EDP 362T Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Pink-Collar Worker, Safe Sex, Parental Leave
Chapter 9 Review:
• Motherhood mystique – ideology of motherhood:
o Ultimate fulfillment for a woman: natural, necessary. Those who don’t want to be
mothers are psychologically disturbed, and those who want to but can’t are
fundamentally deprived.
o Women are instinctively good at caregiving, should be responsible for everyone
in the home. Should enjoy this work.
o Mother has infinite patience, willing to sacrifice herself to her children.
o Intense, full-time devotion to mothering is best for her children. Women who
work are inferior mothers.
o This continues because creates economic dependence on men to justify women’s
lower status and pay, persists in Western society because it’s the one area that
values connectedness and caring over individuality, and the dominant group
continues to benefit.
• Pink collar jobs get paid less bc it should be “instinctive” = easier = myths get
perpetuated.
• Why do women have children?
o Traditional societies: as workers, a way to pass on property, customary way of
life, form of personal immortality.
o Industrialized societies: children are economic liability vs. economic value in
traditional societies.
o Inherent psychological benefits + instinctive drive for pregnancy.
o Social pressure (motherhood mandate): choice to not have children is bad,
especially men’s pressure that women feel.
• Mothering is learned, not instinct.
• Process of mothering is a kind of doing gender that produces people who can nurture
others.
• Motherhood mandate: social pressure on women to have children.
o Americans have strong negative childlessness and one-child families.
o College students: attitudes toward parenthood are more flexible.
• Childless by choice or circumstance?
o Voluntarily: more likely to be high educated.
▪ Reasons: finance, education/career, dangers of childbirth, bearing child
with disabilities, overpopulation concerns, belief they’re not suited for
nurturing and caring for children.
o Circumstance: these women have to bear feelings of guilt and failure. Acceptance
is gradual. Realize that after years of trying, more efforts would be futile.
o Marital satisfaction drops with birth of first child and won’t return to original
level til children leave home.
o There’s no relationship b/w whether a woman had children and her psychological
well-being.
o Those without children have fewer social ties in old age than those who were
parents, and were more likely to live alone/in institution but no less satisfied with
lives.
o Finance
o Dangers of childbirth and bearing defective child.
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o Concerns of overpopulation.
o Not personally suited for nurturing.
o Education/career.
• How does society restrict women’s choices?
o Reproductive freedom: feminists advocate for all women, ideal that hasn’t been
achieved, right to sex ed, safe and reliable contraception, end to forced
sterilization and birth control for poor and minority women, safe/legal abortion.
▪ Pro-choice: all choices about reproduction should be made by the woman
herself.
▪ Contraception: women are expected to take responsibility for safer sex,
psychological factors, lack of power in heterosexual relationship, and
sexual scripts make it harder for women to take control in this area.
• Some are messy, inconvenient, interfere with spontaneity.
• Many problems using contraceptives effectively for women in poor
and developing countries.
• Some countries controlling fertility is a mixed blessing: some have
easily accessible contraceptives but are expected to provide a child
or else would get replaced as a wife; or expected to produce sons.
• Family planning empowers women, but also increase anxiety and
psychological distress when living in extreme gender inequality
contexts. Effective contraceptives need to take women’s
psychological needs and cultural contexts into account.
▪ Abortion: Roe v. Wade in 1974 makes abortion legal in the US.
• The Hyde Amendment in 1976 – prohibits use of Medicaid money
for abortions except in cases of incest, rape, and when mother’s
life is medically endangered.
• Combo of legal restrictions and lack of public funding = influence
women not to get an abortion. Very effective.
• Mifepristone (Mifeprex/RU-486): safely induces abortion early in
pregnancy by causing uterine lining to slough off. Made legal and
available to American women in 2000.
• Plan B: still need prescription or else it might encourage young
women to have unprotected sex.
• Contraception: effective contraception services consider women’s
psychological needs and cultural context.
• Number of doctors performing abortions have decreased a lot
because of violent threats and protests, which also affect women
who are getting abortions (doesn’t change their decisions, but
make them feel bad).
• Poor women resort to self-induced abortions = bad, higher rate of
abortion-related deaths.
• Feminists and conservatives both agree preventing unwanted
pregnancy > abortion, but conservatives want abstinence, while
feminists want better sex eds and more access to contraceptives
(liberal approaches show decrease in abortion).
▪ Science, censorship, and the Information Wars
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Chapter 9 review: motherhood mystique ideology of motherhood, ultimate fulfillment for a woman: natural, necessary. Those who don"t want to be mothers are psychologically disturbed, and those who want to but can"t are fundamentally deprived: women are instinctively good at caregiving, should be responsible for everyone in the home. Should enjoy this work: mother has infinite patience, willing to sacrifice herself to her children, intense, full-time devotion to mothering is best for her children. Very effective: mifepristone (mifeprex/ru-486): safely induces abortion early in pregnancy by causing uterine lining to slough off. Transition to motherhood: once a mom, always a mom. Role affects woman"s sense of self: how does motherhood change work and marital roles, bigger changes in women"s lives than men"s because take on child care and house work. Not allowed to mourn old, lost self: attitudes to pregnant women vary by social class, middle class: delicate and special.
