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Worn Out: Motherwork in the Age of Austerity
March 6, 2015 @ 8:30 am - March 7, 2015 @ 5:00 pm
The 17th Annual Women’s History Conference at Sarah Lawrence College
Worn Out! Motherwork in the Age of Austerity
Sarah Lawrence College
Bronxville, NY (20 minutes north of Manhattan)
Friday – Saturday March 6-7, 2015
Free and Open to the Public
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that more than 60% of mothers of preschool children are in the paid workforce, and for mothers of school-age children, that figure nears 80%. If paychecks were all it took to liberate women, we would be well on our way. Instead, we’re exhausted, and while this problem is hardly unique to the United States, the American system of long hours on the job and scant provision for public welfare makes the challenges of motherwork all the more acute. It’s not hard to figure out what brought us to this pass: wage stagnation, increasingly lengthy workweeks, proliferating numbers of single-parent households and two-income couples, gaping holes in the social safety net, erosion of labor unions, mounting violence against our children by both civilians and the state, and diminished public spending on youth recreation, daycare, afterschool programs and other services crucial to working families. The question is: what can we do to turn things around? This conference will explore answers to that question.
Sponsored by the Women’s History Graduate Program at Sarah Lawrence College
Co-Sponsored with the Diversity and Activism Programming Subcommittee of Student Life (DAPS) and Sister to Sister International Inc.
Registration is required (free): http://www.slc.edu/womens-history/conference/registration.html
Conference Schedule
Friday March 6, 2015
4:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Registration
Heimbold Lobby6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Plenary Session
Heimbold Auditorium
Welcome address and announcement of the Gerda Lerner Award recipient
Priscilla Murolo, Director, Women’s History Graduate Program at Sarah Lawrence CollegeKeynote Speaker:
Roksana Badruddoja, member of the Academic Advisory Board for the Museum of Motherhood (MOM), Board Member of the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF), and professor of sociology and women’s gender studies at Manhattan College.8:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Welcome Reception
SATURDAY MARCH 7, 2015
(All panels are in the Heimbold Building unless otherwise noted)8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Registration
8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Breakfast Reception
Heimbold Lower Lobby10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Plenary Session
Heimbold AuditoriumPlenary Panel
Motherwork, Race, and the Criminal Justice SystemDr. Zoe Spencer
Navigating Media Perceptions and Criminalization as a Single Black Mother
Dr. Robyn Brown Manning
We Don’t Give Birth to Thugs, We Give Birth to Children: The Emotional Journeys of African-American Mothers Raising Sons under American Racism
Janet Garcia
Post-incarceration Motherhood: Stigma, Motherwork, and the State
12:00 p.m. – 12:45 p.m.
Lunch ($10)
BREAKOUT SESSION 1: 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Writing Motherhood
Sayuri Oyama, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY
Ariyoshi Sawako’s Hishoku (Not ‘of Color’): A Japanese Mother on American ‘Race’ and ‘Mixed-Race’ Identities
Cera Smith, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach CA
Labor Pains: Motherhood as the Birthplace of Social Awareness & Social Response in Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Susanna Horng, New York University, NY, NY
Writer’s Block or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Mothering
Myra Goldberg, Sarah Lawrence College
As It Turns OutHistorical Perspectives on Motherwork
Leslee Grey, Queens College
Parental Involvement in Education as Neoliberal Motherwork: From “Community Control” to Austerity in Public Education Reform
Jodi Vandenberg-Daves, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
Maternal Strategies and Maternal Politics: Lessons from the Past and Connections to the Present
Carly Fox, Sarah Lawrence College
