Globalization and Mothering

History of Mothers and Globalization

Before considering how globalization has affected mothers, it is just as important to ask when globalization occurred, as to ask what globalization is. Although globalization usually refers to more recent historical phenomena, European imperialism and the subsequent industrial revolution began this process. From the 16th century onwards, imperialism involved mothers as European colonizers and as colonized subjects in underdeveloped countries. Globalization might be understood as consisting of several phases including European colonization of much of the globe; the growth of European trade in the 1800s; the contraction of world markets in the wake of World War I and the Great Depression; the imposition of Western ideas of industrialization and development on the underdeveloped countries since the 1950s; concurrent opposition to globalization through the emergence of import substitution policies in parts of Latin America, Africa, and Asia; and a new era of free trade starting in the 1990s.

European women's role in colonial rule is a complex one that encompassed resistance to imperialism, such as their work in the antislavery movement, as well as complicity in its aims. European women (especially those of the middle and upper classes) were often able to assume more power and prestige through their roles as wives and mothers in colonial locations than in their countries of origin. White women worked as missionaries and teachers in the colonies, occupying positions of authority not available to them at home.

White women's support of colonial regimes, the “civilizing mission,” and military outposts is a forerunner of privileged women's complicated relationship to the twin powers of globalization and militarization in the present. One consequence of the intersection of reproduction and colonization is the ways in which white, middle-class, heterosexual motherhood was reified, and the mothering performed by women of color, working-class women, and lesbians has been devalued.

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