Feminism and Mothering

Kinser, Amber E.

doi:10.4135/9781412979276.n204

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Women without MS have demonstrated resistance to idealised discourses of motherhood by positioning such ideals as problematic and unrealistic (Frizelle & Hayes, 1999), normalising the challenges of motherhood, and engagement in self-care (Cusk, 2001; Wolf, 2001). Women’s “counter-stories” (McKenzie-Mohr & Lafrance, 2014) offer alternative representations of mothering, through art, poetry, and memoir (Kinser, 2008). However, resistance to idealised discourses of motherhood in the present study was mostly positioned as a response to the material and intrapsychic consequences of MS, associated with negative self-evaluation as mothers and fear of emotionally damaging their children.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Being a mother with multiple sclerosis: Negotiating cultural ideals of mother and child

Parton

Ussher

Natoli

et al. 2017

Feminism & Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Multiple sclerosis can impact affected women's experiences of motherhood through physical and cognitive impairment. This study examined how women construct and experience motherhood while living with multiple sclerosis. Twenty mothers diagnosed with multiple sclerosis took part in semi-structured interviews. Transcripts were analysed using theoretical thematic analysis, drawing on feminist poststructuralist theory to organise and interpret themes. Two main themes were identified: ''Performing motherhood in the context of MS'' and ''Bringing up a 'good' child''. ''Performing motherhood in the context of MS'' comprises the subthemes, ''The selfsacrificing mother: Negating women's needs'', ''The unreliable mother: Adjusting dayto-day mothering practices'', and ''Resisting discourses of idealised motherhood''. ''Bringing up a 'good' child'', comprises the subthemes, ''The damaging mother: Fear of harming the child'' and ''The good mother: Caring and building resilience in the child''. Women positioned themselves as failing to be good mothers, because of limitations to their mothering, and fear of damaging children. Focusing on building children's emotional resilience functioned to restore constructions of ''good'' mothering. Acknowledging how Western cultural ideals influence women's experience of mothering when living with chronic illness is important. Health professionals can provide support by addressing women's feelings of failure as mothers and supporting communication with children.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Being a mother with multiple sclerosis: Negotiating cultural ideals of mother and child

Parton

Ussher

Natoli

et al. 2017

Feminism & Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Feminist research problematizes motherhood as ‘natural’, or as a biological calling to women, and views it as a gendered and cultural construct (e.g. Butler, 1989; Kinser, 2010). Specifically, feminist motherhood research suggests that western motherhood is largely shaped by heterosexual nuclear family ideals and a striving to simultaneously perform different successful femininities (De Benedictis and Orgad, 2017); motherhood ‘subsumes assimilated cultural awareness of how a mother ought to act’ (Krok, 2009: 10; see also McRobbie, 2013, 2015).…”

Section: Messy and Fleshy Maternal Experiences In The ‘New’ Academiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One way of performing the cultural expectations of the ‘good’ mother was by challenging the normative spaces of motherhood (compare Säilävaara, 2016) and creating paths to ‘new’ motherhood by keeping everyday life with the baby busy outside the home, as the following autoethnographic note reveals. At the same time, this performance could be seen as another way of ‘professionalizing’ motherhood in the context of a high-achieving culture (Kinser, 2010): I do a lot of things with my baby; during the weekdays we go dancing, singing, and ‘color bathing’ with other babies, and swimming (and diving) every Saturday morning. Sometimes I feel I am ‘performing’ my motherhood as perfectly as I can by offering as many experiences to my baby as possible.…”

Section: Negotiating Maternal Tensions Within the ‘New’ Academiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Mothers and researchers in the making: Negotiating ‘new’ motherhood within the ‘new’ academia

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How do early-career academic mothers balance the demands of contemporary motherhood and academia? More generally, how do working mothers develop their embodied selves in today’s highly competitive working life? This article responds to a recent call to voice maternal experiences in the field of organization studies. Inspired by matricentric feminism and building on our intimate autoethnographic diary notes, we provide a fine-grained understanding of the changing demands that constitute the ongoing negotiation of ‘new’ motherhood within the ‘new’ academia. By highlighting the complexity of embodied experience, we show how motherhood is not an entirely negative experience in the workplace. Despite academia’s neoliberal tendencies, the social privilege of whiteness, heterosexuality and the middle class enables – at times – simultaneous satisfaction with both motherhood and an academic career.

show abstract

“…Planning needs to respond to how broader ‘…categories of experience and social status cannot be understood separately from each other because they have a combined effect. People do not face identical obstacles simply because they share a single social status’(Kinser, 2010, p. 24). Planning should be based in theoretical work by Kimberlé Crenshaw and others to advance policy responses that address how inequalities intersect and cause discrimination, exclusion and harms for distinctive demographics of women and children (Crenshaw, 1993; Hankivsky et al, 2012; Singh, 2017).…”

Section: Discussion and Concluding Comments On Implications Going Formentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A diverse response to women and girls’ experiences of armed conflict that ignores these realities ultimately fails those women and girls affected. If ‘[b]eing able to decide if and when she wants to become a mother is a critical starting place for [women’s] power’ (Kinser, 2010), then ensuring women have ability to make choices over sexualities, sexual practices and reproduction is a critical part of the WPS agenda (Hagen, 2016; Mertens & Myrttinen, 2019). Its implementation should address the complexities of motherhood, maternity, reproduction and the challenges facing CBW as an opportunity for expanding the boundaries of gendered understanding of armed conflict currently delimiting that agenda.…”

Section: The Gendered Harms Of Warfare: ‘Prickly’ Conundrums Confrontmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing the Gendered Interests of Victims/Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence and Their Children Through National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security

Swaine

2020

Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is growing acknowledgement of the need to address the impacts of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), with less recognition of conflict-related reproductive and maternal harms and children born of war (CBW). An intricate set of common as well as distinctive interests arise for both victims/survivors and their children that remain unfulfilled. National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security (NAPs-WPS) present an opportunity to redress these gaps. This article examines to what extent are NAPs-WPS responsive to the specific rights and gendered interests of victims/survivors of CRSV and their children? It advances thinking on gender planning for peace and security and makes three significant analytical contributions: a ‘Typology of Impacts and Losses’ advancing understanding of CRSV; a ‘Gender Interests Analysis’ framework, identifying the practical and strategic gender interests of victims/survivors and their children; and application of these frameworks to produce a critical analysis of the NAPs-WPS of Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines and Timor-Leste. It finds that planning under WPS is failing to ensure that multi-sectoral services are available, while reproductive and maternity issues and CBW are completely neglected in the selected NAPs-WPS. The article discusses the implications of these findings for gender planning through NAPs-WPS going forward.

show abstract

Feminism and Mothering

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Being a mother with multiple sclerosis: Negotiating cultural ideals of mother and child

Being a mother with multiple sclerosis: Negotiating cultural ideals of mother and child

Mothers and researchers in the making: Negotiating ‘new’ motherhood within the ‘new’ academia

Addressing the Gendered Interests of Victims/Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence and Their Children Through National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About