Embedding Mothering at the Heart of Politics

Mamsie, Ten Years On

Bibliographic Data

ID21795673
AuthorsLynne Segal (Birkbeck, University of London, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume13
Issue1
Publication date2020-12-08
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueStudies in the Maternal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1759-0434 • E-ISSN: 1759-0434
PublisherOpen Library of the Humanities (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.16995/sim.272
OpenAlexW3113249064
LanguageEN
References cited4

Despite an ever-greater interest in mothering over the decade since 2009, it seems clear that accounts of maternal experiences today still routinely express fears of failure and chronic frustration. I connect this with time constraints arising from the long hours of paid work most mothers are now performing, alongside ongoing welfare cuts generally and the privatisation or outsourcing of public resources – especially since 2010. This tells me that caretaking generally, and mothering in particular, can never be decisively separated from the broader political arena. On the contrary, we need to place reproductive politics, and what is now recognised as a general ‘crisis of care’, at the very heart of politics. Thus, I conclude that the only way forward is to replace the long outdated, traditional notion of the male breadwinner, now superseded by the realities of the universal breadwinner, with genuine support for a notion of the universal caregiver. This would ensure policies attempting to provide everyone with the time and resources necessary to care for their own dependent children, if they are parents, or to support others who depend on them for care, alongside possibilities for maintaining community life and engaging in the preservation of the world itself

Embedding · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Computer Science · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Artificial Intelligence