Susan Douglas New Model Mom

1.) Overall main topic of this book connects between the issue of motherhood and feminism. One major key point I found while reading this book is the author, Amber Kinser explains the growth and progress of the role of mothers in the american society meaning how the roles have changed overtime. A major theme of Kinser’s book is that the public debates may focus on mothering, but the issues affect us all.  Cutting back on health care for women, on education, and on jobs for teachers, social workers and others in the service sector have their greatest impact on mothers, but they affect all of us. Motherhood becomes a symbol for how men and women, single and married, gay and straight, deal with the need for individual options and the need to act for the good of others.

Is there a common attitude society has towards women, and their roles as mothers? Betty Rollin, American journalist, reporter, and author, believes there is. She calls it the motherhood myth. She writes about this subject in her essay, “Motherhood: Who Needs It?” The myth is the idea that all normal women want and need to become mothers (Rollin 286). Rollin believes this is false, and argues that there is no biological drive or instinct, that makes women want to become mothers. Society reinforces this myth into us, through many forms of propaganda. Rollin argues against the belief that women’s most important role in life is to become a wife, and mother. She calls for the freedom to choose, and explains that becoming a mother is not an

In the reading, “From the Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home”, Hochschild explains her experience conducting a case study with a series of different women to get their perceptions of their lives as mothers, but also working women. Moreover, she provides good information to start her study. She reports that in 1950, 30 percent of American women were in the labor force, 28 percent of married women with children worked out of home. Today, those numbers have dramatically increased. During her findings, she saw that women felt a responsibility to be able to balance work and life at home, focused more on children, and expressing how overworked or tired they felt. Whereas men in this study expressed that women did most of the work around the house and childcare. In addition, what stood out to me in this reading was that some men felt pleased that their wives received more income than them. For instance, in an interview a man expressed, “was more pleased than threatened by her

In her interviews with woman she was sure to interview very well educated women and those that strived for mere perfection. One thing is that the men in the lives of these women were not supportive and not mentioned of much. The men and society of today have placed a lot of responsibility on a woman’s shoulders when it comes to the child. It is the woman who makes the decision or is given the task to make the heavy decisions regarding the child’s future. Because of this many women choose to stay at home to be sure that the children will receive everything that they deserve and that they are not lacking in any area. Another issue that she reviews is that employers do not work with moms at all. For example she talked about the scenario where two moms brought a solution to their problem to management yet it failed to receive approval instead one mother was offered more money (Guest, 2011). Employers are not very flexible when it comes to mothers and don’t provide the proper care that is needed for a child. Since men are the ones that don’t carry the responsibility of the child’s well-being having proper day care is not a factor for them. Then there is the cost of day care which is high and can at times not compare to what the individual is making.

When highly paid professional women leave jobs to stay home and take care of their children they are considered ?good mothers?. Also, when they do decide to work outside the home they are judged as ?selfish? and ?bad mothers?. However, the expectation of poor women is the exact opposite. Poor women are often criticized for staying home to take care of their children and are expected to leave the home and work for wage in order to receive the ?good mother? approval from society.

“Family. Peers, and the media constantly reinforce…stereotypes (Auriana Ojeda).” Our culture defines who we are therefore growing up seeing women clean and cook while men are working, shapes how we are and how we think. Media has an impact on everything, even children, such as girls having brooms and kitchen sets to play with while boys have construction toys and cars to play with. Stereotypes are shown in our everyday lives without us even realizing however through the power of what we do or say and with the power of media, we can change that. “Women have always been more likely than men to work part-time in order to manage their family (Galinsky).” Women are traditionally

In her article, “A Mother’s Day Kiss-Off”, Leslie Bennetts describes the problem of how our culture depicts the typical mother as a stay-at-home mom and how mothers respond to that problem. She begins her argument by commenting on how Mother’s Day will come but pass leaving mothers to go back to their excessive responsibilities. She critiques the weight our culture imposes on mothers because raising children is still viewed as the mother’s job. Bennetts draws attention to the flaws in our society that prevent women from following their dreams because of motherhood.

In the article "The Parent Trap" by Judith Warner, it can be seen that, although a women 's life should inevitably change when she becomes a mother, there are still some similarities to a mother nowadays and a mother from the 1950s. Mothers everywhere are changing their whole life around just for the simple reason of becoming a mother. Society should not force women to think that this way of living is acceptable, but unfortunately, society has forced us to believe that these lifestyles are acceptable to throw upon many mothers. These situations are causing mothers to drop their jobs and their dreams. It forces mothers to see life as something that it truly is not. This form of lifestyle is shaping mothers to become people that society sees as normal. Even if this style of life is not truthfully normal. Some of the things that are considered to be normal are the different tasks that women are expected to do every day.

The idea that a woman’s job is to be a wife and mother is old-fashioned, but not completely out of style. Though these roles require a great deal of talent, resilience, patience, love, and strength, to name a few, they are often underestimated or depicted as simple. Especially in modern times, many women in the United States who stay home to raise a family are viewed as anti-feminists, whereas women in Latin America are not criticized for similar actions. In recent decades, more Latin American women have started to break the mold, daring to be both sexy, and successful in the workforce, while remaining pillars of domestic life.

One of the most traditional roles to be assumed as women, is to embrace the role of motherhood, but as of the 21st century, many women are deciding to do both, facing criticism for doing both or one of the either (The Glass Ceiling Effect*).

One of the main topics that this week’s reading issued was the maternal wall. The maternal wall is the idea that women receive stereotypes at work because they are mothers and they constantly must decide between families and work. According to Williams and Dempsey (2014) some females leave their employments and can become financially helpless (p. 128). Females decide to leave their job because sometimes it is hard to balance family and work. As a female in the work industry I have seen that women get judged either way if they work or don’t. Women can be illustrated as an irresponsible person if she devotes a lot of time to work and less to her kids and family. Like wise women get judged for not working in the 21st century. I think that either

This paper will argue that despite significant changes in the lives of women in recent decades, the ideology of motherhood is primarily based on nineteenth-century ideals.

In today’s world, women become commonly seen as subordinate to men and that their only duty is to be a stay at home mom. This fallacy happens to

In the 1960s to 1970s, a feminist movement began and sparked a change in attitudes towards women in familial roles and pushed against gender inequality. This movement’s effects trickled down to the opinions and actions of people in the later 1970s to mid-1980s. The period saw a decline in the backing of the traditional family wife role for women and greater acceptance for women finding employment (Mason, K.O., Lu, Y., 1988). However, the change also encountered backlash, with the growth of employed mothers came concerns of the negative effects on the children and their relationship with the mother (Mason, K.O., Lu, Y., 1988). This triggered an inconsistent time for family structure. The nineties saw

During this last century societal views towards women have drastically changed, from being looked at as a homemaker, to a businesswoman, to a mother, and now a working mother. One thing that hasn’t changed through the years is how women are critiqued for what they do and how they do it. If a woman takes care of the house she’s lazy and doesn't use her potential. If a women works in the office more than she’s at home she doesn’t connect with her family enough. The latest judgement women are facing: are working mothers better mothers. Today, women are being put against each other to be viewed as the “better mother” just by looking at their profession.