For many people, mothering is indeed experimental, an evolutionary, learning process of trial and error. For Dr. Amber Kinser, mothering is more than an experiment. It is research.During her 10 years as director of ETSU’s Women’s Studies program, Kinser’s research, gave birth to numerous papers, presentations and publications on feminism and mothering and the natural off-shoot: feminist mothering.
Her writing and research have appeared in journals and anthologies such as Feminist Mothering, Mother Knows Best: Talking Back to the Baby Experts, Encyclopedia of Mothering Being and Thinking as an Academic Mother, as well as in Mothering in the Third Wave (2008), an anthology that Kinser, who is now chair of the ETSU Communication Department, compiled and edited.
The culmination of those endeavors is a new progeny, her first solo-authored book: Motherhood and Feminism, which came off the presses at Seal Press in California this summer. Motherhood and Feminism encompasses powerful mothering from the 1800s to “mommy bloggers” in the “Mamasphere” and what Kinser calls “maternalist activism.”
The book should provoke considerable reflection and discussion, says Communication Department Research Coordinator and Health Communication professor Dr. Kelly Dorgan, because Kinser’s perspectives on the melding of mothering and feminism are unique.
“There is such a courage to her scholarship,” says Dorgan. “She is not afraid to address issues that are controversial or scary. Her scholarship forces the reader to live in the question. She does not provide simplistic answers.
“She addresses the ‘messiness’ of life. It is hard to make decisions, and sometimes we’re good mothers and sometimes we’re good feminists and occasionally we are both and sometimes we are neither. That’s what will make for some good discussion.”
The book is already catalyzing some constructive conversations this fall, says Kinser, who is using her newest book as the text for her Constructing Motherhood, a cross-disciplinary course in Women’s Studies and speech. “I was afraid the students would expect me to have the whole book memorized and it’s been a year since I wrote it,” she says with a laugh. “It hasn’t happened yet but it’s only the second week [of classes]. It is really fun teaching a class about which I know so much . If I teach feminist theory I know my stuff, too, but I have to dig deeper in my memory for information. But the motherhood stuff is right there and I can dance around in it.”
The original purpose of the book was not to be a textbook for her own class, but as part of an educational series by Seal Press on different and timely topics, such as masculinity, pop culture and transgender issues. For the series, Kinser was asked to bring “feminist mothering” from the 19th century to the present and into the future.
“I had to do an enormous amount of reading because most of my training was in modern theory,” says Kinser, who became chair in January after serving 10 years as ETSU’s first director of Women’s Studies, as well as professor in speech and Women’s Studies. “It was such a good experience for me to plot out a diagram of what happened in the 1870s, the 1890s, 1900 to the present .
“I had a couple goals. I wanted to make feminist theory accessible to more people. Sometimes you hear the phrase ‘just theory,’ insinuating that it’s not real and not usable and that’s actually not true but it can feel that way if it’s not accessible.
“Another goal was to project an accurate picture of feminism relative to motherhood. If you listen to public dialogue, those two are incompatible . So I wanted to illustrate that feminism has a long history of trying to figure out a way for motherhood to be freeing and empowering and a source of joy for women.”
The reality of Kinser’s years of researching other women’s perspectives and her own experiences in feminist mothering, however, is that while sometimes empowering and joyful, mothering in the third, more recent, wave of feminism can indeed be conflicting, or messy.
“It can be done, but probably not without guilt and self-doubt,” says Kinser, who holds a doctorate from Purdue University and bachelor’s and master’s from University of South Florida. “The cultural messages about what a mother should be and what a feminist’s life should look like are so pervasive, powerful and ideological, you can’t escape coming up against that with every professional and parenting decision you make. You just have to get used to it.
“Many mothers rightfully want to pursue their own goals but they also want to have everyone OK with that, so we spend a lot of time getting everyone OK with our choices, and modifying the choices when people aren’t OK with them. But the cultural ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldn’ts’ for moms are too powerful. People are not going to be OK with mothers prioritizing themselves, so we have to get used to that and accept their discomfort and accept our self-doubt and pursue our goals anyway.
“Our child-rearing methods have evolved in ways that are absurdly out of sync with contemporary life and they have no roots in human history. The 24/7 micromanagement of children’s lives and the impossible standards imposed on mothers is very new thinking and very problematic for women, children and families.”
Raw, truthful and provocative is how Dorgan describes Kinser’s writing. “That’s what Amber’s work does,” Dorgan says. “It doesn’t shy away. It doesn’t shy away from the messiness. It doesn’t shy away from the mud puddle. It walks in it and thrashes around. How many people are willing to roll in it and examine it?
“There is a bravery to her work . She is very much a part of her writing. It’s important from a scholarly perspective but it’s also daring.
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