Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)
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Maybe, Maybe ... PhD Baby?
Get PDFAlthough academic publications over the past several decades have steadily reportedthe perspectives of female academics related to the topic of motherhood, less attentionhas been paid to the specific factors that influence when and why PhD students havechildren. With greater numbers of doctoral graduates entering postdoctoral studies(many at an age when the average Canadian is contemplating having their firstchild), it seems necessary that student voices be added to discussions concerning familyin the academy. This personal narrative essay intends to explore some of the factorsthat might impact family planning for doctoral students. Utilizing journal entrieswritten by the author during her undergraduate and graduate training, issues suchas the timing of pregnancy in the life course, pronatalism, the presumed existence ofa woman’s biological clock, and unintended pregnancy will be critically examined
(Re)Turning to Motherhood and Academe: An Autoethnographic Account
No full textWomen attempting to balance childcare with work of tenure-track academic positions continue to face many barriers related to the ambiguous nature of tenure and promotion policies, the lack of personal and professional support as well as persistent strains related to role conflicts that emerge from demanding academic schedules in higher education (Ward and Wolf-Wendel “Academic Motherhood: Managing Complex Roles”). Although a growing documentation of these processes and their consequences for academic mothers or mothers who are also academics do exist, narratives of the struggles, tensions and possibilities for overcoming these processes remain under-researched and not well understood. The objective of this article therefore is to explore the meanings, experiences, and challenges of academic motherhood and the ways in which these can be negotiated. Using an autoethnographic approach, the article delves into a critical reflection of the processes and dynamics that shape the contexts within which I return to academe after turning to motherhood a second time around. Reflections point to the socio-cultural and institutional bases of these strains and put forward viable and empowering ways in which can they be navigated
The Power of a Black Mother’s Anger: “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” as a Critique of White Abolitionist Discourse
No full textElizabeth Barrett Browning’s “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” gives voice to a black mother who is morally outraged by the horrors that she has experienced as an enslaved female. After observing the brutal beating (and, most likely, the murder) of the male slave she loves, this unnamed black woman is gang raped and impregnated; shortly after giving birth, she kills her light-skinned son and flees in search of freedom. Before being stoned to death when her owner-rapist catches up with her, she openly castigates all whites who actively defend or passively condone slavery and calls on her fellow slaves to rise up in militant resistance. In addition to being a sophisticated critique of slavery, “The Runaway Slave” is also a powerful critique of Anglo-American abolitionist discourse about enslaved black women. Almost all other white abolitionist poets depict female slaves as mothers who helplessly lament their inability to protect their children from harm; though certainly sympathetic figures, these black mothers are presented as helpless victims who feel little anger or sense of agency. By contrast, “The Runaway Slave” anticipates the arguments advanced in bell hooks’s Killing Rage, presenting an enslaved black mother’s anger as a legitimate, empowering, and morally justifiable response to white supremacist patriarchy
Lessons in Life on the Verge of Death: Spiritual Mothering in Ai Laṛkī by Hindi Author Krishna Sobti
Get PDFSpiritual mothering and the mother-daughter relationship are two important and intertwined themes in <em>Ai Laṛkī</em>, a short novel written by Krishna Sobti, a major author of Hindi literature. This article offers a reading of this late twentieth century literary work through the lenses of maternal theory, examining how an ill, old, and dying mother attempts to pass on maternal wisdom to her unmarried daughter who will never become a mother. Several of the basic tenets of maternal theory are useful to read literary works of fiction produced in contexts where apprehensions of religion, spirituality, motherhood and the mother-daughter relationship differ from those of the contexts where the body of knowledge known as maternal theory first emerged
