Maternal Bodies

Maternal Bodies PDF Author: Nora Doyle
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469637200
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
In the second half of the eighteenth century, motherhood came to be viewed as women's most important social role, and the figure of the good mother was celebrated as a moral force in American society. Nora Doyle shows that depictions of motherhood in American culture began to define the ideal mother by her emotional and spiritual roles rather than by her physical work as a mother. As a result of this new vision, lower-class women and non-white women came to be excluded from the identity of the good mother because American culture defined them in terms of their physical labor. However, Doyle also shows that childbearing women contradicted the ideal of the disembodied mother in their personal accounts and instead perceived motherhood as fundamentally defined by the work of their bodies. Enslaved women were keenly aware that their reproductive bodies carried a literal price, while middle-class and elite white women dwelled on the physical sensations of childbearing and childrearing. Thus motherhood in this period was marked by tension between the lived experience of the maternal body and the increasingly ethereal vision of the ideal mother that permeated American print culture.

Maternal Bodies

Maternal Bodies PDF Author: Nora Doyle
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469637200
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the second half of the eighteenth century, motherhood came to be viewed as women's most important social role, and the figure of the good mother was celebrated as a moral force in American society. Nora Doyle shows that depictions of motherhood in American culture began to define the ideal mother by her emotional and spiritual roles rather than by her physical work as a mother. As a result of this new vision, lower-class women and non-white women came to be excluded from the identity of the good mother because American culture defined them in terms of their physical labor. However, Doyle also shows that childbearing women contradicted the ideal of the disembodied mother in their personal accounts and instead perceived motherhood as fundamentally defined by the work of their bodies. Enslaved women were keenly aware that their reproductive bodies carried a literal price, while middle-class and elite white women dwelled on the physical sensations of childbearing and childrearing. Thus motherhood in this period was marked by tension between the lived experience of the maternal body and the increasingly ethereal vision of the ideal mother that permeated American print culture.

The Mother of All Questions

The Mother of All Questions PDF Author: Rebecca Solnit
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608467201
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description
A collection of feminist essays steeped in “Solnit’s unapologetically observant and truth-speaking voice on toxic, violent masculinity” (The Los Angeles Review). In a timely and incisive follow-up to her national bestseller Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit offers sharp commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more. In characteristic style, “Solnit draw[s] anecdotes of female indignity or male aggression from history, social media, literature, popular culture, and the news . . . The main essay in the book is about the various ways that women are silenced, and Solnit focuses upon the power of storytelling—the way that who gets to speak, and about what, shapes how a society understands itself and what it expects from its members. The Mother of All Questions poses the thesis that telling women’s stories to the world will change the way that the world treats women, and it sets out to tell as many of those stories as possible” (The New Yorker). “There’s a new feminist revolution—open to people of all genders—brewing right now and Rebecca Solnit is one of its most powerful, not to mention beguiling, voices.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times–bestselling author of Natural Causes “Short, incisive essays that pack a powerful punch.” —Publishers Weekly “A keen and timely commentary on gender and feminism. Solnit’s voice is calm, clear, and unapologetic; each essay balances a warm wit with confident, thoughtful analysis, resulting in a collection that is as enjoyable and accessible as it is incisive.” —Booklist

Ideal mother

Ideal mother PDF Author:
Publisher: Adam Publishers
ISBN: 9788174354938
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description


The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood

The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood PDF Author: Sharon Hays
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300076523
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Working mothers today confront not only conflicting demands on their time and energy but also conflicting ideas about how they are to behave: they must be nurturing and unselfish while engaged in child rearing but competitive and ambitious at work. As more and more women enter the workplace, it would seem reasonable for society to make mothering a simpler and more efficient task. Instead, Sharon Hays points out in this original and provocative book, an ideology of "intensive mothering" has developed that only exacerbates the tensions working mothers face. Drawing on ideas about mothering since the Middle Ages, on contemporary childrearing manuals, and on in-depth interviews with mothers from a range of social classes, Hays traces the evolution of the ideology of intensive mothering--an ideology that holds the individual mother primarily responsible for child rearing and dictates that the process is to be child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive. Hays argues that these ideas about appropriate mothering stem from a fundamental ambivalence about a system based solely on the competitive pursuit of individual interests. In attempting to deal with our deep uneasiness about self-interest, we have imposed unrealistic and unremunerated obligations and commitments on mothering, making it into an opposing force, a primary field on which this cultural ambivalence is played out.

