Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)

Park, Shelley M.

Naked Motherhood: Shattering Illusions and Sharing Truths

Hausman, Bernice L.

Book Reviews 
sharing the experiences described in this book. I felt the pain of parents who 
write of helping their children through puberty in bodies they hate; I relearned 
the importance of listening to children; and I gained renewed respect for the 
courage and strength it takes for children to speakofwhat they know and need. 
As I read of the love people have for their trans partners, I reflected upon the 
meaning of my own gender, sex, and body and those of my partner's. I thought 
about my relationship with my spouse and wondered how I might respond to 
my partner, to other family members, or to their partners should they become 
transgendered. 
While the accounts in this volume reveal the feelings ofpain, anguish, and 
anxiety felt by people living in bodies that do not match their internal gender 
identity (gender dysphoria), they also reveal the feelings of individual family 
members. Many speak offeelings of shock, denial, isolation, anger, depression, 
and finally acceptance that are associated with the grieving process of losing a 
loved one. Linda Milligan adds a visual dimension to these feelings with four 
black and white paintings entitled "Healing Through Art." 
This volume, however, is much more than a chronicle of the pain, hope, 
and joy of loving trans people. It is a much needed resource for families dealing 
with the difficulties associated with gender and sex transition. Support groups 
and counseling for all family members can help people adjust over time to their 
new realities. Being open and honest about transforming identities can assist 
others (including school authorities, peers, colleagues, and family members) to 
accept trans people. 
Throughout my reading of Trans Forming Families, I was reminded of the 
need for social activists to build coalitions. I see how feminist and trans activists 
could work together around common issues (such as sex, gender, ability, size, 
reproduction, race, and sexuality) to strengthen their respective political bases 
and strategies. Collectively andlor individually, these communities could work 
against discrimination and the oppression of people according to biology and 
work towards achieving autonomy for all individuals. 
Wake Up Little Susie: 
Single Pregnancy and Race before 
Roe v. Wade, Second ed. 
Rickie Sollinger 
New York: Routledge, 2000. 
Reviewed by Bernice L. Hausman 
Originally published in 1992, this second edition of Wake Up Little Swie has a 
212 1 Volume 4, Number l 
Book Reviews 
short forward by Elaine Tyler May and a new afterword by the author, and is 
a fascinating book about maternity, reproductive politics, and race in the 
United States. Sollinger demonstrates that particular social and historical 
circumstances configured policies directed toward single U.S. mothers during 
the twenty years after World War 11. The policies and institutional practices 
that emerged in this period were race-specific, encouraging white single 
mothers to give up their babies for adoption and assuming that black single 
mothers and their offspring would be taken care of by family and community. 
Taken together, the policies and social ideologies suggest a profound change 
from prewar attitudes toward single pregnancy as evidence of inherited defect 
or moral deficiency. In the postwar period, white single women who became 
pregnant were assumed to be mentally ill; therapy, giving the baby up for 
adoption, and return to life as a single non-mother was required to rehabilitate 
these women into their rightful social place as virginal potential brides. Black 
single women, however, were thought to become pregnant because of their 
more animalistic, sexual instincts; punitive responses to black single pregnancy 
were linked to the notion that they could not be rehabilitated. Black single 
mothers were expected to keep their babies (as were all single mothers before 
WWII), but there were few social services available to them and those that were 
available were likely to be obtained at a high personal cost. 
The chapters in the book discuss the largely segregated maternity homes 
