which rationalizations may represent “culturally sanctioned” strategies for minimizing and denying violence against women. It is in this that the gender perspective (covered earlier) is seen. “Appeals to loss of control and victim-blaming are the most common ways that these men sought to escape responsibility for their violence.” (p.151) Is our society accepting these issues?