Good For Her, Not Me, By Amy Poehler

Linda Pastan’s poem Marks is a short narrative many women will be able to identify with, as it addresses the tasks by which a stay at home mother is measured. Reduced to a mere extension of her “work,” or family, the female narrator describes in detail not only the domesticity that rules her life, but also the fact that her family has the audacity to assign grades to her efforts. Her husband instrumentalizes her by treating her not as a partner, but as a tool to satisfy his need for to be clothed and fed. He also exhibits fungibility over her in that she is interchangeable with other woman, rather than being her own unique person in the relationship. Finally, he grades his wife even on her performance in the bedroom, reducing her even further to body, vice an active participant in this most intimate facet of their lives. Fortunately, the wife’s self-esteem remains intact, despite her family’s best efforts to dislodge it. In her feminist poem Marks, Linda Pastan highlights the power a husband has over his wife as he subjects her to instrumentality, fungibility, and reduction to body, yet the woman’s inner strength refuses to bow to their systemic oppression.

“The most important force in the remaking of the world is a free motherhood.” This quote from Margaret Sanger highlights many first wave feminists views about the restrictions of motherhood, marriage, and household responsibilities. Many women saw being a mother as a chore or as something out of their control. Sanger fought these restrictions through bringing birth control to the general public who suffered from poverty due to large families. Others, like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrote social critiques in her texts “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Herland to bring attention to how society treats women and ideally how motherhood should be. Both of these women believed motherhood was a responsibility of women and they should take it more seriously to create better future generations. This goes beyond the suffrage and equality movement because it dictated that women’s sexual emancipation was equally important as women’s legal emancipation. Being a mother was considered a woman’s most crucial task at this time, therefore the power behind female sexual education and birth control challenged society to feminist.

In her interviews with woman she was sure to interview very well educated women and those that strived for mere perfection. One thing is that the men in the lives of these women were not supportive and not mentioned of much. The men and society of today have placed a lot of responsibility on a woman’s shoulders when it comes to the child. It is the woman who makes the decision or is given the task to make the heavy decisions regarding the child’s future. Because of this many women choose to stay at home to be sure that the children will receive everything that they deserve and that they are not lacking in any area. Another issue that she reviews is that employers do not work with moms at all. For example she talked about the scenario where two moms brought a solution to their problem to management yet it failed to receive approval instead one mother was offered more money (Guest, 2011). Employers are not very flexible when it comes to mothers and don’t provide the proper care that is needed for a child. Since men are the ones that don’t carry the responsibility of the child’s well-being having proper day care is not a factor for them. Then there is the cost of day care which is high and can at times not compare to what the individual is making.

Women’s role within the household has changed considerably over a period of time. In the later days in the United States women were to attend to the children and to the house and not do much more than that. Children are now being raised by stay at home dads instead of the stereotypical stay at home moms. According to Gardner, "Real-life families have changed considerably since 'Mr. Mom ' appeared, with more men sharing child-rearing and household chores." (Gardner 2010) This is occurring because women’s jobs are no longer labeled as being just for women. Men have gotten a lot of criticism for being stay at

The online website SavvyAuntie.com was created by Melanie Notkin to help and inspire childless women with caring for children they care about whether it is exchanging ideas, getting advice or finding gifts. Sara Hayden evaluated the website and addressed the concepts of momism, intensive mothering and constitutive rhetoric. There is little previous research on both intensive mothering and on childless women. Hayden’s thesis is that new momism and our culture as consumers promotes shallow communities and relationships that negatively impact the people that take part in them.

The essence of the relationship between a mother and child is a mutual ascendency in regards to identity. Children are subject to an instinctive longing for a mother. It is the mother’s influence that guides them in their process of discovering all the realities the world posses and in that processing discerning their identity. Conversely when a woman becomes a mother the presence of her child causes her to evaluate and develop her identity under the pretense of motherhood. Paula Nicolson touches on the value of both these scenarios in her article “Motherhood and Women’s Lives” where she expresses how the mother child relationship gives the pretense for both parties to find their authentic identities (Nicolson). Sue Monk Kidd evaluates the

In the article, “A Mother’s Day Kiss-Off,” author Leslie Bennetts explains her rage about the Mother’s Day holiday and the unfair expectations of mothers in modern America. Bennetts feels that the treatment of women and mothers is unfair, causing women and mothers everywhere to be angry. Bennetts proclaims that women feel inferior in most aspects of life, and she explains that this is unfair and all too common. Bennetts challenges women to realize that they are not alone and should keep fighting for themselves. In doing so, Bennetts loses credibility in her idea that women are oppressed housewives due to her negative tone and approach to men and husbands.