of the period, the development of the "postwar adoption mandate" for white 
babies, psychological explanations for white single pregnancy, issues concern- 
ing welfare provisions for single mothers of both races, specific approaches to 
"black illegitimacy," and the effects of the "sexual revolution" on single 
pregnancy and women=s experiences. The racialization of single motherhood 
was based on four strategies: language "that distinguished white unmarried 
mothers and their newly commodified babies fiom their valueless African- 
American counterparts," "race-specific theories to explain why unwed mothers 
were not real mothers," "racially specific vehicles for redistributing illegitimate 
children," and "using the welfare system to publicly shame and financially 
punish unwed mothers of color and their children" (234). During the Reaganl 
Bush years, Sollinger argues, these strategies emerged again and even targeted 
middle-class women who "were portrayed as consumers with thoroughly 
commodified children" (239). She notes that at the end ofthe twentieth century 
(unlike at its midpoint) the government sought to be intimately involved in 
ending "unmarried pregnancy and chiidbearing" (242), as evidenced in the 
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 (the "welfare 
reform" of the Clinton administration). 
In the end, Sollinger asks her readers to consider what white racism has to 
do with the fact that U.S. citizens allow themselves to believe that welfare 
expenditures for poor mothers take up 50 percent of the national budget (when 
in reality they take up four or five percent). It is impossible to read Wake Up 
Little Susie without understanding that racism as well as a deeply felt distrust 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 213 
Book Reviews 
ofwomen as mothers-magnified when the women are not formally subordi- 
nated to husbands-makes such odd national passions possible. 
Islands of Women and Amazons: 
Representations and Realities 
Batya Weinbaum 
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999 
Reviewed by Gail M. Lindsay 
In Islands of Women and Amazons, a reader looks over Batya Weinbaum's 
shoulder as she delves into history, literature, popular culture, folklore, and 
personal experience to inquire into the feminist meaning of myths and images 
ofwomen. I imagine Weinbaum as an Amazon herself, in search ofcommunity 
and meaning in contemporary American society. Archetypal theory informs 
Weinbaum's study of the history, mythology, science fiction, culture, and 
anthropology of societies of women, often located on islands. 
Weinbaum hypothesizes that Amazon archetypes are used in three ways: 
to reclaim women's lost power; to keep women within patriarchy and reverse 
the gains of the women's movement; or to build links between Amazons and 
contemporary women's lives and spirituality. Weinbaum examines the use and 
development of the Amazon archetype throughout history to the present. She 
shows how Amazons have been used in writing as a symbol for women's lives 
and to support or deny women's autonomy. 
Beginning with Greek legends, Weinbaum traces the Amazon archetype 
in women who are lesbian, black, connected to nature, their bodies, maternity, 
and matriarchy. Weinbaum notes, "those who represent Amazons reveal 
themselves and their own social context" (60). There is no absolute truth or 
single representation of Amazon women. A particular strength of this book is 
its contextualized analysis of Amazon scholarship across history, disciplines, 
geographic settings, and forms of creative expression (dance, poetry, oral 
narratives). Weinbaum also argues persuasively that earth-based, female- 
centred cultures had to be subdued by patriarchal Christianity. 
Weinbaum offers a powerful analysis of oral lamentation - women's 
response to being left by men who go off to war - in a variety of societies. She 
examines the world ofAmazon women: how women's collectives were formed, 
where they lived, how they bore and raised children, how they related to men 
and boys, how they related to one another, to Mother Earth and Goddess 
figures. Weinbaum moves across European myths and archeology to Columbus's 
journals of North America, Marco Polo's journals of the Far East, and Celtic 
214 ( Volume 4, Number 1 


