Download or read book The Political Uses of Motherhood in America written by Cynthia Stavrianos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-13 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As various contemporary groups use the language of motherhood to advance their political causes, maternal rhetoric has become very visible in the American political discourse of late. Yet while it has long been recognized that women have invoked their political status as mothers to organize and authorize their political action in the past, scholars have only just begun to examine the recent reemergence of this frame. This book describes the wide variety of political causes that mothers are organizing to address, and analyses whether ideologically conservative organizations are disproportionately represented among groups using motherhood to mobilize women. Stavrianos examines the use of maternal discourses in closer detail through a comparative case study of five groups using motherhood as their primary frame for collective political action: Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Million Mom March, Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, Mainstreet Moms Organize or Bust, and Mothers in Charge. Scholars interested in women and politics, interest group politics, social movements, political behavior, women’s studies, motherhood studies, and framing strategies will find this book noteworthy, as it adds to a growing body of literature exploring the use of motherhood as an emerging political frame, and to the interdisciplinary discussion of contemporary discourses of motherhood.

Download or read book The Political Consequences of Motherhood written by Jill Greenlee and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2014-05-08 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and why politicians and activists appeal to motherhood to gain support

Download or read book Women of the Republic written by Linda K. Kerber and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2000-11-09 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women of the Republic views the American Revolution through women's eyes. Previous histories have rarely recognized that the battle for independence was also a woman's war. The "women of the army" toiled in army hospitals, kitchens, and laundries. Civilian women were spies, fund raisers, innkeepers, suppliers of food and clothing. Recruiters, whether patriot or tory, found men more willing to join the army when their wives and daughters could be counted on to keep the farms in operation and to resist enchroachment from squatters. "I have Don as much to Carrey on the warr as maney that Sett Now at the healm of government," wrote one impoverished woman, and she was right. Women of the Republic is the result of a seven-year search for women's diaries, letters, and legal records. Achieving a remarkable comprehensiveness, it describes women's participation in the war, evaluates changes in their education in the late eighteenth century, describes the novels and histories women read and wrote, and analyzes their status in law and society. The rhetoric of the Revolution, full of insistence on rights and freedom in opposition to dictatorial masters, posed questions about the position of women in marriage as well as in the polity, but few of the implications of this rhetoric were recognized. How much liberty and equality for women? How much pursuit of happiness? How much justice? When American political theory failed to define a program for the participation of women in the public arena, women themselves had to develop an ideology of female patriotism. They promoted the notion that women could guarantee the continuing health of the republic by nurturing public-spirited sons and husbands. This limited ideology of "Republican Motherhood" is a measure of the political and social conservatism of the Revolution. The subsequent history of women in America is the story of women's efforts to accomplish for themselves what the Revolution did not.

Download or read book Mothers in Public and Political Life written by Simone Bohn and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even though in most nations women are at least almost half of the population, in very few countries do they occupy a similar space in the formal institutions of political power. They are said to lack a key element for a successful career in public life: time. From this perspective, no one is worse off than women who are mothers. From another perspective, however, motherhood is thought to help politicize women, as this life-changing experience makes them aware of the limitations of some specific public policies (such as child-care, parental leave, gendered labor practices etc.) as well as more conscious of the centrality of more encompassing public policies, such as education, health care, and social assistance. This book explores the challenges, obstacles, opportunities and experiences of mothers who take part in political and/or public life.

Download or read book The Political Consequences of Motherhood written by Jill Greenlee and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2014-05-08 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American political activists and candidates have used motherhood to rally women’s interest, support, and participation throughout American history. Jill S. Greenlee investigates the complex relationship between motherhood and women’s political attitudes. Combining a historical overview of the ways motherhood has been used for political purposes with recent political opinion surveys and individual-level analysis, she explains how and when motherhood shapes women’s thoughts and preferences. Greenlee argues that two mechanisms account for the durability of motherhood politics. First, women experience attitudinal shifts when they become mothers. Second, “mother” is a broad-based identity, widely shared and ideologically unconstrained, that lends itself to appeals across the political spectrum to build support for candidates and policy issues.