One of the most traditional roles to be assumed as women, is to embrace the role of motherhood, but as of the 21st century, many women are deciding to do both, facing criticism for doing both or one of the either (The Glass Ceiling Effect*).

One of the main topics that this week’s reading issued was the maternal wall. The maternal wall is the idea that women receive stereotypes at work because they are mothers and they constantly must decide between families and work. According to Williams and Dempsey (2014) some females leave their employments and can become financially helpless (p. 128). Females decide to leave their job because sometimes it is hard to balance family and work. As a female in the work industry I have seen that women get judged either way if they work or don’t. Women can be illustrated as an irresponsible person if she devotes a lot of time to work and less to her kids and family. Like wise women get judged for not working in the 21st century. I think that either

As English author Jill Cooper said, “There’s always been that idea of: 'Oh you’re just a mother, you’re just a housewife”.(?) However, these ideas about women are not just isolated to the western world. For example, when visiting the first child born in Istanbul in the year 2015, a prominent minister of health, Mehmet Müezzinoğlu said, “Mothers have a career in motherhood that no one else in the world can have. Mothers should not prioritize any career other than that of motherhood. They should focus on raising good generations.” These are common ideas that still often permeate society, that women should give up their careers to focus only on being a mother because that is their sole purpose. Similarly, Beyoncé is essentially showing that she refuses to make her role as a wife and a mother the sole part of her identity and is still able to maintain her own autonomy.

Media has long been a way to send specific messages to a selective audience. Magazines, television, movies, ads, and even video games have become a way tell people how they should appear or behave. While not all media influences are negative, most are not positive. Some television shows or movies have programmed gender roles into society’s minds. Also, magazines especially, advertising has distorted impressionable men and women’s body image. These are only two of the many influences the media has on human behavior.

Media is a huge influence on how the family is portrayed because television and movies are a source for learning how family structure should be. Comedies in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s showed family structures should more nuclear through shows like The Brady Bunch and Leave It to Beaver with a bread winning dad and a stay at home mom. Media made the expectations of families to be picture perfect and traditional. As time went on more racial diversity came into place through successful shows like The Cosby Show in the 1980’s. The media alters and adapts to the view of what a family should be like based on social and economical circumstances within our society. A perfect example of the modern view of family today is the hit

Not only are woman subjected to society norms based on their personality characteristics, but also on their life choices and “domestic responsibilities” questions arise for woman like “who will care for you children and husband”. Montague Kern and Paige P. Edley state that women will continue to be “criticized for abandoning their traditional family roles” (1). This topic is not something that is brought up to their male counterparts. I don’t believe I have ever heard a man be questioned on who was going to assume the responsibility of raising their children. So until society genuinely accepts that raising children and other domestic issues are shared endeavors, then women will continue to face this barrier. (Robson, 208)

Society holds the guidelines of how a mother are supposed to be. We may not be aware of it but, it all comes down to what we see in the media, advertisements, television shows, movies, etc. Some messages are clear as day while others are hidden in plain sight. For example, magazines like ‘Good Housekeeping’, ‘Better Homes & Gardens’, ‘Taste & Home’, which are only a few out of hundreds of magazines that are targeted towards women. Many women won’t think anything of it but these magazines have one thing in common; To tell women how they need to be and what to strive for.

Being a mother is a lifelong commitment that will bring many smiles and tears; making this sacrifice requires a person to always be on call, pull overtime daily, lose sleep at times, anddo daily chores that come along with this lifestyle, making motherhood a full-time job. Somemothers may have to work for financial reasons or some may choose to work simply because it is what they love to do. Society screams that it is no one’s place to tell anyone who to be, where to work, or how to raise their kids, but this is the mask they wear as they cultivate their own opinions. They teach the selfish way of thinking as well as going against the natural when intruth there is nothing more natural than motherhood. In fact, the words “mother” and “selfish” do not belong in the same sentence together. The decision of being just a full-time mom or to hold down a job, is up to an individual based from their opinions, and their opinions alone; however, most women do not consider the fact that the choice they are making affects more than themselves now that the life choices of another is in their hands. Society’s view on women has drastically changed in the last century. For example, acentury ago it was expected of mothers to stay at home and care for their children; onlyunmarried women (also meaning women without children) could be teachers. Whereas today many women and mothers alike are teachers, doctors, lawyers, or hold one of many other positions that they once could not obtain. Feminist