**Hard copies of all responses (including this one) are due by Monday, December 1.**
Option 1: Some of you prefer guidance for these responses, so if you fall into that category, then I'll ask you to respond to Susan Douglas and Meredith Michael's chapter, "The New Momism." They claim that motherhood is the site through which women are being defined by media imagery in new and damaging ways. What do you think about this claim? How might this imaging be damaging not just to moms, but also to childless women and men? Can you think of any examples from current pop culture that either support their argument or offer resistance to "momism"?
Option 2: For those of you who like more freedom in your responses, you can choose any text we've read in this half of the semester and write a response to what you find provocative or interesting. I am going to limit you to the readings; we've done a fairly good job of discussing the films in class, but there's been a lot that we've read that we haven't been able to adequately cover. Choose anything you've read that's made an impression and tell me what you think about it.
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The article that made an impression on me is “From Fly Girls to Bitches and Ho’s” by Joan Morgan. I agreed with a lot of issues that she was discussing in the article that identifies with being both black and a female in society. However, I thought she should have talked more about issues with black females rather than making a large portion of the essay about black men. I did understand the point she was trying to make though.
One of the issues that she addresses is that there are women who reaffirm the depiction of black women as bitches and hoes. She talks about how there are women who do things sexually to gain protection, material wealth, and benefits of power. I totally agree with this. This happens on a day-to-day basis. There are women who sleep with people of prominence to get money from them or access to things that otherwise they would not be able to have if it was not for them. Money is the main reason. On MTV, there was a documentary called True Life: I’m A Groupie. It centered on women who slept with rappers and others for financial gain. When this show aired, I was in my early teens and I could not believe that these women went on the air and candidly showed them behaving as they did just for monetary reasons. Most of the women featured were African-American too. Joan Morgan called it “trickin” in the article and that is what we call it today. Many rappers rap about “trickin” also. In Lil Wayne’s song “Got Money”, he affectionately says “You know it aint trickin if you got it.” I think he means as long as they have the money to give away then it is not considered trickin.
Also, another issue that she addressed in the article is complexion prejudices. Joan Morgan states that this issue has it its roots in white racism but the people who do it are black. I agree with this because this really does exist in the black community. To some individuals, lighter-skinned black people are considered prettier than darker-skinned blacks. Even in music videos, there are rarely dark-skinned girls in the videos. Most of them are light-skinned or exotic looking with long hair. I guess this issue does stem from the past but this is wrong. I remember when I was in the eighth grade one of my male classmates said that he would always date a light-skinned girl because he wanted “pretty babies.” I thought that was the most ignorant thing I have ever heard and I could not believe he said that in front of people. I went to school from sixth grade to twelfth grade with him and he stayed true to his word and never dated a dark-skinned girl. I have also heard people saying about dark-skinned girls, “oh she pretty for a dark-skinned girl.” Why can’t someone be considered just pretty? Why did they have to add “for a dark-skinned girl?” But this also goes both ways. I have dated a boy who said that he would never date a light-skinned girl because they think they “all that” and I have bad attitudes. I could not believe my ears when I heard him say that. That was a ridiculous statement. A person cannot be judged on their personality just by the color of their skin. I just feel like this needs to be stopped in the black community.
In conclusion, I felt that this article touched on a lot of issues that are dealt with by black females in society and there was plenty of more issues that Joan Morgan talked about that I could have went more in-depth on also. I thought that those two issues are something I wanted to talk about because I see those issues a lot in today’s society. I really enjoyed reading this article and would love to read more of her writing’s to see what else she touches on that are dealt with by black females daily.
I think their claim is quite solid in pointing out trends in media, but I think they overstate a bit. I am a 27-year-old woman, I have a one year old, and from my point of view they described a lot of my feelings about myself to a ‘T’. As the authors described this subject is deeply personal and emotional, I am even finding it difficult to write about. I have had many roles in my life before becoming a mother: student, friend, daughter, sister, employee, church-goer, girl friend, roommate…. I could easily transition to any of these by altering my vocabulary and wardrobe. When roles over lapped there were only minor alterations or adaptations, i.e. you don’t make out with your boyfriend in front of your parents and you don’t wear your “date” dress to church. I have had three big life changing events in my life before becoming a mother: my mother died, eight months later my father died and I became my sister’s guardian, and I got married. These events changed the proportion of time that I spent in my roles, but the roles themselves didn’t change. All of this agreeing with what the authors described about how women compartmentalize themselves. And to be honest I thought it was working pretty well until I became a mother. “Mother” is the hardest role I have ever encountered because it permeates all aspects of all the other roles; it is like governing switch that doesn’t turn off. “Mother” governs