Download or read book Political Consequences of Motherhood written by Jill S. Greenlee and published by . This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From civically and politically engaged women linking their identity as mothers to their fight for prohibition, public sanitation, and protective labor laws to the general call to arms of mama grizzlies issued by Sarah Palin in 2010, American political activists and candidates have used motherhood to rally women s interest, support, and participation throughout American history. Politicized motherhood persists, and motherhood continues to inspire women s participation and direct their concerns. In The Political Consequences of Motherhood, Jill S. Greenlee investigates the complex relationship between motherhood and women s political attitudes. Combining a historical overview of the ways motherhood has been used for political purposes with recent political opinion surveys and individual-level analysis, she explains how and when motherhood shapes women s thoughts and preferences. Greenlee argues that two mechanisms account for the durability of motherhood politics. First, women experience attitudinal shifts when they become mothers. Second, mother is a broad-based identity, widely shared and ideologically unconstrained, that lends itself to appeals across the political spectrum to build support for candidates and policy issues."

Download or read book We Live for the We written by Dani McClain and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A warm, wise, and urgent guide to parenting in uncertain times, from a longtime reporter on race, reproductive health, and politics In We Live for the We, first-time mother Dani McClain sets out to understand how to raise her daughter in what she, as a black woman, knows to be an unjust -- even hostile -- society. Black women are more likely to die during pregnancy or birth than any other race; black mothers must stand before television cameras telling the world that their slain children were human beings. What, then, is the best way to keep fear at bay and raise a child so she lives with dignity and joy? McClain spoke with mothers on the frontlines of movements for social, political, and cultural change who are grappling with the same questions. Following a child's development from infancy to the teenage years, We Live for the We touches on everything from the importance of creativity to building a mutually supportive community to navigating one's relationship with power and authority. It is an essential handbook to help us imagine the society we build for the next generation.

Download or read book Protecting Soldiers and Mothers written by Theda Skocpol and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is a commonplace that the United States lagged behind the countries of Western Europe in developing modern social policies. But, as Theda Skocpol shows in this startlingly new historical analysis, the United States actually pioneered generous social spending for many of its elderly, disabled, and dependent citizens. During the late nineteenth century, competitive party politics in American democracy led to the rapid expansion of benefits for Union Civil War veterans and their families. Some Americans hoped to expand veterans' benefits into pensions for all of the needy elderly and social insurance for workingmen and their families. But such hopes went against the logic of political reform in the Progressive Era. Generous social spending faded along with the Civil War generation. Instead, the nation nearly became a unique maternalist welfare state as the federal government and more than forty states enacted social spending, labor regulations, and health education programs to assist American mothers and children. Remarkably, as Skocpol shows, many of these policies were enacted even before American women were granted the right to vote. Banned from electoral politics, they turned their energies to creating huge, nation-spanning federations of local women's clubs, which collaborated with reform-minded professional women to spur legislative action across the country. Blending original historical research with political analysis, Skocpol shows how governmental institutions, electoral rules, political parties, and earlier public policies combined to determine both the opportunities and the limits within which social policies were devised and changed by reformers and politically active social groups over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By examining afresh the institutional, cultural, and organizational forces that have shaped U.S. social policies in the past, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers challenges us to think in new ways about what might be possible in the American future.

Download or read book American Mom written by Mary Kay Blakely and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1995-11 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Married in the '70s, Blakely expected to be the kind of mother society could admire. But, caught up in the women's movement--and an increasingly chaotic world--she soon lost her innocence about expert wisdom and began to break the rules. With humor and insight, this acclaimed journalist explodes the myths of motherhood today.

Download or read book Sophonisba Breckinridge written by Anya Jabour and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2019-09-16 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sophonisba Breckinridge's remarkable career stretched from the Civil War to the Cold War. She took part in virtually every reform campaign of the Progressive and New Deal eras and became a nationally and internationally renowned figure. Her work informed women’s activism for decades and continues to shape progressive politics today. Anya Jabour's biography rediscovers this groundbreaking American figure. After earning advanced degrees in politics, economics, and law, Breckinridge established the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration, which became a feminist think tank that promoted public welfare policy and propelled women into leadership positions. In 1935, Breckinridge’s unremitting efforts to provide government aid to the dispossessed culminated in her appointment as an advisor on programs for the new Social Security Act. A longtime activist in international movements for peace and justice, Breckinridge also influenced the formation of the United Nations and advanced the idea that "women’s rights are human rights." Her lifelong commitment to social justice created a lasting legacy for generations of progressive activists.

Download or read book The Politics of Motherhood written by Alexis Jetter and published by UPNE. This book was released on 1997 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays and interviews explode the myth of apolitical motherhood by showing how 20th century women have politicized their role as mothers in a wide range of social contexts.