English

Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v. Wade, Second Edition

Hammond, Merryl

Book Reviews 
is never certain that Borich wants to be married, even when she and Linneaget 
married in a kitsch Las Vegas wedding ceremony officiated by a lesbian 
minister. We never really know whether she wants to fit in with the straight 
world ofheterosexual couples or the seemingly subversive world exemplified by 
her quirky friends and neighbours, or does she flourish by being altogether 
different. 
We do learn that the bonds that hold two people together can be as firm 
and strong as they areinvisible. We are shown, however, that such bonds do not 
develop easily. This memoir/cultural exploration/love story, written with 
tenderness and toughness, utilizes a breathtaking range of sustained meta- 
phors. As a poet, Borich brings a deft touch to this exploration of two people 
embedded in communities that can sustain, and also challenge, their members. 
Halving It All: 
How Equally Shared Parenting Works 
Francine M. Deutsch 
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999 
Reviewed by Merryl Hammond 
Do not be fooled by the clever title. HalvingItAllis a Harvard University Press 
publication: heavilyfootnoted, referenced, and indexed, it includes 11 chapters 
with such titles as "Creating Equality at Home," "Career Detours," "The 
Mother and Mr. Mom," and "Equality Works." I t  is not an easy book to read. 
Author Francine Deutsch tries to put human faces on complex family arrange- 
m e n t ~ " S t e v e  and Beth stood in their kitchen discussing how they were going 
to manage the afternoon care of their four-year-old"-which is helpful. But 
several chapters later, when she again refers to Steve and Beth's arrangements 
and their methods of negotiating, I could not recall their particular case, having 
since encountered so many other couples and their childcare arrangements. 
Nevertheless, Deutsch explodes many commonly-held myths about parenting 
and occasionally offers succinct, gem-like flashes of insight. 
Examples of such gems include the following: "Daycare is the crucible on 
which ideals of equality are often destroyed" (159); "People changey' (216); 
and "Couples create equality by the accumulation of large and small decisions 
and acts that make up their everyday lives as parents" (230). Deutsch also 
quotes the individuals she interviewed for her study: "We're more equals. It's 
more like I'm his wife, not his slave" (181); and You can't raise children by 
spectating" (216). 
202 1 Volume 4, Number l 
Book Reviews 
Some of the couples are "equal sharers" who divide the responsibilities of 
parenting. Within this category, there are many variations on the "size of the 
parenting pie to be divided" (33). Childcare, for example, can be provided by 
parents, as well as substitute caregivers. Some families undertake joint parenting, 
spending time together as a family, while others prefer "tag-team parenting," 
leaving one parent in charge while the other takes a break. 
In unequal families, Deutsch finds that fathers function either as helpers, 
sharers, or slackers (45). The "helper" father leaves planning, organizing, and 
worrying to his spouse and helps out when asked or told to do something. The 
"sharer" father takes equal emotional responsibility for his children but spends 
less time parenting than his spouse. And the "slacker" father makes one's blood 
boil. H e  is the man who returns from work, slumps in a chair, and asks, 'Why 
isn't supper ready yet?" When challenged, he justifies himself: "Cooking relaxes 
her" or "She can never sit stilln (62). Deutsch analyzes male power and privilege 
and gives examples of the "stunning array of indirect strategies" (62) that many 
men use to resist parental work and responsibility: passive resistance, strategic 
incompetence, strategic use of praise, adherence to inferior standards, and 
denial (74-78). The reader meets "proprietary mothers" and the "discouraged" 
or "disconnected" fathers with whom they live ( I l l ) ,  as well as many "mater- 
nal," "non-traditional," or "hands-on" fathers (218). 
Over time, however, couples can change and equality can be established 
within any family, if a woman believes in and insists upon equally shared 
parenting: "Gendered choices at one moment in time do not preclude gender- 
resisting choices at another. It's never too late to edit that video" (151). Deutsch 
stresses that "equally sharing women feel entitled to equality" (61). Such 
women compare their spouses' contributions to their own, while women in 
unequal families compare their spouses' contributions to those of other men, 
many of whom are "slacker" fathers. 
Once the principle of equality in parenting is accepted by a woman, the 
day-to-day details of childcare need to be negotiated - and constantly renego- 
tiated. In many families, however, this is not easy: 'We wake up in the morning 
and yell at each other about who is going to take what responsibility for what 
on any given day," says one equally sharing father (64). Perhaps Deutsch needs 
one additional category: the reluctant equal sharer! In fact, for many of the 
mothers and fathers in this book parenting seems to be an unpleasant chore to 
be performed as efficiently as possible, so that each parent can go on to pursue 
their true interests, unencumbered by children. As a feminist and a stay-at- 
home mother, I asked myself throughout my reading: Where is the love, 
commitment, and connection among parents and their children? Will equally 
shared parenting so alter the nature of parenting that children will end up, not 
with the ideal attachment to two parents, but with no attachment at all to 
parents? "Equality works" (236) Deutsch claims, and her study shows that it 
does for many parents. But someone must study the long-term effects ofequally 
shared parenting on children. 
Journal ofthe Associationfor Research on Mothering 1 203 


