Mothering and Feminism
Date : October 22-24, 2004
Location : Atkinson College, York University, Toronto, Canada
Friday, October 22
8:30 – 9:00am Registration and Coffee/Muffins 9:00 – 10:45am Session A Panel A1: THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP Deirdre D. Johnston and Debra H. Swanson (Hope College) “Daughters Reflecting on Mother’s Identities.” Michelle Morkert (Clark University) “What Do Mary Kate and Ashley have to do with Feminist Parenting?” The Militarization of Mothers and Daughters that Wal-Mart Hopes You Overlook” Lisa Marie Erenyi (Marylhurst University) “I am Not Enough for Myself: A Dialogical Study of the Mother-Daughter Relationship” Kim Bonia (Memorial University) “Living in the Final Stages of Cancer: Mother-Daughter Narratives of Life and Approaching Death”
Panel A2: MOTHERING IN LITERATURE BY WOMEN OF COLOUR Melissa Schoeffel (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) “Chicana Feminism and Mothering in Ana Castillo’s Work” Therese Tardio (Carnegie Mellon University) “Going Beneath Through Voice and Body: Pat Mora’s Re-invention of Chicana Cultural Mothers” Melissa Jones (Duquesne University) “Motherhood in Nella Larsen’s Passing” Rita Bode (Trent University) “Mother to Daughter: Muted Maternal Feminism in the Fiction of Sandra Cisneros”
Panel A3: MOTHERING AND FEMINISM: CHOICES AND CONFLICTS Wendy Cater (Murdoch University, Australia) “Biologically Determined? The Choices That Women and Men Have in Nurturing Future Generations” Rachel Hall (State University of New York-Geneseo) “The Missing” Marie Porter (University of Queensland, Australia) “What About Mothers? The Effects of Feminism on a Group of Australian Mothers”
Panel A4: FEMINIST CHALLENGES TO THE IDEOLOGY OF ‘GOOD’ MOTHERHOOD Monique Davidson (University of British Columbia) “Of Women (Re)Born: Unpacking the Ideology of the ‘Good’ Mother” H. Lorraine Radtke (University of Calgary) “Feminist Discourse as a Cultural Resource for Mothers” Virgina Caputo (Carleton University) “Conversations, Contemplations and Cupcakes: Cultural Contradictions of Mothering and Feminism” 10:45 -11:00am Break
11:00 – 12:45pm Session B
Panel B1: FEMINIST THEORY: REPRODUCTION, THE BODY AND SEXUALITY Danielle Bessett and Kiley Kraskouskas (New York University) “Feminists on Agency in Contemporary Reproduction: A Critial Review” Brenda Clews (artist, writer) “How Can We Be Different and the Same?” Justyna Sempruch (University of British Columbia) “What is Natural About Care-Giving? Mothers in the Feminist Politics of ‘Libidinal Economy'” Maria Wolf (University of Innsbruck, Austria) “Bodies Without Mothers: The Pact Between New Reproductive and Selective Biotechnologies and Postfeminist Gender Theories”
Panel B2: THEORIZING MATERNITY Chair: Rose Barg (poet, writer and mother ) “Motherwork: A Site of Workplace Learning” Marsha Marotta (Westfield State College) “Reviving Utopia: Strategies for Theorizing and Practicing Feminist Mothering Linda Beail (Point Loma Nazarene University) “Feminists are Mothering for Themselves: Feminist Theory in Maternal Memoir” Maureen Linker (University of Michigan-Dearborn) “Mothers Who Care and Mothers Who Could Care Less: Maternal Thinking and the Ethics of Care” Panel B3: MOTHERHOOD IDENTITIES Judy MacDonnell (OISE/University of Toronto) “Exploring Matrices of Mothering and Feminisms: Life History Methodology as a Venue for Understanding the Complexities of Mothering Discourses” Gayle Letherby (Coventry University, UK) “Feminism, Motherhood and Nonmotherhood: Hierarchies and Continuums, Ambivalence and Exclusion Lindsay McVicar (York University) “Who Counts as a Single Mother?: Exploring the Leaky Identity of the (Un)-Single Mother” Audrey Mouser (Brown University) “Islamic Feminism and Single Motherhood: A Malaysian Case Study” Ann Duffy (Brock University), Nancy Mandell (York University), Sue Wilson (Ryerson University) and Shana L. Calixte (York University) “The Relationship of Mid-Life Canadian Mothers to Feminist Identity”
