Scientific motherhood
Scientific motherhood is the belief that women need scientific and expert advice in order to properly raise a child. It discredits a mother’s intuition and generations of knowledge accumulated by mothers. Pregnant women and mothers are given expectations for what it takes to ensure their child’s safety and success. The basis of these expectations were developed in the 19th century and have progressed with the technological advances to the present day.
In the United States, there was shift that enforced that women were now in charge of ensuring the health for their families but there was also an emphasis on the seeking of professional expertise. "Women were both responsible for their families and incapable of that responsibility."[1] It enforced the gender stereotype of women not being intelligent or strong enough to successfully take care of their children, despite doing it for centuries. Women and families had to rely on the scientific knowledge production of doctors and scientists instead of other mothers who share experiences.
Sociologist Lee Jae Kyung has described the influence of scientific motherhood in South Korea.[2]
References[edit]
- ^ APPLE, RIMA D. (1995). "Constructing Mothers: Scientific Motherhood in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". Social History of Medicine. 8 (2): 161–178. doi:10.1093/shm/8.2.161. ISSN 0951-631X. PMID 11639804.
- ^ Lee, Jae Kyung (January 1999). "The Glorification of 'Scientific Motherhood' as an Ideological Construct in Modern Korea". Asian Journal of Women's Studies. 5 (4): 9–27. doi:10.1080/12259276.1999.11665861. ISSN 1225-9276.
Further reading[edit]
- Foss, Katherine A. (2010-05-26). "Perpetuating "Scientific Motherhood": Infant Feeding Discourse in Parents Magazine, 1930–2007". Women & Health. 50 (3): 297–311. doi:10.1080/03630242.2010.480905. ISSN 0363-0242. PMID 20512747. S2CID 239494.
- Frederick, Angela (2017-01-09). "Risky Mothers and the Normalcy Project: Women with Disabilities Negotiate Scientific Motherhood". Gender & Society. doi:10.1177/0891243216683914. S2CID 151349235.
- Parker, Judith; Brennan, Sheryl (1998). "Nursing and motherhood constructions: implications for practice". Nursing Inquiry. 5 (1): 11–17. doi:10.1046/j.1440-1800.1998.510011.x. ISSN 1440-1800. PMID 9611576.
- Weiner, Lynn Y. (1994-03-01). "Reconstructing Motherhood: The La Leche League in Postwar America". Journal of American History. 80 (4): 1357–1381. doi:10.2307/2080604. ISSN 0021-8723. JSTOR 2080604.
- Faircloth, Charlotte (2010-11-01). "'What Science Says is Best': Parenting Practices, Scientific Authority and Maternal Identity". Sociological Research Online. 15 (4): 85–98. doi:10.5153/sro.2175. ISSN 1360-7804. S2CID 143459995.
- Apple, Rima Dombrow (2006). Perfect Motherhood: Science and Childrearing in America. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-3843-3.
- Apple, Rima D. (1987). Mothers and Medicine: A Social History of Infant Feeding, 1890–1950. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-11483-1.
- Livingston, Taylor (2016). "Scientific motherhood". In Naples, Nancy A. (ed.). The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-118-66321-9.
- Kozak, Nadine I. (2005). "Advice Ideals and Rural Prairie Realities: National and Prairie Scientific Motherhood Advice, 1920-29". In Louie, Siri (ed.). Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving the West Through Women's History. University of Calgary Press. pp. 179–204. ISBN 978-1-55238-177-9.
- Litt, Jacquelyn S.; Subramaniam, Banu; Weasel, Lisa (2020-03-24). "Taking Science to the Household: Scientific Motherhood in Women's Lives". In Mayberry, Maralee (ed.). Feminist Science Studies: A New Generation. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-08281-4.