Women, Wives, Mothers

Women, Wives, Mothers PDF Author: Jessie Bernard
Publisher: AldineTransaction
ISBN: 0202362434
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
One of the most important series of events in modern times--the restructuring of sex roles to adapt them to modern life--is here chronicled from the perspective of a lifetime of studying and writing about women. In this lively, lucid book Jessie Bernard examines, with concern and expertise, the dramatic changes in values experienced by women of all ages in all classes of society, and how these changes affect the options available to women today--as women, as wives, as mothers. Bernard begins her five-part examination with a critical overview of research on sex differences, pointing out the sexism that is implicit in most of this research and suggesting what kinds of research should be done. She discusses the paradox involved in preparing girls for the most demanding of all roles--motherhood--by fostering weakness in them rather than strength. She writes of the ages and stages of motherhood and the momentous changes now in process in the roles of wife and mother, as more women combine labor force participation with marriage and motherhood. Bernard contrasts the positions of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century feminist movements with respect to class, and reports on the influence of the feminist movement on working class and African-American women. The last part of the book tells of the bitter fruits of extreme sex role specialization, both for women and for society, and examines policy-relevant research on motherhood. Bernard explores the many new potentialities open to women, and, finally, the societal forms that will be necessary in order for women to plan their lives with wider latitude. Both the general reader and students of women's studies will be delighted and informed by Jessie Bernard's enlightening report on where women have been and where they are going in American society. Jessie Bernard (1903-1996) was Research Scholar, Honoris Causa, at the Pennsylvania State University. Her many books include Remarriage, The Sex Game, The Future of Marriage, American Community Behavior, and Social Problems at Midcentury.

52 Things Kids Need from a Dad

52 Things Kids Need from a Dad PDF Author: Jay Payleitner
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
ISBN: 0736976663
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
“God, please help me...another game of Candy Land...” Quite a few dads spend time with their kids. However, many have no clue what their kids really need. Enter author Jay Payleitner, veteran dad of five, who’s also struggled with how to build up his children’s lives. His 52 Things Kids Need from a Dad combines straightforward features with step-up-to-the-mark challenges men will appreciate: a full year’s worth of focused, doable ideas—one per week, if desired uncomplicated ways to be an example, like “kiss your wife in the kitchen” tough, frank advice, like “throw away your porn” And, refreshingly... NO exhaustive (and exhausting) lists of “things you should do” NO criticism of dads for being men and acting like men Dads will feel respected and empowered, and gain confidence to initiate activities that build lifelong positives into their kids. Great gift or men’s group resource!

Motherhood

Motherhood PDF Author: Sheila Heti
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1627790780
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
From the author of How Should a Person Be? (“one of the most talked-about books of the year”—Time Magazine) and the New York Times Bestseller Women in Clothes comes a daring novel about whether to have children. In Motherhood, Sheila Heti asks what is gained and what is lost when a woman becomes a mother, treating the most consequential decision of early adulthood with the candor, originality, and humor that have won Heti international acclaim and made How Should A Person Be? required reading for a generation. In her late thirties, when her friends are asking when they will become mothers, the narrator of Heti’s intimate and urgent novel considers whether she will do so at all. In a narrative spanning several years, casting among the influence of her peers, partner, and her duties to her forbearers, she struggles to make a wise and moral choice. After seeking guidance from philosophy, her body, mysticism, and chance, she discovers her answer much closer to home. Motherhood is a courageous, keenly felt, and starkly original novel that will surely spark lively conversations about womanhood, parenthood, and about how—and for whom—to live.