Halving It All: How Equally Shared Parenting Works

Greenberg, Rivka

Book Reviews 
at L'Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal is a reminder of the chilly-and 
chiing-climate for all women. She calls on young women to remember and 
support their ageing mentors, and to remember that feminism provides "a way 
oflife that our society.. . desperatelyrequires and thatwe need to practice." Her 
article provides a fitting conclusion to a well-written and finely edited issue that 
will inspire readers. 
Jewish Mothers Tell Their Stories: 
Acts of Love and Courage 
Rachel Josefowitz Siegel, Ellen Cole, Susan Steinberg-Oren 
New York: Haworth Press, 2000 
Reviewed by Rivka Greenberg 
All mothers are challenged daily to address multiple forces in their lives. These 
forces include their children, partners, families, society, religion, work, and 
social issues, as well as their own, individual needs. For many Jewish mothers, 
defining the place of Judaism as a significant value in their lives, responsively 
and proactively, is an enigmatic and perplexing struggle. For earlier genera- 
tions, the primary sources of support for mothers were the women in their 
extended families: mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins. In- 
creased mobility, economic shifts, and work outside of the home have dimin- 
ished the influence of the extended family and mothers have had to find new 
ways to meet their need for support, guidance, and community. This is 
particularly true within the context of Jewish community, where many Jewish 
mothers struggle to find a place for Judaism in their lives. Today, many Jewish 
women - unaffiliated, Reconstructionist, Reform, and Conservative - seek 
community outside of synagogues and other Jewish institutions. Moreover, 
Jewish women and their families are no longer living in "Jewishn sections of 
cities, lessening their opportunities for connecting with other Jewish women. 
So how can Jewish mothers find the communal support they need? Jewish 
Mothers Tell Their Stories provides that much needed sense of community. 
This book promotes connection among Jewish mothers throughout the 
world. Thirty-five chapters offer thirty-five insights from Jewish mothers 
worldwide who share their thoughts and experiences and, in the process, serve 
as role models and provide support. The six section topics - tradition; love; 
Jewish values; Jewish identity; spirituality and religion; and the real world - 
address key aspects of women's lives. The editors have succeeded in moving 
beyond the stereotypes ofJewish women. The women gathered here represent 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 219 


Jewish Mothers Tell Their Stories: Acts of Love and Courage

Katz, Isabella Colalillo

lsabella Colalillo Katz 
Washing Day II 
for m y  mother Concetta 
I cling to her blue cotton skirt 
she laughs and chatters all the way to the river 
on her head a large wicker basket 
with our soiled laundry 
the women are carefree 
a half day washing by the river is a kind of holiday 
the sun brightens the mountaintops 
stippled clouds dissolve into puffs of wispy white 
my mother puts down her basket 
shakes my hand free 
finds her place on a wide washing stone 
kneels and begins the wash: 
the sheets are first, then the smaller linen 
the women work together, laughing 
telling stories 
finally I see my favourite dress 
the one we bought at the gypsy market 
the green one with wine stains from last Sunday's dinner 
my mother pushes it under the rippling water 
I run behind her wanting to see 
to help 
she screams as I fall on the edge of the stone 
when I'm safe in her arms 
Journal ofthe Association for Research on Mothering 1 111 
lsabella Colalillo Katz 
I look out at the frothy river 
a woman is laughing, 
another 
is tugging at something with a long stick 
my mother's chestnut eyes are watching 
and then I see it 
my favourite dress 
small and wet 
bobbing 
on the turning waves 
floating gently down river 
under the disapproving glance of 
hurrying clouds 
112 1 Volume 4, Number 2 


Washing Day II

Chanda, Geetanjali Singh

Mapping Motherhood: The Fiction of Anita Desai

Ward, Kathleen L.

From Grandmother to Granddaughter: Salvadoran Women's Stories

Moravec, Michelle

Misconceptions: Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood

Zinga, Dawn

Interwoven Lives: Adolescent Mothers and Their Children

Davidson, Deborah

A Good Birth, A Safe Birth: Choosing and Having the Childbirth Experience You Want