every decision I make from when I wake up, what I wear, what I do that day, what I eat, what music I listen to, I could go on and on. The authors beautifully describe this back and forth double standard of mothers. I have a great example of this: I am a college student which requires me to do my very best, I am expected to strive to make “A’s” and what not. This role is VERY important to me, so much that I have been at it for ten years. I truly believe in the value of education and the doors it opens. I need my degree to fulfill my chosen professional identity. But because I am a mother I cannot truly make it my first priority in life. To be perfectly honest I might be failing my life drawing class this semester because my son has been sick lately, it is my first class of the day (8:30) so I have had to miss that class particularly to work around doctor’s appointments and my husband being able to get off work to help. (We don’t have family around and you can’t bring sick children to daycare) The teacher has every reason to fail me because the class totally depends on class participation because we are drawing from a live model. I have doctor’s notes, but because of the volume, it is a problem. I totally understand, but it totally sucks at the same time. What else was I supposed to do? If I go to school I am a bad mom and a bad wife but if I stay home, I am a bad student and my goals get delayed yet another six months maybe a year, depending on when the class would be offered again. Delay of graduation also makes me a bad wife and mother because I am delaying extra income that our family desperately needs. So whatever I did was wrong. So I totally agree that there is a tremendous amount of pressure on mothers to not only mold our children into perfect, healthy, happy, productive citizens, that mothers are solely responsible for this task, all while maintaining their own status as perfect, healthy, happy, productive citizens, and that the media exasperates the problem. (And as they said probably more so than I even know) But I think the authors dismiss and make little of some of the really neat things about motherhood. I said mother was the hardest role I’ve ever taken on, but it is also the most rewarding, nothing can describe how happy his little wet snot nose kisses make me or how hard I laugh when he tries to blow raspberries on me. The authors talk negatively about the subservience of mothers. I think mother is naturally a subservient role to a certain extent. From the moment of conception the little buggers take over and physically change our bodies, they change every aspect of our lives from the moment they get here. As the article says we are legally responsible for their care, no one else will help. I believe most parents want the best for their children and I think most parents have picked up from the media, school, books, etc. that environment and parenting are important factors in how a child turns out. I totally agree we are hitting new levels of crazy high standards, but there is a grain of truth in the importance of environmental and parenting effects on kids. And I also thought the authors were preaching competitive mother reform, but they themselves were rather dismissive of the mothers that came before us. They may not have had the media or whatever to hold these standards over our heads, I just don’t think it’s fair to compare, I am sure mothers of the past had their own things to deal with while feeling pressure to raise their children to be good people. So yes I do agree with the authors claim, I just think they got a bit billowy with it.
Analyzing Article
Post Third Worldist Culture: Gender, Nation, and Cinema
By Ella Shohat
The overall response to the article was that did convey bring light to the fact that the concept of Black female sexuality is widely overlooked and should be explored. The term ‘sexuality’ seems to be defined as a term that describes a black woman’s ability to reproduce and sexual encounters with members of the opposite sex. When thinking about the nature of how the topic of sex is addressed among black women it is difficult to define a single method. For this reason I was pleased to see the article contained three themes: “the embodiment of sex”, “resistance to negative stereotypes”, and “politics of silence”.
Thinking back to when I was younger, and saw black women in movies and on television, 90% of the time I could categorize the way they were being portrayed in one of two ways: Overly sexualized (sex toy) or separated from “the sexual universe” (pp. 171). Either way the black female was never a “proper” part of the sexual universe because they were rarely portrayed as pure. When the colonizing of black women’s bodies was discussed in the article I could easily think of modern day portrayals of that mentality that have not faded away. When stated that “black women became the antithesis of European [sexual ideals]” (pp. 172) I thought back to an odd experience. Recently, when watching a Chanel runway show of their fall collection I saw not one minority of color on the stage. Everyone was white with pale skin. This seemed to perpetuate the “norm” that beauty is snow white and pure. Of course there are other runway shows that have models of color; however, the absence of color in that event had a slight reminisce of the ideas the led to the colonizing of black women’s bodies. The idea that “white is what a woman [is]”, (pp. 172) and other is interferer and undesirable.
The silence of black women in regards to sexuality soon followed. In the article it states that this silence of black women regarding the topic was a lot more critical due to the “black female and prostitute” association (pp. 174). However, I did find this particular hardship difficult to distinguish this from all other women. Meaning, all women were thought to be improper for mentioning sex. Even though European women were thought to be ideal they were envisioned as “passionless and de-sexed” (pp. 173). The bottom line is no one group can be stereotyped as one way or another, especially not on the basis of physical features. The sexuality any woman should not continue to be molded by protocol external to that particular woman.