Download or read book The Politics of Parenthood written by Laurel Elder and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-07-17 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Certain events in one's life, such as marriage, joining the workforce, and growing older, can become important determinants of political attitudes and voting choice. Each of these events has been the subject of considerable study, but in The Politics of Parenthood, Laurel Elder and Steven Greene look at the political impact of one of life's most challenging adult experiences—having and raising children. Using a comprehensive array of both quantitative and qualitative analyses, Elder and Greene systematically reveal for the first time how the very personal act of raising a family is also a politically defining experience, one that shapes the political attitudes of Americans on a range of important policy issues. They document how political parties, presidential candidates, and the news media have politicized parenthood and the family over not just one election year, but the last several decades. They conclude that the way the themes of parenthood and the family have evolved as partisan issues at the mass and elite levels has been driven by, and reflects fundamental shifts in, American society and the structure of the American family.

Download or read book Mom written by Rebecca Jo Plant and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early twentieth century, Americans often waxed lyrical about “Mother Love,” signaling a conception of motherhood as an all-encompassing identity, rooted in self-sacrifice and infused with social and political meaning. By the 1940s, the idealization of motherhood had waned, and the nation’s mothers found themselves blamed for a host of societal and psychological ills. In Mom, Rebecca Jo Plant traces this important shift by exploring the evolution of maternalist politics, changing perceptions of the mother-child bond, and the rise of new approaches to childbirth pain and suffering. Plant argues that the assault on sentimental motherhood came from numerous quarters. Male critics who railed against female moral authority, psychological experts who hoped to expand their influence, and women who strove to be more than wives and mothers—all for their own distinct reasons—sought to discredit the longstanding maternal ideal. By showing how motherhood ultimately came to be redefined as a more private and partial component of female identity, Plant illuminates a major reorientation in American civic, social, and familial life that still reverberates today.

Download or read book Women Strike for Peace written by Amy Swerdlow and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1993-11-15 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword by Catharine R. StimpsonAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. "Raising a Hue and Cry"2. Prelude to a Peace Strike3. Who Are These Women?4. Organizing a "Nonorganization"5. Ladies' Day at the Capitol6. A Not-so-funny Thing Happened on the Way to Disarmament7. "The Women's Vote Is the Peace Vote"8. Not Our Sons, Not Your Sons, Not Their Sons: Hell, No, We Won't Let Them Go!9. We Have Met the Enemy--and They Are Our Sisters!ConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Download or read book Mothers and Others written by Melanee Thomas and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2017-06-15 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first major comparative analysis of parenthood in politics, Mothers and Others brings together leading scholars of gender and politics to discuss the role of parental status in political life. Examining three main areas of citizen engagement within the political system – parenthood and political careers, parenthood and the media, and parenthood and political behaviour – they argue that being a parent is a gendered identity that influences how, why, and to what extent women (and men) engage with politics. This raises important questions about how career politicians, voters, and the media navigate the intersection of gender, parental status, and politics.

Download or read book Maternalism Reconsidered written by Marian van der Klein and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012-04-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in the late 19th century, competing ideas about motherhood had a profound impact on the development and implementation of social welfare policies. Calls for programmes aimed at assisting and directing mothers emanated from all quarters of the globe, advanced by states and voluntary organizations, liberals and conservatives, feminists and anti-feminists – a phenomenon that scholars have since termed ‘maternalism’. This volume reassesses maternalism by providing critical reflections on prior usages of the concept, and by expanding its meaning to encompass geographical areas, political regimes and cultural concerns that scholars have rarely addressed. From Argentina, Brazil and Mexico City to France, Italy, the Netherlands, the Soviet Ukraine, the United States and Canada, these case studies offer fresh theoretical and historical perspectives within a transnational and comparative framework. As a whole, the volume demonstrates how maternalist ideologies have been employed by state actors, reformers and poor clients, with myriad political and social ramifications.

Download or read book Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood written by Kristin Luker and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1985-08-04 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this important study of the abortion controversy in the United States, Kristin Luker examines the issues, people, and beliefs on both sides of the abortion conflict. She draws data from twenty years of public documents and newspaper accounts, as well as over two hundred interviews with both pro-life and pro-choice activists. She argues that moral positions on abortion are intimately tied to views on sexual behavior, the care of children, family life, technology, and the importance of the individual.