12:45 – 2:00pm Lunch (on your own)
Poster presentation Sonya Corbin Dwyer and Lynn Gidluck (University of Regina) “A Child of Her Own: Reflections of Adoptive Mothers on the Discourse of Mothering”
2:00 – 3:45pm Session C
Panel C1: ISSUES IN MOTHERHOOD AND FEMINISM A. Joan Saab (University of Rochester) “Creating a Life, Opting Out, Hip Mamas and Crunchy Conservatism: Antifeminism and the Popular Media” Karen Krug (Brock University) “Who Stole What? Issues in Motherhood and Feminism” Faulkner Fox (Duke University) “Judging Mothers: Judgmentalism Among Women and its Challenge to Feminist Community-Building” Maggie Kirkman (University of Melbourne) and Gayle Letherby (Coventry University) “Poisoned Apples and Cracked Eggs: ‘Grimm” Reflections on Social Mothers” Panel C2: MOTHERHOOD CHALLENGES AND TRIUMPHS Channa Verbian (OISE/University of Toronto) “White Mothers of Black/White Biracial Children: Addressing Racialized Discourses in the Feminist and Multicultural Literature” Rosemary Clews (St. Thomas University) “Triumphs, Struggles and Compromises: Dilemmas of a Feminist Mother in ‘The Sandwich Generation'” Alice Home (University of Ottawa) “Mothering Plus… The Rewards and Challenges of Caring for Children with Invisible Disabilities” Carolyn Peters (University of Manitoba) “Mother-only Headed Families and Multiple Stressors”
Panel C3: MATERNAL SUBJECTIVITIES IN PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS Sharon Wexler (McGill University) “Clinical Examples of How Internalized Social Constructions of Motherhood and the Subjective Feelings of Maternal Ambivalence Affect the Relational process of Feminist Psychotherapy” Michelle Everest (Wilfrid Laurier University) “Advocating for Wholism: Reconciliation of Academic Psychology and Feminist Ways of Knowing As Illustrated by Reflections and Artistic Expression Related to My Foray Into Motherhood”
Panel C4: BREASTFEEDING POLITICS AND MATERNAL PRACTICES, LOCAL AND GLOBAL Penny Van Esterik (York University) “From the Nestlé Boycott to Toxic Breasts: The Evolution of Intimate Praxis” Bernice Hausman (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) “Viral Mothers: HIV and Maternal Contagion in a Transnational Frame” Barbara Behrmann (writer, breastfeeding advocate) “Breastfeeding: More than a Labor of Love” Gretchen Michlitsch (University of Wisconsin, Madison) “From Tragic Hero to Superhero: Breastfeeding Mothers in Morrison’s Beloved and Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring”
3:45 – 4:00pm Break
4:00 – 5:30pm Session D
Panel D1: MATERNAL FEMINST REREADINGS OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS Cynthia Rudolph (St. John’s University) “Mom, Food and ‘Feminism’: Expanding the Discourse of Mothering and Bulimia” Sigal Spigel (University of London, UK) “‘It exists when desired, it approaches when approached, it hurts when hurt. Lastly it vanishes when not wanted..’ On the Construction of the Maternal in D.W. Winnicott’s work Marrit Ingman (writer) “Fuck Dr. Sears, or the Fallact of Designer Parenting” Lisa Baraitser (University of London, UK) “Punch Drunk: A Phenomenology of Interruption”
Panel D2: EMPOWERING MOTHERS Karen Lane (Deakin University, Australia) “Women at the Centre: Childbirth, Trust and Collaborative Care” Pam McKenzie (University of Western Ontario) “Creating Women’s Information Spaces: Midwifery Clinics and Parent-Child Library Storytimes as ‘Information Grounds'”