I agree with many of the claims in “The New Momism” about the unattainable definition of moms created by the media. The argument began with several celebrity claims of motherhood bliss. As a nanny, I am very involved in the lives of the family that I work for, especially the three kids. I know, from the experiences that I have had with children, that motherhood is not always bliss, and sometimes very far from bliss. There are nights and days when parents, and nannies, want to our hair out. There are also absolutely remarkable and blissful times. I believe that the trick is finding a balance. I know from many conversations with the family mother that oftentimes she is burned out after work, burned out from her kids and feels like a failure as a mother. I can see firsthand the ridiculous ideals that are set forth for mothers everywhere to attain, not to mention the terrible and harsh criticism that parents are put through on a regular basis. Instead of the amazing addiction to breastfeeding stories and joys of waking up in the middle of the night stories, writers should add reality to their reports. Waking up to nurse a sick child is not always easy or fun, especially when a busy day awaits. That does not mean that it should not or will not be done, but the fact that it is not always joyful, easy or rewarding right away should be rewarded. Another friend of mine with two very young daughters told me that most of the time she is not happy with the lifestyle of a mom, but when thinking in retrospect or looking at pictures, happiness, bliss and joy are realized. Maybe this is why reports only record the happiness that is felt in retrospect. Every mother and family wants to appear together and not a complete mess, so this is another possible reason for the sugarcoated version of real events. The closest report of truth that I have come across recently was that Angelina Jolie commented that breast-feeding the twins at the same time is very difficult, and she has given up and only feeds one baby at a time. I really doubt, though, that Angelina Jolie would be asked to leave a restaurant if “caught” breastfeeding during a meal. For finding that balance in motherhood, because no one will be able to do it all for all of the time, I think that setting personal goals, instead of comparisons between other mothers or celebrities. I hope to be able to assess my strengths, improve my weaknesses and have a spouse who can provide balance to me for our children. Goals should be set on the basis of personal traits and types of parenting that parents choose to undertake. No one is going to feel great when comparing themselves to people who always report bliss and joy in parenthood. The other extreme is the terrible parent that is reported on in the nightly news. Two nights ago I heard a grotesque report about a dad that brutally murdered and maimed the body of his young son. The report provided terrible details that sickened me and made me worry for families and children everywhere. These are the types of stories that cause mass criticism of parents, as they should, but they need not cause paranoia. As a future teacher, I was told that teachers tend to judge and blame the parents first; a hard thing to accept, admit to and change. Overall, the expectations are much too high for mothers, and the media plays a huge role in the imaging of parents for the public.
This article basically says what I've been trying to say about motherhood since I came into child-bearing age. Before I say anything negative about having kids or anything like that, I'll have a disclaimer: I have a great mom and I had a great childhood. My mom stopped working when my older sister was born in 1983 and didn't work again until 1996 and I was in 3rd grade. Having my mom at home while I was too young for school and then when I came home from school was amazing. I know how lucky I was was for this. I was lucky enough to have a dad that could support our family without my mom working and I had a mom who was basically Super Mom. She was the epitome of the mom on the magazine cover. She had breast cancer when I was 5 and she would come home from chemo and cook dinner. And to top it all off, I didn't even know she was sick! I went on "vacation" to my friend's house for a week and when I came back, everything seemed perfectly normal to me. That should give a picture of how unrealistically perfect my mother was when I was growing. That being said, now that I'm older, I recognize that my mom's life basically revolved around my sister and my lives for 12 years. And even though I know how happy my childhood was and I appreciate my mom for what she did, I could NEVER EVER do it. I could never be the mom that doesn't have a job, has a surprise waiting for her kids when they come home from school on Friday to celebrate the beginning of the weekend, be the one that is expected to cook. Douglas and Michael describe my mom perfectly as the June Cleaver type of mom. I would be, however, the kind of woman who is a "mother." The authors of the article mention the public criticism of the mothers who don't spend every second of their lives thinking about and actively bettering the life of their child. Once you become a mother, that's it: you're a mother. You're not Joan who likes music and naps, you're Christine's mom who listening to bad influence music and ignores her children when she gets sleepy in the afternoon. I really would want to send my kids next door so I could have a little bit of silence and a beer. Being a mother is so glamorized in the media, girls my age are getting false expectations about being married and having a baby. They see Angelina Jolie with her 6 or 7 kids, but what they don't see is the multiple women she has around to help raise the kids. She said in a Vanity Fair interview. ""We don't ever have anybody spend the night. We may have to adjust that when the next one comes. But we do have ladies that work with us, and they're also from different cultures and back-grounds. One lady's a Vietnamese teacher — wonderful. One is of Congolese descent from Belgium. Another is from the States and is really creative and does art programs." Jolie is a "working mother" so of course she has a lot of help with her pack of kids, but you don't see the nannies toting the kids around the French Quarter, just Brad or Angelina.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have poor Britney Spears. She is criticized by the media for being crazy and being a horrible mom, but the thing that made her go crazy was the constant media attention. Magazine articles loved to focus on the fact that the kids were taken away from the MOTHER and given to the FATHER, something that rarely happens, so she must have been a terrible single mother. Now that she is (relatively) sane, they rarely talk about how the has custody of her sons again. When her son had an allergic reaction while they were in Louisiana a couple of weeks ago, the media was quick to point fingers at her, like allergic reactions only happen the children of bad parents.
Women with children can never win the battle with the media. Instead of being a musician, Britney Spears is the crazy lady who is quickly ruining the delicate psyche of her children. Angelina Jolie is the woman with enough children to start a small country, who is praised for effortless running a huge household, without a mention of the team of people behind her.