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution PDF Author: Adrienne Rich
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039386734X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The pathbreaking investigation into motherhood and womanhood from an influential and enduring feminist voice, now for a new generation. In Of Woman Born, originally published in 1976, influential poet and feminist Adrienne Rich examines the patriarchic systems and political institutions that define motherhood. Exploring her own experience—as a woman, a poet, a feminist, and a mother—she finds the act of mothering to be both determined by and distinct from the institution of motherhood as it is imposed on all women everywhere. A “powerful blend of research, theory, and self-reflection” (Sandra M. Gilbert, Paris Review), Of Woman Born revolutionized how women thought about motherhood and their own liberation. With a stirring new foreword from National Book Critics Circle Award–winning writer Eula Biss, the book resounds with as much wisdom and insight today as when it was first written.

Will I Ever be Good Enough?

Will I Ever be Good Enough? PDF Author: Karyl McBride
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416551328
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
The first book specifically for daughters suffering from the emotional abuse of selfish, self-involved mothers,Will I Ever Be Good Enough?provides the expert assistance you need in order to overcome this debilitating history and reclaim your life for yourself. Drawing on over two decades of experience as a therapist specializing in women's psychology and health, psychotherapist Dr. Karyl McBride helpsyou recognize the widespread effects of this maternal emotional abuse and guides you as you create an individualized program for self-protection, resolution, and complete recovery.An estimated 1.5 million American women have narcissistic personality disorder, which makes them so insecure and overbearing, insensitive and domineering that they can psychologically damage their daughters for life. Daughters of narcissistic mothers learn that maternal love is not unconditional, and that it is given only when they behave in accordance with their mothers' often unreasonable expectations and whims. As adults, these daughters consequently have difficulty overcoming their insecurities and feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, sadness, and emotional emptiness. They may also have a terrible fear of abandonment that leads them to form unhealthy love relationships, as well as a tendency to perfectionism and unrelenting self-criticism, or to self-sabotage and frustration.Herself the recovering daughter of a narcissistic mother, Dr. McBride includes her personal struggle, which adds a profound level of authority to her work, along with the perspectives of the hundreds of suffering daughters she's interviewed over the years. Their stories of how maternal abuse has manifested in their lives -- as well as how they have successfully overcome its effects -- show you that you're not alone and that you can take back your life and have the controlyouwant.Dr. McBride's step-by-step program will enable you to:(1) Recognize your own experience with maternal narcissism and its effects on all aspects of your life (2) Discover how you have internalized verbal and nonverbal messages from your mother and how these have translated into a strong desire to overachieve or a tendency to self-sabotage (3) Construct a step-by-step program to reclaim your life and enhance your sense of self, a process that includes creating a psychological separation from your mother and breaking the legacy of abuse. You will also learn how not to repeat your mother's mistakes with your own daughter.Warm and sympathetic, filled with the examples of women who have established healthy boundaries with their hurtful mothers,Will I Ever Be Good Enough?encourages and inspires you as it aids your recovery.

Shadow Mothers

Shadow Mothers PDF Author: Cameron Lynne Macdonald
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520947819
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Shadow Mothers shines new light on an aspect of contemporary motherhood often hidden from view: the need for paid childcare by women returning to the workforce, and the complex bonds mothers forge with the "shadow mothers" they hire. Cameron Lynne Macdonald illuminates both sides of an unequal and complicated relationship. Based on in-depth interviews with professional women and childcare providers— immigrant and American-born nannies as well as European au pairs—Shadow Mothers locates the roots of individual skirmishes between mothers and their childcare providers in broader cultural and social tensions. Macdonald argues that these conflicts arise from unrealistic ideals about mothering and inflexible career paths and work schedules, as well as from the devaluation of paid care work.