Worn Out! Motherwork in the Age of Austerity (17th Annual Women's History Conference at Sarah Lawrence College)

On Friday, March 6 and Saturday, March 7 during various times, the 17th Annual Women’s History Conference at Sarah Lawrence College will be held in the Heimbold Visual Arts Center and Slonim House.  (915 Kimball Ave, Bronxville NY 10708)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that more than 60 percent of mothers of preschool children are in the paid workforce, and for mothers of school-age children, that figure nears 80 percent. If paychecks were all it took to liberate women, we would be well on our way. Instead, we are exhausted, and while this problem is hardly unique to the United States, the American system of long hours on the job and scant provisions for public welfare makes the challenges of motherwork all the more acute. It is not hard to figure out what brought us to this pass: wage stagnation, increasingly lengthy workweeks, proliferating numbers of single-parent households and two-income couples, gaping holes in the social safety net, erosion of labor unions, and diminished public spending on youth recreation, daycare, afterschool programs and other services crucial to working families. The question is, what can we do to turn things around? This conference will explore answers to that question.

Friday Keynote: Roksana Badruddoja, member of the Academic Advisory Board for the Museum of Motherhood (MOM), Board Member of the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF), and Professor of Sociology and Women’s Gender Studies at Manhattan College.

Saturday sessions include: Motherwork, Race, and The Criminal Justice System; Writing Motherhood; Historical Perspectives on Motherwork; Mothers at Work; Failing to Mother: Unnatural Mothers, Delinquent Mothers, and Wicked Stepmothers in U.S. History; “Fueron hijos neustros…” State Appropriation of Motherhood in Three Contemporary Latin American Contexts; Moms in Cyberspace: How Social Media is Transforming Peer-Support Groups for Mothers of Young Children; Motherwork and Special Needs; Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock, Mommy’s on the Tenure Clock: Women Junior Faculty on Mentorship, Marking, and Maternity Policies; Maternal Body Politics; Mediated Motherhood: Rules for Parenting in a Post-Feminist Era; Redefining Motherhood through Community and Activism: Two Historical Examples of How the Work of Women Shaped America’s Health; Academic Mothering: Envisioning a Mother Friendly University; Motherwork as Bodywork: The Problem of Invisible Laborers.

For more information and to register, visit http://www.sarahlawrence.edu/womens-history/conference/. #SLCMotherworkcon