Dr Terri Apter, a psychologist and senior tutor at Newnham College, Cambridge University, who carried out the research for her new book What Do You Want From Me?, found that two-thirds of daughters-in-law believed that their husband's mother frequently exhibited jealous, maternal love towards their sons.
Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law conflict often emerges from an expectation that each is criticising or undermining the other, but this mutual unease may have less to do with actual attitudes and far more to do with persistent female norms that few of us manage to shake off completely,' she added.
For example, although a daughter-in-law is an adult in her own household, a mother-in-law's maternal expertise is already established and she may expect deference. 'There then arises that tricky question about who is "mother" in the family, with final say over all those things women still assume charge over: housework and child care, meal times and children's manners,' said Apter.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/nov/30/women-family
‘Care’ where mothers are concerned is depicted in terms of giving support and undertaking mundane chores and responsibilities such as towel-drying children, cooking for the family, encouraging and applauding children’s efforts, getting the children dressed and preparing them for public events, and watching over their safety Feminist_Critical_Discourse_Analysis_Gender_Power_..._----_(6_Performing_State_Fatherhood_The_Remaking_of_Hegemony).pdf
Individual issues were systematic, not just personal. It’s traced back to social structures, rooted in a wider inequality, they realised with a new consciousness. Cannot be changed individually, but burdened by policy makers to change society.
Giving up their job to take on a maternal role (because of gender roles) is to sacrifice a huge part of their identity. This is built on what we know (social practices), and what we know influences on what we do.
Negative prosody
Prespositional phrase; “on their behalf”
Sunderland (2000, 2004) works to recognise and name discourses by identifying their linguistic ‘traces’. As she explains, discourses are not concrete entities, waiting to be ‘spotted’, and are never truly present in a text in their entirety. But linguists can pin-point linguistic features which hint at the existence of a particular discourse, and treat those features as a starting point in the reconstruction of that discourse.
The_Routledge_Handbook_of_Language_Gender_and_Sexu..._----_(Chapter_27_Analysing_gendered_discourses_online_child-centric_motherho...).pdf
1:26:20 MDA
Pressure and expectancy on women, not men, to want to have children. In terms of work or not. Losing privacy and ownership of their bodies. Valued not only by the function of the body’s fertility, but by its fruition of usage.
Lack of awareness regarding Unconscious bias, any correction and education seen as unnecessary and troublesome, might offend those who mean well in their actions. This in turn reinforce behaviours that can be problematic
Women’s guilt tripping on women to have children
Phrasing women as selfish when they do not oblige. “Career women, no career men”
Common discourse
-regarding women who don’t want children: “You’ll regret it”
-regarding women who are circumstantially unable to have children: “Pitiful”
You won’t regret what you don’t want. It works different ways as well. Having to regret a child is worse than having to regret not having a child.
https://nypost.com/2021/10/27/why-more-young-women-are-getting-sterilized/
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/08/the-emotional-landmine-of-asking-about-future-grandkids/567305/
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/a28635150/why-we-need-to-stop-pressuring-women-over-30-to-have-children/
https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/article/the-decision-not-to-have-a-kid-is-personal-but-the-social-pressure-against-the-choice-is-all-pervasive/articleshow/81259181.cms
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/02/08/does-society-pressure-men-and-women-have-children
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/anti-abortion-activist-fetuses?d_id=3337156&ref=bffbbuzzfeedvideo&utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bffbbuzzfeedvideo&fbclid=IwAR09BEBjmhn4kMUKS0VtNS4A9tHJyT1S0hVl-6rsGIeyc4Hhv5yRliOjKjg
research gap: the lives of single and unmarried women are explored in books such as melanie notkin’s ‘Otherhood’
whereas married women who do not want children are treated as more unnatural and selfish, because they indulge in sex purely for pleasure. This discourse is not valid, as going into sex for a child does not in any way negate the so-called selfishness. In fact, it could be even more selfish as the act of regretting a child affects the child’s life, while the act of regretting not having a child applies to the individual alone.
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