Sons and Mothers

Empowered Mothering

The first theme considers the various ways that the institution of motherhood oppresses women, circumvents mother and son attachment, and causes boys to be raised sexist and to adopt patriarchal masculinity. Researchers agree that motherhood, as it is currently perceived and practiced in patriarchal societies, is disempowering, if not oppressive, for a multitude of reasons; namely, the societal devaluation of mother-work, the endless tasks of privatized mothering and the impossible standards of idealized motherhood. They go on to argue that the institution of motherhood fosters sexism and patriarchal masculinity, and thus mothers must reject patriarchal motherhood in order to bring about the gender transformations they wish for themselves and their sons. Judith Arcana, for example, in Every Mother's Son, the first book-length study on the mother-son relationship, argues that traditional motherhood positions mothers as secondary to and in service to children and men. “Though children of both sexes put their mothers in the position of servants, mothers of sons are inadvertently reinforcing the sexist premise that women exist to serve men. Thus men learn from infancy to expect and solicit selflessness and cherishing care from women,” Arcana explains.

Given that a woman's secondary status is enforced in both the gender arena (service to men) and in the maternal realm (service to children) mothers must, if they hope to raise non-sexist sons, challenge both patriarchal imperatives: women are to serve both children and men. In other words, in order to change the way men experience and define masculinity, women must change the way they define and experience motherhood. To achieve this, mothers must practice what has been termed empowered or outlaw mothering. In the first instance, empowered mothering functions as an oppositional discourse of motherhood; more specifically, it signifies a theory and practice of mothering that seeks to challenge the dominant discourse of motherhood and change the various ways that the lived experience of patriarchal motherhood is limiting or oppressive to women. The overarching aim of empowered mothering is to confer to mothers the agency, authority, authenticity, autonomy, advocy/activism denied to them in patriarchal motherhood. Empowered mothering enables mothers to challange and correct the seflessness and servitude demanded of women in patriarchal motherhood and thus counter the sexism that such engenders in sons.

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