I agree with what is being discussed in the article, “The New Momism” about how it is unfair to expect mothers to be Supermom at all times and never complain. Being a mother is a very difficult job and honestly I feel as though people honestly don’t give them enough credit. In the article they talk about how the “good” mother is the one who stays up all night baking cookies for the school bake sale while the “bad” mother is the one that goes out and buys cookies already made. Most mothers don’t have time to stay up all night baking and decorating cookies because they are busy doing a million other things. My mother, for example, is forty-eight and has a five year old and seven year old. She feels that in order to be a “good” mother going to work is not an option, instead she keeps busy everyday running errands, taking the kids to practice, cooking, cleaning, preparing, and whatever else the family needs her to do. During the week, she wakes up way before the children, makes them breakfast, prepares their lunches, and lays out their clothes for the day. She wakes them up, which is always a job in itself, gets them ready and brings them to school. After school, she comes home cleans the house, does laundry, irons clothes, pays bills, or anything else that may need to be done. When the children get out of school, she picks them both up, rushes home, makes a snack, gets them dressed, and then brings them to their assorted after school activities. Some may argue that her day would be less stressful if she didn’t have to drive them to practice, or away games, or any other place that they may need to be, but in response it is a lot better for the children to be involved in activities then at home in front of the television all day. That would sound like a bad mother, the kids being glued in front of the television all day while mom has time for herself. While the children are at practice my mother runs to the store and buys groceries for dinner, picks the children up from practice when they are finished, and then comes home and cooks while the children attempt to complete their homework. Around seven o’clock dinner is on the table, my father comes home and they attempt to eat a meal in peace. After dinner the kids shower and get ready for bed. Of course when they get to bed they never want to fall asleep and so waiting for that to happen is a process in itself. While they are settling down, my mother cleans up the kitchen, looks over their homework, packs the children’s bags for the next day, and then passes out from exhaustion. This cycle repeats itself all week and although to some may sound like fun, is exhausting and difficult to do day after day. This of course is a daily routine that goes on smoothly with no interruptions. Just imagine one child wakes up sick or falls down at the playground at school. If this happens, then the whole day changes and becomes a lot harder. You have to take care of the child and still manage to complete everything else that had originally scheduled to have already been done. My mother can’t always call my father to leave work and take care of one of the children while she does other things because he has to work in order to put food on the table. I know how difficult it is for my mother because I have lived in her shoes many times. Once, when the children were both very small, before they could go to school, my mother and father had to go to New York for a weekend for a family emergency and asked me to stay home and take care of the children. I was probably a junior in high school and felt as though I could handle the job because I had been babysitting for many years. They had a family friend come over at night and stay with me so that incase anything happened they would be there to help. In all honestly they did nothing to help but just got in the way. It was hard to adjust to a daily routine that I was not used to. Instead of being able to sleep in on the weekend, I had to wake up at five or six in the morning, depending on what time either child would wake up crying. They weren’t in school so I had to entertain them all day, feed them, and then get them ready for bed. This was a very difficult task for one person and honestly I grew a lot more respect for my mother after that. Another time that I got to experience what her life is like was when she threw her back out. She was stuck on the couch and couldn’t move for days because she was in such horrible pain. I had to come home and help out because my father couldn’t take off from work because he is the sole provider. This was about a year or so ago, so both children were in school. The routine I followed was similar to the one I explained earlier. At the end of the day after the children were in bed, when I would normally have me time, all I wanted to do was go to bed. When celebrities are interviewed and talk about how much they love running to the sound of their baby crying at two in the morning I just want to gag myself. In reality that does not happen. I can understand the first few days after you bring the baby home, that’s all exciting but then after the third or fourth night of no sleep you start to realize it’s not as glamorous as they paint it out to be. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears, and Jennifer Lopez, they have lots of people they pay to help them take care of their children. I could not imagine Angelina Jolie taking care of six children on her own, or even with her husband to help her. I am not saying it’s impossible but it is a lot of work for two people, let alone one. In reality if you want to be a good mother then you need help. After thinking about all the stuff a mother has to do in a period of twenty-four hours, it helps me understand why they are so tired and grouchy sometimes. It is hard work and when people are putting you down telling you that you are not a good mother or that you should be working a full time job and being a mother, it makes things even harder. I really appreciate everything my mother does for me and my family and I can hope that I can be as good a mother as she is one day.
The “new momism” is a phenomenon largely caused by pressures on people in general to meet ridiculously high standards in all aspects of their lives. Educational demands, for instance, are at an all-time high, with college degrees being more important than ever while college is harder than ever to get into. High school students are typically expected to tackle advanced classes, standardized tests, multiple extra-curricular activities, and several hours of homework each night to make it into a university, and in fact this rearing often starts as early elementary and middle school.
Beauty standards, especially those pertaining to the body, have also tightened, and have become entangled with ideas of “health.” The message set forth by the media is that not only should people be thin because it looks better, but also because it is healthier, and people who are not thin are lazy and irresponsible and a burden on healthcare, in addition to being unattractive. This has in turn led to the American moralization of diet and exercise.
People are also feeling more pressure to be richer, to be more competitive at their jobs, to be smarter and more politically correct. These are not all necessarily bad things, but as whole they are a lot to tackle. To raise children in this environment places a lot of responsibility on parents, and often most of that responsibility is dumped onto mothers. Mothers with overweight kids, for instance, are neglecting their children’s health, and are often accused of downright abuse. Mothers who do not force their kids to study all the time and participate in highly competitive activities are soft, and doing their children a disservice by raising them to be incompetent in a dog-eat-dog world. Essentially mothers have to do more to successfully raise their children in the modern world.
