Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)
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Reproduction on Display: Black Maternal Mortality and the Newest Case for National Action
Get PDFThis essay critically examines the growing international attention given to Black maternal and infant health outcomes in the United States, and couches it within Black feminist theories of womanhood and motherhood. Existing Black feminist literature has acknowledged the ways in which Black women from the era of slavery have served as the embodiment of inhumanity and the calculating baton in which to measure against the personification of white virtue, womanhood, and motherhood. Moreover, these works have also significantly contributed to contextualizing and historicizing this problematic conception of the pathological Black mother. This piece highlights the ways in which current media depictions recreate problematic narratives of Black motherhood and uses the example of Black maternal mortality in the United States to 1) highlight the centrality of Black motherhood and reproduction within the narratives of Black pathology; 2) address the “spectacular” nature and fascination with Black suffering and death; and 3) underline the ways in which narratives around Black maternal and infant health align ideologically with normalized conceptualizations of the pathological Black body
Progressive Judaism and the Bar Mitzvah: A Rites of Passage Ritual that Repositions the Mother in Her Sons’ Lives
No full textRitual is a way of acknowledging our relationship to each other, to our culture, to our community, and to our past. Ritual is also a way of reminding ourselves of what is important and who is important. I am the Jewish mother of two sons, both of whom have now been bar mitzvah. I am also the sole Jewish parent, and along with my husband, we are members of a progressive Jewish community in Melbourne, Australia. The progressive Jewish bar and bat mitzvah ritual offers a way to capture the deep movement and meaning of our lives as we transition from childhood to young adulthood. The bar/bat mitzvah process engenders individuation yet adheres theindividual to community and others. However, traditional bar and bat mitzvah rites of passage are deeply gendered with separate roles ascribed to the mother and father depending on the gender of the child. Furthermore, patriarchal mother-son discourse marks the father as a crucial mentor through a boy’s transition to manhood.The mark of gender displaces the mother in relation to her son as he moves toward manhood. This paper draws on my personal experience to suggest that the progressive bar mitzvah process can both bind our sons to the Jewish community and their history, and help sanction a deep and powerful connection between mother and son
Grandmothering in Remission
Get PDFXander, your Grandma is really sorry, but right now I can’t concentrate on this upcoming milestone in your life, your first birthday, because today I’m having my two year scans. In this personal narrative I explore grandmothering from a position of uncertainty— in this case cancer in remission. Using the framework of letters to my young grandson, I unpack my expectations for and experiences of the role of grandmothering, contextualized by my simultaneous effort to understand myself as a cancer survivorand the liminality of that particular status. How do I develop a relationship with my grandchild when he may not even have the memories of our interactions? How do I grandmother authentically while masking the health worries that sometimes threaten to consume me? How do I care for my daughter who has become a mother from a position of strength and confidence when the very ground I walk on feels unsettled and the future unclear? Considering issues of temporality, relationship directionality, caregiving, and authenticity, I place my musings as a grandmother and cancer survivor from my cancer journal, half-written letters, poetry, and reflective narrative into interaction
The Motherlines of Asclepius: Ancestral Female Healers in the Origins of Medicine
No full textThere is a need to retrieve subsumed women’s stories and traditions from Western patriarchal overlays and to recentre empowered matristic ways of knowing in present-day consciousness. This paper is an organic inquiry examining symbols in the myth of the Greek healer god Asclepius and tracing these to earlier sources, while relating its origins to this critical moment in time when species loss, climate change, and widespread violence devastate our planet. I approach the power of the secret accompanying the underground dream temples this god is known for, and discover ancestral female healers personifying the union of microcosm and macrocosm. Honouring the natural and cyclic processes of birth, life, death, and regeneration, I illuminate the deep origins of the caduceus symbol. Considering how medical care and the process of attending to dreams are fields that have been dominated by androcentric worldviews, I ask what dreams may come when empowered women and mothers create definitions of health and wellbeing for themselves and unite in the creation of interdependent futures that may still have a chance to come into being
In Search of the Goddess: Creating a Feminist Motherline for Mother-Daughter Connection and Empowerment
Get PDFThe term “motherline,” as Sharon Abby explains, “is a term that was first used by Jungian psychologist Naomi Lowinsky to describe the process of reclaiming aspects of the feminine self that have become lost, forgotten or repressed” (844). Current literature on motherlines conveys and confirms the potential of the motherline to empower women to achieve a reclaimed and renewed feminine identity. However, what is not specifically examined in the literature on motherlines is how a woman may reclaim aspects of the feminine self when she is disconnected from her familial and ancestral motherline. Drawing upon the insights of African American and feminist writings on the motherline, this article explores how women may resurrect a lost motherline through a psychic and embodied remembering of, and reconnection to, their ancestral lineage. The article begins with a discussion of the motherline as theorized in womanist and feminist literature, and then visits my own struggle to create a motherline for me and my daughters from a place of psychic and familial dislocation. The article concludes with narrative reflections written by me and my youngest daughter, Casey, about our 2015 journey to Ireland that explores how, in our search for the Goddesses of our Celtic lineage, we created a motherline for connection and empowerment
“Oh, Get Over It. I Do This Every Day”: How Ignoring the Specialness of Childbirth Contributes to Experiences of Emotional Distress
Get PDFChildbirth is a daily event, making it a routine and predictable part of social life. For many people, childbirth is also a profound life-changing experience, as it incorporates previous life experiences, creates new identities, and alters relationships in significant ways. However, the nuance required to see childbirth as not only a regular event but also a special life experience is missing in many considerations of childbirth. Ignoring the specialness of childbirth contributes to experiences of emotional distress in childbirth. This article shares excerpts of four women’s birth stories and demonstrates the need for more nuanced understandings of birth to from those involved in assisting women in childbirth. This article draws on data from a study of fifteen women in Atlantic Canada who gave birth in hospitals and who identified as having experienced emotional distress in childbirth. Feminist narrative inquiry and analysis were used to interview and analyze the birth stories shared by the participants. The stories shared demonstrate that women understand the daily and routinized approach to birth dominant in healthcare settings, yet they did not experience childbirth as a routine event. The rupture between the mundane routinization of birth and the transformative and unique experience of giving birth contributed to the distress the participants experienced during childbirth. The women interviewed for this research called on those who work with women during childbirth to be more appreciative of the unique space childbirth claims as both a regular and special experience