Constructing Radical Genealogies: Okie Women Re-Imagine Motherhood
Charlotte Malone, Sarah Lawrence CollegeWhat You Feel In Your Heart to Be Right: Eleanor Roosevelt and a Lifetime of Mothering
Mothers at Work
Maureen Sherrard Thompson, Montgomery County Community College
Working 24/7: The Politics of HouseworkMagda Pecsenye, Tilmor Group
Narrative Becomes Structure: Actual Barriers for Mothers in Paid Labor out of the Home
Rachel Ellison, Founder and Principal, Reworking Parents
Tales From the Front Lines of Working Parenthood: The Role of Organizational Culture
Failing to Mother: Unnatural Mothers, Delinquent Mothers, and Wicked Stepmothers in U.S. HistoryLara Vapnek, St. John’s University
To Care or To Earn: Wet-Nurses in 19th-Century New York CityKristin Celello, Queens College, CUNY
Inventing a New Maternal Model: Stepmothers in the United States, 1900-1965Vanessa May, Seton Hall University
Delinquent Mothers: Juvenile Delinquency and 1950s Policymaking
BREAKOUT SESSION 2: 2:45 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.‘Fueron hijos nuestros…’ State Appropriation of Motherhood in Three Contemporary Latin American Contexts
Emilie Egger, Sarah Lawrence College
Mothering as Activist Strategy in Contemporary PeruErin Hagen, Sarah Lawrence College
Maternalist Discourses in Neoliberal ChileNatasha Sanchez, Sarah Lawrence College
Reyita: Mother of CubaMoms in Cyberspace: How Social Media Is Transforming Peer-Support Groups for Mothers of Young Children
Kahler, Jean, Sarah Lawrence College
Moira Hinderer, Johns Hopkins UniversityNatalia Rosenholc, Sarah Lawrence College
Motherwork and Special Needs
Emily Hoge, Wesleyan University
Crisis of the Family: Disability and Motherhood in the Russian 1990’sJudith Ross Smith, Fordham University
Listening to the Caregiving Decisions of Older Women with ‘Difficult’ Adult Children: ‘What’s a Mother to Do?’Naomi Rendina, Case Western Reserve University
Mothering from the Sidelines: The Ambiguous Loss of Premature BirthKristy Staniszewski, Sarah Lawrence College
A Different Kind of Motherhood: Sisters of Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock, Mommy’s on the Tenure Clock: Women Junior Faculty on Mentorship, Marking, and Maternity Policies
Siobhan Carter-David, Southern Connecticut University
Cassi Ann Meyerhoffer, Southern Connecticut University
Marie Basile McDaniel , Southern Connecticut University
Maternal Body Politics
Laura Tropp, Marymount Manhattan College
‘Pregnant and’Commoditized’: Owning Pregnancy in a Hyper-Commercial World
Mary Bronstein, Independent Scholar
Attached at the Hip: How does Attachment Parenting Effect Women?Kaitlyn Kohr, Sarah Lawrence College
The World War II Pin-up in America and the Religious Discourse of the Female Body in Art
Breakout Session 3: 4:45 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.
Mediated Motherhood: Rules for Parenting in a Post-Feminist Era
Emily Hund, University of PA
‘I’m a stay-at-home mom and a full time blogger’: Fashion Blogs’ Depictions of MotheringElena Rosa Maris, University of PA
‘According to the media, we’re obsessed with babies’: Lesbian Motherhood on TV and FilmRosmary Clark, University of PA
Mothers, Myths, and Magazines: A Content Analysis of Women’s Magazines from the 1950s, 1980s, and the 2000s
Stephanie Gomez, University of Utah
Marginalized Motherhood: Women of Color and Motherhood on Popular Television
Redefining Motherhood Through Community and Activism: Two Historical Examples of How the Work of Women Shaped America’s Health
Natalie Taylor, Sarah Lawrence College
Indira Case, Sarah Lawrence CollegeAcademic Mothering: Envisioning a Mother Friendly University
Lisa Krissoff Boehm, Worcester State University
Joyce Mandell, Worcester State UniversityMotherwork as Bodywork: The Problem of Invisible Laborers
Jessica Martucci, Mississippi State University
Mothering to the Degree: Breastfeeding, Labor and LoveElena Conis, Emory University
Vaccination as Motherwork: Mothers and the 21st Century Vaccination DebatesDeanna Day, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Data-driven Science for Creating Tiny Miracles: The Unacknowledged and Unpaid Labor of Fertility Charting
For more information contact:
Tara Elise James [email protected]