Yet a key component to the new momism is that mothers must be happily self-sacrificing while meeting these demands. Not only should they accept these challenges, but desire them, as motherhood is female happiness defined. This is a very old rhetoric, and in their article “The New Momism,” Douglas and Michaels pose a question: why does this rhetoric continue even with the advancement of the women’s movement? A similar question I would pose is,” Why has the tightening of beauty standards also increased with the advancement of the women’s movement?” It could be that the new momism and increased beauty standards are simply backlashes against feminism, with one great movement instigating another. Another possibility is that feminism never did away with women’s well-engrained desires to be pretty or to be a mother, but simply empowered them to seek out other goals (mainly career-oriented) in addition to them.
This has consequently led to the desire to “have it all”—to be well-educated, to have a good job, to be fit and attractive, to have a loving spouse, and to be a good mother. The most immediate example of this in the media is Angelina Jolie, who publicly balances a glamorous career with doing charity work and rearing a large family, and all with a smile on her face. Other celebrity mothers are similarly imaged, happily meeting the demands of motherhood and busy careers, the unpleasant details glossed over. It is this, if not unrealistic, very difficult to achieve state that has caused the contradictions embodied in the new momism.
I definitely agree that the media is defining their idea of what motherhood should look like. But the truth is that motherhood in the eye of the media is not realistic at all. Nobody lives the way that the people in the media do, and any average woman who is a mother knows that it is not a walk in the park, like it is pictured in magazine and other media. In the beginning of the chapter when she is describing the scene at the grocery store with the mom and the kids that are misbehaving, that is a situation that probably happens a lot in everyday life. Then when the family arrives at home, the problems do not just disappear. The average family in society today has problems, although they may not always be visible to the outsider looking in.
The media has glamorized motherhood so much lately because that is what they feel people want to read about. I personally would LOVE to read about some famous superstar mommy yelling at her kid in the grocery store, but you rarely ever do because it is not the right thing to do, according to the standards for what the media considers the “glamorous working mom.” Just take Britney Spears for example. She is always in the media lately for doing something wrong that is going to screw up her kids, but the reality is that no one sees what how she is with her children the other 95% of the time. The only thing the public sees is that little clip of her doing something “unconventional” but no one ever actually hears the story behind anything she does. I think it is great that she is not Hollywood’s perfect mother, because she is a female star that is in the media so often, if she was perfect, we would all start to suspect her to be fake. It is just too bad that moms who are not rich and famous are expected to be these amazing super moms when they are just trying to do the best they can. No one is perfect.
Susan Douglas and Meredith W. Michael’s article “The New Momism,” posed many informative and elucidating notions regarding the construction of the modern mother. However, the dichotomization of the workingwoman versus the stay-at home mother was, at least for me, the most powerful point presented in the article. Being the son, of a professional working mother might have spurred my personal affinity towards this particular point, but never the less, it is a point that may benefit
from some introspection.
In the article, Douglas’ states, “in fact, many of us want to be both women: successful at work, successful mothers” (Douglas-Michael, 625). The problem that occurs between these two worlds is a polarization of ideals. The self-interested, capitalistic, world of the American work force pitted against the self contained nurturing vacuum that the home is meant to embody. The mother whom resides in both of these worlds, in order to be “successful,” is required to assume the characteristic’s embodied in those two environments respectively. However, the real problem is the difficulty mother’s face in being able to assume each of these roles while never allowing her work persona to enter into the home and vise versa. The struggle of the modern mother is a struggle with this polarization of persona. A struggle highlighted, and magnified, by the staggering difference in nature between those ideals embodied by their respective personas.
The difference in the nature of these two personas may be alluded to by an analogy to two religious figures. Jesus and Judas came to mind, at least for me most readily in the dichotomization between working-mother and stay-at-home mother. At home the mother is suppose to be like Jesus, self-sacrificing, eternally forgiving, and all nurturing. She should be willing die, as it were, for the sins of her children, and never question the sacrifice. The working-mother, however, is supposed to be like Judas, here I only am discussing Judas’s role as a person driven by monetary profit or self-interest. The working-mother must then be able to both sacrifice everything for the interest of the self as well as for monetary gains and profit. I believe that the allusion to Jesus and Judas as representative of the dichotomy of working-mother to stay at home mother, may at least elucidate the magnitude of the difference between those roles “new momism” requires of the mother. It would be impossible to envision a character that embodied fully both the characteristics of Jesus and Judas. If it is not even possible to imagine a character that is both self-serving and self-sacrificial, how can society expect mothers to not only imagine but also embody this ideal? The problem then with “new momism,” is that society doesn’t just expect it demands that mothers embody this ideal.
I agree with pretty much everything the article said about the New Momism. Everyone has an influence on how we as individuals precieve what is supposed to be this image of the perfect mom. After reading this article I realized that the media really does amplify and influence the image of motherhood. just a couple of days age I was reading an article in People magazine about Angelina Jolie and how she had to stop breast feeding after three months because it got to be to painful for her to feed her twin babies. I am not a mom and honestly thought nothing about how that article would be viewed by other moms, but I thought about my sister who was only able to breast feed for two weeks after she had her daughter. Does that make her less of a mom because she wasn't able to handle breast feeding...no.
One of the main issue that I have with the media's influence, beside the fact that the media has so much control over us, is it extremely onside as usually. Moms, Moms, and more Moms is all you see one the covers of these magazines. In a hundred years when we have people looking and studying the 20th century are these people going to question if there was a thing called fathers? Growing up I have had two dads, my biological father and my adopted father, and both were not around. My mother worked two jobs and took care of me and my sister,while my father(s) found other things to do(drink).
