Maternalism

In general, the term matemalism refers to the state of owning qualities traditionally deemed “motherly,” such as warmth, tenderness, and commitment to the protection and provision of children. By the latter 19th century in the United States, matemalism began to take on sociopolitical connotations, so that the term came to denote a school of activism in which women, to fight for public causes, appealed to the qualities they believed were inherent to their gender. As a result, maternalists are seen as women who take mothering outside the home and into their communities for the larger social good. Matemalism stems from two ideas: (1) that women are valuable because they are different from men and (2) that their public roles derive from their private roles. While maternal-ism is usually identified with the Progressive Era in the United States (1880s-1920s), its logic and effects are still evident today.

Matemalism owns a rich history in the United States. Influenced by the Victorian era, 19th-century North Americans upheld a model of “True Womanhood,” which defined a woman's worth by her dedication to her family and selfless support of the domestic sphere. Women were expected to stay in the home to devote themselves to their families and child care and to support their husbands as primary breadwinners. Culturally, they were cast as sexually pure icons and religious devotees. To maintain this ideal, women were discouraged from participating in the “male” public sphere, such as politics and the workplace. In the vein of feminism asserting that differences between men and women are socially constructed rather than biological, these activists [Page 523]worked from assertions that because women were more pious, moral, and “pure” than men, they were apt candidates to improve the lives of all Americans. In other words, they were the “natural” caretakers and nurturers not only of their families, but of the extended social family, or state, as well.

Advocating for public causes therefore grew from feminist interests, such as equal rights, support of the family, and child welfare. Many maternalists argued for suffrage, for example, since voting was a powerful tool for reforming the country. Purity could be applied to politics as well as sexuality, thereby furthering the argument that if women really were more moral than men, they could remain disinterested from partisan politics and instead invest in what was objectively best for the country. Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, and Julia Lathrop were early leaders of this maternahst movement, which began with the encouragement of primarily middle-class wives and mothers to invest their civic energies into lobbying for a more humane world by bettering the welfare of American children. To these early maternahst activists, women's political empowerment was not to be found by upsetting the status quo of male dominance, but in engaging women's attachment to family and sentimental fervor for the safety and sanctity of children.

The second half of the 19th century was marked by a rapid increase in industrialization and urbanization. As a result, maternahst reformers were positioned to respond to a host of social ills, such as poverty, disease, and exploitation of child labor. By organizing voluntary groups and clubs, maternalists were able to successfully institute a wide range of policy reforms from the grassroots level. Such landmark social provisions included reduced work hours for women and child labor laws, the establishment of a separate juvenile justice system, food and drug regulations, compulsory school attendance and public kindergartens, nationwide programs to reduce infant mortality and promote children's and women's health, state-funded pensions for abandoned and destitute mothers, and food and drug regulations. Examples of groups from the maternalist reform movement included the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the National Congress of Mothers, and the National Consumer's League, among others. The maternalist reform ethic resulted from the popular notion that women—especially mothers—were uniquely qualified to right the wrongs of an uncaring society.

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