Panel D3: THEORIZING PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH Jennifer Musial (York University) “Pregnant Pause: The ‘Empty Silence’ of Feminism Pregnancy Studies in Motherhood Discourses” Patricia R. Stokes (Ohio University) “Mothering, Feminism and Sacrifice” Sharon Ann Musher (Columbia University) “Feminism, Choice, and the Re-medicalization of Childbirth”
Panel D4: BREASTFEEDING: WOMEN’S BODIES, RIGHTS AND KNOWLEDGE Elizabeth Hoffmann (Purdue University) “Breastfeeding and the Law” Barbara Behrmann (writer, breastfeeding advocate) “Sharing the Gold: Old Practices, New Controversies” Lorraine Davies (University of Western Ontario) “Breastfeeding, Motherhood and Maternal Health” Karen MacLean (mother, translator, birth activist) “What My Daughter Knows: Towards an Epistemology of Breastfeeding”
5:30 – 7:00pm Reception
7:00 – 9 pm Friday Keynote: ARIEL GORE “$577 per month”
Saturday, October 23
8:30 – 9:00am Registration and Coffee/Muffins
9:00 – 10:30am Keynote Panel 1
MOTHERING AND FEMINISM: CHALLENGES
Meredith W. Michaels (Smith College) “Blogging Toward Feminism: The Internet and the Politics of Motherhood” Katherine Arnup (Carleton University) “Lesbian Mothers in Canada: The Second Generation Carol Duncan (Wilfrid Laurier University) “Mammy, Welfare Queen and Saint: Black Women, Race and Motherhood in Hollywood”
10:30 – 10:45am Refreshment Break
10:45 – 12:30pm Session E
Panel E1: MOTHERS AND ART Elizabeth Podnieks (Ryerson University) “‘the one true thing in my life’: Mother-Son Relations in the Arts and Life of Emily Coleman” Denise Bauer (SUNY New Paltz) “Alice Neel’s Portraits of Mother Work”
Panel E2: FEMINISM AND FATHERING Linda R. Ennis (York University) “Who is the Father of the Feminist Mother?”
Panel E3: MOTHERING AND EMPLOYMENT Corinne Rusch-Drutz (York University) “Performing the Good Mother: Maternal Identity, Professional Persona and Theatre Practice” Laura McLaughlan (York University) “Motherhood Issues: North American Feminism and the Spirit of Capitalism Kimberly Simmons (University of Southern Maine) and Pamela Aronson (Michigan State University) ‘Constructing a Feminist Career and Family Path: Personal Narratives and Multiple Strategies” Panel E4: NATURAL MOTHERING/ATTACHMENT PARENTING Suzanne Cox (Beloit College) “Attachment Theory and Attachment Parenting: Voices on Attachment Experiences and Mothering Choices” May Friedman (York University) “Feminism and Attachment Parenting” Abby Arnold (University of North Carolina Greensboro) “The Rhetoric of Motherhood” Tova Moscoe (University of Toronto) “Attachment Parenting, Feminist Theory, and the Relational Self: Intersections, Problems and Feminist Possibilities”
Panel E5: IMAGINARY SIBLINGS AND MURDERED CATERPILLARS: MOTHERING, GENDER AND IDENTITY FORMATION Wendy Lawrence (University of Idaho) “Which one am I? A Mother and Daughter Search for Identities” Diana C. Archibald (University of Massachusetts Lowell) “Boys Will Be Boys?; or, How to Raise a Feminist Son Who Won’t Get Beaten Up on the Playground”
Panel E6: MOTHERING UNDER DURESS Julia Krane and Linda Davies (McGill University) “Mothering under Difficult and Unusual Circumstances” Sandy Tanny (caseworker) “Who Speaks for the Children? Child Poverty and the Family Law Act” Amy Middleton (York University) “Mothering Under Duress: An Interrogation of the Inclusiveness of Feminist Mothering Theory” Heather M. Fitz Gibbon (College of Wooster) “‘Don’t Tell Me How to Mother’: Feminist Research, Class, and Understanding Motherhood”
Panel E7: FEMINIST MOTHERS ON THE SYLLABUS, FEMINIST MOTHERS IN THE CLASSROOM Rebecca Coogan (Aquinas College) “Re-Imagining Motherhood: Utopian Visions in the Classroom” Jennifer Dawson (Aquinas College) “Reconciling Motherhood and Citizenship: Republican Motherhood and Emerging Feminism in the Early American Literature Classroom” Michelle DeRose (Aquinas College) “When Good Mothers Do ‘Bad’ Things, of Can a Bad Girl Be a Good Mom?”