If we place this image of the having an ideal or perfect mother why is it not the same pressure and expectations being placed on the fathers. Phillip Wylie was the one who coined the term "momism." He blamed mothers for being to attached to their sons and the reason to why sons were dysfunctional, weaklings that were maternal attached to the apron and unable to fight.Yes his beliefs probably had a lot to do with his Freudian background, lord knows that did not help, but even back then how is the blame only one sided and how is it that even now that we allow this?
Yes many people would say that times have changed and are much better now for women then as the were in the sixties and I totally agree with this, but how much have we changed and why are some many people satisfied with this change. I think back to the time I have spent with my grandmother and I remember how many times I used to go over there and she would force me to eat, eat, and eat more telling me I had to make sure I had childbearing hips. I remember being in HIGH SCHOOL when this first started.
I am 23 years old and have been told by my doctors that children will be hard for me to have in the the future. If God decides to bless me with kids the only thing I can pray for is that I raise my children right, teach them things that open their mind to different views, and pray that they out live me. If this happens in my lifetime then I will be a very happy and if not it was not meant to be, but who I am as a women and how I decided to live my life should not be decided upon whether or not I have children.
The new momism is just like any other unrealistic ideas that the media tries to make us feel is the norm. Every girls is supposed to have flawless skin, be a size 0, and aspire to be a mother. Every woman should have children, go back to their size 0 within the very most a few months, then be even more beautiful at 40 then they were at 18, after raising their multiple children, all the while having a smile on their face. Whenever something goes wrong with a child it always falls back on the mother. Even to the extent of mother’s being blamed for sick children because they didn’t breast feed. Standards for children have risen and with that the standards of a “good” mother have risen. It’s harder and harder to get children into good schools, and ultimately into college. If a child doesn’t get into a good school or decides they don’t want to go to college it really falls back on the mother. What did the mom do wrong? It’s like with every kid that goes into a school and kills students and themselves it seems like the media always has a story following about how terrible a mother they had.
I watch Desperate Housewives. Bree Van De Kampt is a prime example of how the media portrays mothers. There are other characters on the show that display motherhood in a different way but Bree portrays herself to everyone else as the the typical June Cleaver. Her house is unimaginably clean with fresh flowers on the table every day. Anytime something doesn’t fit into her perfect mold she gets rid of it, be it her unmarried pregnant daughter or her gay son. She writes a “cookbook” and on the most recent episode is having an article written about it. The journalist is looking for all sorts of leads to try and understand how this woman can possibly be so perfect. In the end Bree sort of breaks down from trying to uphold this facade. She tells the journalist that she isn’t perfect. That her book is indeed not just a “cookbook” but a book showing women how to be June Cleavers. She wants women to know that even if everything else doesn’t go perfectly that at the very least they can have something be perfect even if it is just a casarole. Why a mother would find comfort in a casarole being perfect when her life is in disarray, I have no idea. But this shows that mothers and housewives are to uphold this cookie cutter image, having a job to help support the family, keeping the house impossibly clean, having a perfect dinner on the table every night, being a “good” mother which is more than a fulltime job, and having a smile on her face while she’s doing all this.
Wesly G.
Reading the chapter by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels prompted me to think about how “the new momism” has played out in my own life. I am not a mother, so I cannot say that I have been directly affected by the way the media has imaged mothers as authors Douglas and Michaels have. I guess you could say I have been more of a spectator in “the new momism.” Instead of feeling the pull of trying to conform to what the media images tell me I should be as a mother, I have judged other mothers based on this ideal. However, after reading this chapter, I will be more careful next time not to pass judgment on a mother before I have “been there and done that.” Also, I have begun to wonder about my own mom and the effect “the new momism” has had on children.
Even though I am not a mother, I know enough to see that the way the media has imaged mothers is quite unfair. No mom is perfect. And who gets to decide what is perfect? Certainly the mothers are not the ones in charge of defining that word. However, I think the point Douglas and Michaels are trying to make is that there is no such thing as a mom who can do everything expected of her, and she should not have to; she should not even be expected to in the first place. It’s true: the children are our future. But someone has to prepare them to be our future, and that job has been imaged as solely the mother’s responsibility.
Because women have tried to fit this ideal of the “nurturing mother who will do anything for her kids,” have the dynamics between parents and their children have changed? I was not there when my parents grew up in the 60s, but it seems to me like they had a different relationship with their parents than I have with mine. My dad told me once that his parents would always tell them to go out and play or to walk to school, and Douglas and Michaels also mention these “back-in-the-day” parenting skills (620). (Also, America, I think, was a much safer place back then). However, when I grew up, parents, moms in particular, were expected to be waiting on their children’s beck and call. Were my parents’ parents tougher on them? So do I have a closer relationship with my parents because they catered more to my needs? Douglas and Michaels did not really address these types of questions in their chapter, but I am inclined to answer “yes” to both.
