Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)
Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)Not a member yet
1824 research outputs found
Sort by
Contemplating Antiracist Mothering in the Lives of White Women in Multiracial Families
Get PDFAlthough more white women live, love, and mother in multiracial contexts, there remains limited scholarship on them, particularly what role they can play in antiracism efforts. In this article, I consider what antiracist mothering means to white women in multiracial families, and how they practice antiracist mothering in their lives. I draw on data from two participant workshop discussions on antiracism and mothering, held as part of a larger qualitative study of ten white women in multiracial families in Canada. The participant dialogues reveal four key themes: facing fear, developing critical skills, finding “comfort in discomfort,” and engaging in self-reflective learning. The research findings demonstrate how white women in multiracial families can be proactive in their negotiation and resistance to dominant discourses of race and racism, especially if they are willing to participate in ongoing learning. The research study suggests using an antiracism framework to explore the perspectives and practices of white mothers in multiracial families is informative to reconceptualizing their mothering roles, and how they can cultivate their own and their children’s critical skills. Participant workshops are recommended as a method to engage issues of race and difference with white women in multiracial families
Learning Through Collective Testimony: African American Motherwork, Womanism, and Praxis
Get PDFFocus groups serve as a form of collective testimony empowering women, in this case black mothers, to share their lived experiences and connect with one another. This article discusses how collective testimony revealed black mothers’ gendered racial socialization work—or African American motherwork—done on the behalf of their young daughters attending predominantly white schools in suburban Detroit, Michigan. I use womanism as a guiding framework to reflect upon my own positionality and the significance of understanding, explicating, and employing these strategies. As an expression of black women’s consciousness, womanism advocates for the empowerment of black women and thus requires me to share, as demonstrable praxis, my own personal testimony of the gendered racial socialization of my daughters
Pregnancy Reclaimed: Art Therapy as Intervention for Depression and Anxiety
Get PDFDepression and related mental health disorders are common during pregnancy and the postpartum. Despite cautions against the use of psychotropic medication during pregnancy, many physicians continue to use medication as a frontline treatment. A number of theories have been put forth in an attempt to explain mental health struggles during pregnancy, yet there is inconclusive evidence that hormones or other physiological changes during pregnancy precipitate this occurrence. Instead, it is theorized that sociocultural factors are at the root of female struggle during pregnancy and into the postpartum. Women find themselves in a culture that sexualizes, commodifies, and medicalizes pregnancy then capriciously and callously evaluates and criticizes the postpregnancy recovery. For these reasons, art therapy is perfectly positioned to support the depression and anxiety symptoms experienced by women during pregnancy. If women during pregnancy are allowed opportunities to use the expressive arts for wellness, it is anticipated that this means of coping will carry over to the period of the postpartum and beyond