12:30 – 1:45pm Lunch (on your own)
1:45 – 3:30pm Session F
Panel F1: ACTIVISM AND MOTHERING MOVEMENTS Carole Roy (Trent University) “‘Dangerous Motherhood’: The Raging Grannies, Care and Creative Protests” Judith Stadtman Tucker (editor, The Mothers Movement Online) “Motherhood and Its Discontents: The Ideological and Political Grounding of the 21st Century Mothers Movement” Carla M. Eastis (Yale University) “What is a FEMALE?” Norma Buydens (historian and feminist legal theorist) “Lessons from the Heart in “The Mississippi of the North”: Building an Anti-Racist Feminism on Motherlove in White Settler Saskatchewan” Cheryl Gosselin (Bishop’s University) “Maternal Commitments to the Nation: Maternalist Groups at Work in Quebec During the 1950s and 60s”
Panel F2: CHALLENGING TRADITIONAL FAMILIES Colleen Mack-Canty (University of Idaho) and Sue Wright (Eastern Washington University) “Feminist Family Values” Rebecca Ellis (University of Western Ontario) “Letting Children be Free: The Promise of Feminist Parenting” Kate McCullough (Cornell University) “Reflections on Lesbian Feminist Motherhood” Eve Pearlman (writer) “Full-time Mothering: A Feminist Choice” Panel F3: TRANSFORMATION AND RESISTANCE Fiona Green (University of Winnipeg) “Feminism Mothers: Transformation and Activism” Barbara L. Behrmann (writer, breastfeeding advocate) “The Transformative Potential of Breastfeeding: Stories of Empowerment, Reclamation, Determination and Defiance” Lynn Makau (University of Texas) “‘Milked at Any Time’: Lactation and Women’s Resistance”
Panel F4: MOTHERING IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE (Part One) Nele Hempel (University of Memphis) “‘A Voice of Her Own’: The Depiction of the Mother in Contemporary German Fiction” Shane Trayers (Texas A&M University) “The Missing Mother Ireland: The Masculine Search for the Mother as a Search for the Self in Contemporary Irish Novels” Jennifer DeVille (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) “Motherhood/Motherland is Les amants de Shahrazade”
Panel F5: MOTHERING, RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY Deidre Hill Butler (Union College) “Fictive Family Relationships and Women’s Leadership Roles: An Analysis of African American Community Mothering” Marianne Hertnagel (CIIS California) “Dark Mother – Values on Mothering” Tina Beattie (University of Surrey Roehampton) “Now and at the Hour of our Death: Maternal Ethics, Natality and Mortality” Joyce Antler (Brandeis University) “Understanding “Matrophobia”: Jewish Mothers and the “Demon Texts” of Feminism”
Panel F6: MOTHERING AND POPULAR CULTURE Chair: Linda Hunter (University of Guelph) Trudelle Thomas (Xavier University) “Mothers and Motherhood in Young Adult Fantasy Lit.” Janice Goines (University of Auckland, New Zealand) “Dolores Claiborne: Unsettled Maternal Subjectivities” Arlene Campbell (York University) “‘O’ Say Can You See? The Oprah Magazine: Rhetoric, Role Model and Representation of Difference” Shirley Shalev (Tel-Aviv University) “The Social Construction of Motherhood: Media Representation of Surrogate Motherhood is Israel”
Panel F7: WORKSHOP “Is Motherhood A Patriarchal Plot Or Our Path to Liberation? Sharing Stories of Sleepness Nights and Absolute Joy” Joanna Radbord (mother, lawyer, lesbian)
3:30 – 3:45pm Refreshment Break
3:45 – 5:30pm Session G
Panel G1: MATERNAL ACTIVISM Pegeen Reichert Powell (St. Xavier University ) “Off Balance: Feminism Mothering and Activism” Janice Nathanson (York University) “Maternal Activism: How Feminist is it?” Tina Manghan (York University) “Losing our Innocence: The Feminist/Maternal Quest for Peace” Jane Barter Moulaison (University fo Lethbridge) and Lisa Lambert (Womanspace Resource Centre, Lethbridge) “Barriers to Political Participation Among Mothers of Young Children”
Panel G2: BECOMING A MOTHER: FACING NEW REALITIES Frances Greenslade (Luther College, University of Regina) “Rough Road to Motherhood: An Adventure Story” Lisa Raith (University of Southern Queensland, Australia) “The Challenge of Becoming a Mum: Fairytales and Home Truths” Lori E. Ross (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto) “Racism, Sexism and Heterosexism as Risk Factors for Postpartum Depression: A Feminist Analysis” Tina Miller (Oxford Brookes University) “Becoming a Mother: Myths and Motherhood”