As for people who do not want to have kids, well, “the new momism” rides on the assumption that everyone wants to have kids, so childless men and women are not even included in the model. Therefore, this makes them feel very isolated from “normal society.” Not only is the media pressuring them to get fulfilled and have children, but the rest of the world is influenced by this imaging as well. Women who would rather have a career than children or the couple who would rather spend the rest of their lives only with each other are looked upon as if they are some sort of Martians. Again, as always, the single, narrow view the media feeds us does no one any good.
I think it is appropriate that we are concluding our class with discussions of what it means to be a mother. We have discussed the many ways the media has imaged women – what it means to be a woman in today’s society, a beautiful woman, an African American woman, a princess, a working woman, a stay-at-home mom, or a female politician, and many more. We have talked about the differences in the ways men and women have been imaged in the media; however, the biological difference, our ability to bear children, will always separate men and women. I believe that as long as American media still exists, and as long as females hold the power to bear children, there will always be people telling us how to raise our kids.
Response to “New Momism”
I feel that this image of women can be damaging to mothers in a way that corners them. It sets up a narrow view of motherhood the same way that current society has stereotyped women of all categories. They are getting the all too familiar mixed messages from “real mothers” in Life Time specials, talk shows, and parenting magazines as well as the not-so-real mothers portrayed in movies and soap operas.
Not only is this image damaging to women with children, but the men who choose to and the women who choose not to. When single man or two men are the primary care givers, they are called “Mr. Mom” or stereotyped as being womanly, or just clueless parents making it up as they hopelessly try to raise children. The women decide for whatever reason not to have kids, rather in a relationship or not, are often seen as selfish or lazy. In the small town, family oriented area I grew up in, once you are out of high school the questions about family plans start coming up. “Have you found a nice man yet?” “When is the wedding?” and “How about some grandchildren already?” while usually in a joking manner, implant these thoughts and ideals into your head until you think that your life shouldn’t not go on with out a nice husband and “one on the way”.
Life expectancy in America is higher than ever and phrases such as “40 is the new 30!” send a message to women that they still have their wholes lives ahead of them! Does this also convey that it is okay to wait for marriage and motherhood? I was appalled when after only one semester in college I learned that such a high number of my previous classmates where getting married and expecting children. It could be because of the tendency to settle down as soon as you can along with the pressure from your family for more family.
Being the odd sexuality out in my environment growing up, my perception of these messages I’m sure was quite different. I felt like I hadn’t accomplished anything yet. I wanted to learn and grow and then maybe somehow settle down for family life. These images of submission and compliance are what the women’s movement has been fighting to overturn. Even if that path is the one that a woman chooses to pursue, it does not feel like she is given that much of a choice any more. Better yet, she is somehow wrong in her decision if she strays from that role.
In this media controlled society, I believe that it is most important stop listening! It’s time for mothers, single women, men, and couples of all makes to think for them selves. We have all of the opportunity to make our own intelligent decisions about how to live and love and build families but the information is lost amongst the rubble.
“The New Momism” made a lot of sense to me. Being the perfect mom is not about being a certain image. Many people look at magazines in the store with pictures of these celebrity mothers that look beautiful and have all of this money to spend on their kids. Then they look back at themselves and feel that they are not up to that standard so they must not be as good of a mom as the celebrity on the cover page of some gossip magazine. They make motherhood look like an easy job which it is certainly not, so when mothers have problems with their children some think that they are not doing a good job because their family is not picture perfect. There are always these pictures and stories on how these celebrity mom’s are so great and how they have everything together, but in reality life is chaotic. These images even make men feel that they are not doing a good job as a father. Looking at these mom’s on the front cover of magazines with these perfect children walking the streets of LA. It can make a man feel that he is not providing enough for his family, which makes them unhappy. Many times you will see these celebrities with 5-7 kids and they always seem to have everything under control but what you don’t see is behind the scenes, they have people who are always there to help with the children. There is no one ideal mother figure and that is what people need to understand, each person is different and each family had different needs and problems so to put yourself and your family against other people you will always feel like you are missing something.
I actually enjoyed From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos. This article gave me insight that I should not be angry and stump around for what I am called because it is not me they are referring to but the countless women who want to be that just to say that the song it about them to make them feel that they hold a little value in the world. We are called bitches and hos because that is what we have become to settle and think that we are we do not look to find what really has hurt our men or why they feel they should carry the anger with them. We are as Morgan stated fighting to be right instead of trying to win. We can win by fixing this problem because by the time most men see it they are either one foot out the grave or locked away with nothing else to do but think about all the disrespect they did. She quoted Tupac in saying “Even though I’m not guilty of the charges they gave me, I’m not innocent in terms of the way I was acting. I’m just as guilty for not doing things. Not with this case but with my life. I had a job to do and I never showed up. I was running away from it.” Is this the cause of the anger that they have the fact that they are running from life’s responsibilities. Is it that they don’t know the correct way to let this anger out without degrading those who try to help them? We are fighting a battle to be right instead of to win we have no course of action to win just the argument to be right.
Kristen L.
In the article "The New Momism" the author does a great job of showing how a mom is pulled in different directions. Many moms are trying to do a crazy balancing act and it is very difficult. Working moms have really high standards set, they have to be great at their job and be great at being a mom, which is really just another full time job you don't get paid for. I thought that being a mom was easy until I became a nanny for four children, I see what it takes to do my job for only a few hours, it's hard and I'm not even financially responsible for them. I can't imagine how hard it must be to have a child of your own and a job you have to do, or how hard it must be to be a student/ mother. Because you can't take off of being a mom other things in your life that you are supposed to do perfectly fall behind. This article shows how much stress moms are under. It's not fair but I don't think that the standards will get any lower with time, they will probably only get higher.
