Motherhood as an Ideology - karen j. swift
Hello Hivers!
I'm quite new here..I'm a mother who's so passionate about motherhood.
Understandings of motherhood arrive in contemporary times as a set of discourses found in everyday conversation, news, law, and policy. Two closely related strands of discourse are easily identified. The dominant discourse of motherhood has remained stable through several centuries; motherhood is viewed as the main purpose in life of every woman and the most illustrious of states. Through much of recorded history, and guided by patriarchal forms of thought, law, and discourse, motherhood has been presented as women's ultimate purpose and main mission in life, to be a holy mission and the highest form of service to humanity.
A well-known summary of the ideology of motherhood is the “belief that all women need to be mothers, all mothers need their children and all children need their mothers” (Oakley, 1986: p. 67). Many feminists have examined the ‘cult of motherhood’ as an all-encompassing mixture of a biological imperative to reproduce and a social imperative for mothers to provide stabilizing and moral influences for children and society at large. As the mother came to be cast as the all-important figure for the child, belief held that she should devote herself body, mind, heart, and soul to the enterprise of caring for that child. The ‘bliss’ of motherhood was promoted, not least by the Christian church, as the highest calling for women. An extension of that calling is that the mother–child bond is sacrosanct and must extend into the life of the child in the form of primary care by the mother throughout the child's life. Western feminists point out that the glorification of motherhood actually serves as a method of constraint; ‘proper’ mothering dictated by ideology demands that mothers stay at home and spend most of their time taking care of children and creating a comfortable, stable home atmosphere.
A related discourse of motherhood follows from the state's interest in controlling and using female fertility for nation building and economic purposes. Yeo (2005) states that motherhood in this sense was ‘created’ around the middle of the eighteenth century. The developing discourse of motherhood in Europe after that period tasked mothers not only with responsibility for continuation of the family, the production of (male) heirs, and the improvement of class position for the family but also for purity of the race (white). Thus, motherhood came to be not only a private matter but also a matter of importance to the state, which it remains. Consequently, when population growth is needed, policies are developed to encourage women to become mothers. In times of overpopulation or when poor or racialized mothers are deemed to be overproducing children, policies supporting child care and access to health care are likely to shrink. Malthus, writing two centuries ago, instructed that only families who could support children should reproduce. Otherwise, he thought, their children ‘must starve’ (Malthus, 1803: p. 226). Yeo (2005) claims one of the ‘master narratives’ governing European motherhood in earlier centuries was that of nation building, especially in the colonies. The creation of new nations required a growing, healthy population, with women's roles focused on producing and rearing soldiers and laborers. Once nation-building efforts became established, mothers were called upon to contribute to the development of a large and prosperous white middle middle class needed to perpetuate and grow capitalism. For this purpose, white mothers were needed to learn, teach, and demonstrate the moral authority the middle class required to dominate those below in the social, economic, and racial hierarchies. These efforts have produced an intersection of class, gender, and race that carries over into the current century in the West.
The development and growth of the middle class coincided with the expansion of industrialization in both Europe and North America. Beginning in the nineteenth century, increasing industrialization brought large numbers of men into the new industrial labor force, creating a gendered separation of men and women in their daily and working lives. Women were increasingly denied entry into the public world of paid work and discourse (Fegan, 1994). According to many white feminists, it is in this period that the ‘cult of motherhood’ was intensified in the West. The new jobs were for men, hence the ‘living wage’ argument: if men could earn enough in the paid labor force to support wife and children, women could then leave paid jobs to men and do their biological and social reproductive work in the home.
A contemporary extension of this ‘state-based’ discourse of motherhood is generally attributed to Adrienne Rich (1976), who famously identified two meanings of motherhood. One is the relationship of a woman to reproduction of the species and children. The other is the ‘institution’ of motherhood, which Rich names as male controlled and a product of patriarchy. This ideology of motherhood is called upon to inscribe upon women motherhood not only as instinct and selflessness, but also as subordination to others, namely, men, in the interests of carrying out their motherly duties. The institution of motherhood, anywhere in the world sends messages about how to feel, think, and act as a mother.
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