Panel G3: MOTHERING IN EARLY LITERATURE AND WRITING Rebecca J. Tannenbaum (Yale University) “Elizabeth Drinker’s Female Line: Mothers, Daughters and Kinship in Eighteenth Century America” Cris Riddle (Creighton University) “Nora Helmer: Leading Feminists Down a Perilous Path” Kathryn Pivak (Duquesne University) “Subverting the System: Mary Augusta Ward’s ‘Good’ Mothers” Kristin A. Le Veness (Nassau College) “Feminist Motherhood: Anne Bronte’s Reworking of a Traditional Role”
Panel G4: MOTHERHOOD IN HISTORY: ADVICE TO MOTHERS Catherine Daligga (University of Michigan) “The Consultation Center of the Merrill-Palmer School in Detriot, 1924-1927: An Early Example of Science-Based Advice to Mothers (from a Female Perspective) Allen G. Wood (Purdue University) “The Marquise as Mother” Patricia C. Simmons (University of Toronto) “The Ethics of Care in Early Modern England” Glenda Wall (Wilfred Laurier University) “Expert Advice and Mothers’ Experiences: Contradiction and Dissonance”
Panel G5: FEMINIST MOTHERS AND ADOPTION Rosie Moosnick (writer, mother) “Adopting Maternity: White Women Who Adopt Transracially or Transnationally” Janice Williamson (University of Alberta) “Mothering and Work: Thinking Through Adoptive Midlife Mothering” Panel G6: MOTHERING IN THE THIRD WAVE Mirah Kirshner (freelance writer) and Leigh Felesky (freelance writer) “We’ve Come a Long Way Baby? Mother Myths of the New Millenium” Mary Thompson (James Madison University) “Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Motherhood in Ariel Gore’s Breeder: Real Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers and Sapphire’s PUSH” Rebecca Ellis (University of Western Ontario) “Mama Zine Revolution” Panel G7: MOTHERING AND CREATIVITY Gisela Norat (Agnes Scott College) “From Empanadas to Gingerbread Cookies: A Cuban Heritage for an American Daughter” – excerpt
5:30 – 6:30pm Reception
Sunday, October 24
9:30 – 10:00am Coffee and Muffins
10:00 -11:45am Session H Panel H1: FEMINIST MOTHERS AND ACADEME Stephanie Knaak (University of Alberta) “Planning a Party for Dorothy Smith: An Exploration of Bifurcated Consciousness” Angela Conrad (Bloomfield College) “Kids on Campus and Why Childcare is STILL a Feminist Issue” Deborah Davidson and Debra Langan (York University) “The Bitter Milk of Contradiction: Feminist Teaching Comes Head to Breast with Mothering”
Panel H2: MOTHERWORK AND GENDER EQUALITY Lorna Turnbull (University of Manitoba) “Gender Equality and Mothering” Bonnie Fox (University of Toronto) “‘My Time Has Come’: Motherhood, Womanhood and the Issue of Oppression” Marty Grace (Victoria University, Australia) “Economic Independence for Mothers of Young Children?”
Panel H3: NARRATING MATERNAL SUBJECTIVITIES Joanne S. Frye (The College of Wooster) “Narrating Maternal Subjectivity: Memoirs from Motherhood” Laura Major (Bar Ilan University, Israel) “Alicia Ostriker’s Propaganda for Motherhood” Julie Rosewarne Foster (Monash University, Australia) “Representations of Maternal Subjectivity in the Art of Women Artists” Sharon Abbey (Brock University) “Maternal Narratives as Feminist Inquiry” Panel H4: MOTHERING IN COMTEMPORARY LITERATURE (Part Two) Amy Hudock (University of South Carolina) “The Feminist Literary Canon Through the Lens of the Maternal” Shelley Martin (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) “Feminism, Motherhood, and Possibilities in the Writing of Bronwen Wallace” Lucia Bortoli (The Ohio State University) “Francesca Sanvitale and Fabrizia Ramondino and the Revision of Mothering and Motherhood in Italy”
11:45 – 12:00 Refreshment Break
12:00 – 1:30pm Keynote Panel 2
MOTHERING AND FEMINISM: POSSIBILITIES Patrice DiQuinzio (Muhlenberg College) “Maternalist Politics and a Politics of Motherhood: Possibilities and Pitfalls” Chris Bobel (University of Massechusetts Boston) “Resistance, Retreat or Revision?: Making Sense of Natural Mothering as Social Change” Andrea Buchanan (author of Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It) “Writing About Motherhood” Andrea O’Reilly (York University) “From Martyred Motherhood to Empowered Mothering in Contemporary Feminist Thought on Motherhood”
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