I found the article “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hoes” by Joan Morgan particularly hard to read and comprehend. I think that I have good reading comprehension skills; however, her particular use of slang made this extremely difficult to decipher. Yet I was able to pull a few key points from this article that I would like to discuss.
I do like how Morgan points out the fact “Though it’s often portrayed as part of the problem, rap music is essential to that struggle [against sexism] because it takes us straight to the battle field.” In my opinion, rap music is one medium in which sexism is blatantly displayed and all too often celebrated. It is here that I have mixed feelings though; although I do believe that music is one of the best and most personal and creative ways to express oneself, I do not often agree with the choice of lyrics. Morgan also points out, “As a black woman and a feminist I listen to the music with a willingness to see past the machismo in order to be clear about what I’m really dealing with.” However, she is not the only one to listen past these lyrics, I know that I, as most women, do when we’re riding around in the car (literally trying to rap like Lil’ Wayne) or most often any time we’re dancing in a bar or club. The most prominent example now is Ludacris’s new song “Hoe”. Whenever that song comes on my friends and I rap along with Ludacris and designate one girl to be the “hoe”. With lyrics such as “Now why you think you take a Hoe to a Hoe-tel?” and “You can’t turn a Hoe into a housewife, Hoes don’t act right” this song really doesn’t portray women in a positive light. I have to wonder why we do this to each other, neither my friends nor I are “hoes” by any means, and we don’t naturally demean one another in such a way. Yet we find this song to be perfectly acceptable and even take it upon ourselves to request it at times. What is it about this music that makes it so easy for us as women to degrade ourselves?
In the same phrase quoted above, Morgan talks about what the lyrics of rap music are “really” dealing with. She points out the depressing aspects of the male rapper’s life, like drug abuse, alcoholism and violence. From what I interpreted, she blames these factors (among others) as the reasons behind the negative portrayal of women in rap music. However, I cannot agree with this statement. Black male rappers are not the only people to have experienced such hardships, rock-and-rollers of the 60s and 70s experienced very similar problems, but they handled it quite differently. They did not degrade women, but rather celebrated them. From Aerosmith to Led Zeppelin, they wrote and performed songs such as “Woman of the World” and “Whole Lotta Love”. These songs celebrated women, and although there was a heavy undertone, not just as sexual beings. I will admit that times were a bit different then than they are now, but just because the life you’ve experience has been difficult does not mean that the only means in which you can express yourself, your hardships, or your pain is through the demeaning of women.
I feel as if Joan Morgan was far too easy and forgiving of the rap industry and of black male rap artists. Yes, I do find the lyrics offensive at times, but I can also accept them solely as the songs they are and not read any more into it. However in my opinion, if one was to choose to decipher the negative messages that the rap songs all too often send to the male, and female, population that listen to them, then they should not try to make excuses as to why these artists have decided to write and perform these lyrics. Many a rap artist has rapped about topics other than the female body or “bitches and hoes” (for example, Will Smith with “Parent’s Just Don’t Understand”). In conclusion, I do not agree with Joan Morgan’s acceptance and excusal of the behaviors of black male rappers, if it is truly the heart of the battle field against sexism, more should be done to show these men that women are more than their “bitches and hoes”, that we are worth more than that and deserve their respect.
After reading "The New Momism", I'd have to agree with the claim, "that motherhood is the site through which women are being defined by media imagery in new and damaging ways". In "The New Momism" it states, "Even after the women's movement, mothers were still expected to be the primary socializers of Children (Peterson). Not only were our individual kids' well-being our responsibility, but also the entire fate of the nation supposedly rested on our padded and milk-splotched shoulders." This is extremely damaging to not just mom's but also childless men and women. If women are working all the time, they are still the primary person who nurtures the child. I believe that it is a great thing that the mother's are the primary source but if a women is working full time, she is probably feeling extremely overwhelmed like she has to be the only one to feed the baby and other things without much help from her husband. This can be damaging to the men and women who don't have children because then they could feel like they need to have children to be fulfilled in their lives. If the childless women's friends all have children it could make her want children also. This could create a problem in her marriage because her husband may not want children at that time or lets say he does but the women can not get pregnant. This is very damaging to both if they couldn't get pregnant because they could possible feel like a failure. I was watching Oprah one day and a couple was on t.v talking about not being able to conceive a child. The women was crying and said, "I feel like a failure." It was really sad to me but maybe they will adopt a child one day and could possible be fulfilled by that. Douglas states, "One of the worst things about the new momism is that it is like a club, where women without kids, or women deemed "bad" mothers, like poor women and welfare mothers, don't belong." I feel bad for the women who don't have children because they may feel alone. I think the new momism is supported and defined today especially in the media . I remember that a picture of Cristiana Aguilera naked and pregnant. That is an example of the new momism. Being pregnant is now being portrayed in the media as a beautiful thing. This is just one example on pop culture that support momism but I'm sure there are many more.
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