Motherwork and Republican Motherhood

     This Monday’s reading was the article “Racially Conscious Mothering in the ‘Colorblind’ Century:  Implications for African American Motherwork” by Camille Wilson Cooper, an associate professor in Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  In the article, Cooper elaborates upon the struggles and strategies many African American women employ as they raise children in the United States today.  Going off of Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s term “color-blind racism” in his book “Racism Without Racists,” Cooper explores how the newly conceptualized racial order impacts African American mothers’ childrearing.  Ultimately, Cooper comes up with the category “motherwork” – racially conscious mothering that seeks to empower children through a meaningful racial identity in a society that systematically degrades and oppresses people of color.

     As I read Cooper’s work, I found myself comparing her concept of “motherwork” to an earlier concept of “republican motherhood.”  We read about "republican motherhood" in the article "Muslim Motherhood: Tradition in Changing Contexts" by Gail Murphy-Geiss, a professor of sociology and feminist and gender studies at Colorado College.  Overall, the "Muslim Motherhood" article was terrible - full of over-generalizations, Orientalist judgments, and sweeping claims with no self-reflexive analysis - however, the idea of "republican motherhood" was intriguing.  Murphy-Geiss explains that throughout history mothers have been expected to raise a certain type of child for the common good.  In her analysis, she claims that as Muslim women become mothers in the increasingly globalized world, they are "rethinking what it means to be Muslim in non-Muslim contexts" and instilling that knowledge into their children in order to maintain a meaningful identity.

     When comparing motherwork to republican motherhood, it is evident that mothers from oppressed groups constantly have to act as "freedom fighters in addition to being bearers of culture, identity and love" (Cooper) because the dominant culture surrounding them and their families despises, negates, denigrates, and/or ignores their existence and value.  For this reason, Cooper concludes that "racially conscious mothering remains an important form of political resistance."

     While I agree with her, I wonder a few things:

Why mothers - not parents, fathers, families?

What is the experience of children who are told in the home that their race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion are important and valuable but encounter strong messages in the public sphere that counteract their racially conscious upbringing?

When will we, or will we ever, live in a society that doesn't necessitate this type of activist childrearing?

Will women of color, and other marginalized groups, always have to defend their children from attacks on their very identity?

Blueprint Families - Heteronormativity and Queer Families

"Family" comes in all shapes and sizes.

     For Wednesday's class, we read "Queer Parenting in the New Millennium" by Rachel Epstein - a queer mother and acclaimed activist for queer parenting in Canada.  In this article, Epstein summarizes her experience, both personal and professional, with queer parenting and points out some major concerns with our formula for "family."

     Epstein begins her analysis of the state of "family" with a discussion about the movement for same-sex marriage.  She argues that "the struggle for and realities of same-sex marriage might be creating another 'blueprint,' a framework that privileges one way of parenting over another, that normalizes one way of parenting and marginalizes others" (91).  What Epstein is saying here is that the way we conceptualize families, not only in terms of heteronormative mother-father team, but also in terms of marriage as a precursor and legitimizer of families harms any family form that deviates from the norm.

     The position that Epstein takes is not a commonly-proclaimed stance.  Many people, especially those outside of the queer community, prefer to believe that queer couples want and ought to be just like 'straight' couples.  However, although it is comfortable to think that everyone wants to be like you, it is false, alienating, and oppressive.  Not all queer people want to be 'couples' and not all queer couples want to get married.  In fact, a significant part of the queer community identifies strongly in opposition to these very institutions.  Yet, campaigns towards Marriage Equality, like the Vote No campaign in Minnesota this last year, ignore that constituency.  Consequently, though the campaign succeeded in achieving its goal it failed to represent the full community and further marginalized queer people already on the sidelines (especially Trans* and Bi individuals, along with others).

     Epstein, on the other hand, believes that this effort to attain Marriage Equality results in a detrimental process of assimilation of queer families to a heteronormative 'blueprint'.  This blueprint is one that values two individuals of 'compatible' genders who are married before they biologically conceive their own children.  She argues that, "rather than aiming to win acceptance by the dominant culture," queer families ought to "aim to change the self-understanding of that culture - to broaden the range of sexualities and family forms that are recognizable and legitimate" (100).

     As a child of divorced (hetero) parents with joint custody - I have experienced some of the pains of not having a socially-recognized family structure.  Anything that doesn't meet the standard definition of "Mom, Dad, two kids, and a dog" doesn't 'count'.  I can only imagine what it would be like to have the stress of a 'non-conforming' family complicated by queer parents, 'artificial' insemination, and other characteristics typical of queer families.

     Will our culture ever be willing to challenge its adoration for marriage?  What will it take for singles to be able to parent without complication or stigma?  When will we come to realize that families really do come in all shapes, sizes, genders, and sexualities?