Who’s Your Mama: The Voices of Unsung Women and Mothers

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:
Who’s Your Mama: The Voices of Unsung Women and Mothers
http://www.yvonnebynoe.com/Whos-Your-Mama.html

Looking for women writers in the U.S. who are mothers, trying to become mothers and who are childless by choice or circumstance

There are so many books published about the motherhood experiences of affluent, married, White women, books that often revolve around the "mommy wars," the raging debate between mothers who work and those who stay at home. The fact that this small demographic is represented in the media as the face of U.S. motherhood has effectively removed the voices and stories of the true majority of mothers from the public dialogue.

The true majority includes mothers who are: women of color, low and middle income, single, bisexual or lesbian.

This anthology proposes to gather women’s writings about motherhood that addresses race, class, sexuality, identity and intimate partnership. We have chosen to use the words women and motherhood, but it’s being used to focus on the female experience of parenting under patriarchy, not to exclusively define it.

Gen-X/Hip Hop generation women, those born between 1965 and 1984, grew up in the aftermath of social and political revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s that sought to re-define marriage, sexuality and motherhood. While the primary societal messages continue to trumpet traditional values and heterosexual marriage as the preferred norm, on the ground,
women are actively engaged in crafting identities and family structures (including remaining single and/or childless) that speak practically to their personal beliefs, intimate relationships and economic realities.

Demographically, this generation of mothers looks different from its predecessors. Many did not even have children until they were 25 years old or older and on average they are having only two children. Therefore in comparison to their mothers and grandmothers they are older and have fewer children to look after. Having come of age in the 1980s and 1990s these women also grew up taking feminism (and the benefits it bestowed) as a given. For Gen-X and Hip Hop generation women, they believe that they can choose to raise healthy happy children and still be true to themselves.

Unlike previous generations, Gen-X women are represented by a diversity of contexts for motherhood that include heterosexual marriages, single parenting, committed partnership and gay marriage. Furthermore we recognize that the ability of a woman to have the option to be a working mother or a stay at home mother is frequently dependent on her socio-economic standing as demonstrated by her access to informational and financial resources, nearby, reliable and affordable child care and good fortune to work in a flexible work environment.

Furthermore, more women are consciously choosing not to have children and it is necessary to understand the remaining societal costs or the unexpected freedoms that are the consequence of choosing to remain childless. Lastly, every mother was someone before she had children. Therefore while motherhood is a significant life event, this book
wants to examine how women develop other aspects of themselves alongside their identities as mothers, including their careers, friendships (particularly with other women), sexual personas, intimate relationships, familial and community bonds.

Many Gen-X women, although they were brought up and encouraged to "have it all" have a thorny relationship with feminism. Many understand that the freedoms that they take for granted, including the right to: work in nontraditional jobs; receive equal work for equal and; have reproductive choice were the result of feminist agitation.

Nevertheless while many young women eagerly embrace the feminist label, far more equate feminism with angry, unattractive, affluent, man-hating, White women and do not believe that feminism represents their perspectives on religion, sexuality, culture, class or race. We are interested in ascertaining whether a woman choosing to become a mother or not is influenced by her identification with feminism (even if that identification is oppositional) and its perceived tenets, how does a woman’s acceptance (or rejection) of feminism or its principles inform her mothering or extend her focus on social and political issues such as parental leave, affordable childcare, court enforced child support, etc?.

We are seeking honest essays written in the first-person from Gen X/Hip Hop generation women of all classes, races, sexualities and religions. Submissions from emerging as well as established writers, activists, scholars and everyday women will be accepted. The personal narrative should record how your decision about motherhood empowered you and in some way made you reconsider a way of being, a personal truth, political ideology or cultural norm or community standard that you have never previously questioned. Additionally, we are interested in essays that explore how new definitions of motherhood and female empowerment are pushing women toward new thinking around social and political change. We welcome and will consider new ideas in addition to the topics suggested below.

the emotional and financial costs of motherhood
mothering and sexual identity
how becoming a mother changes your politics
daycare and childcare
single motherhood
lesbian or bisexual mothering
motherhood and marriage/committed partnership
gender and care of the children
health care and motherhood
motherhood and poverty
what does having it all really mean?
what makes a feminist mother different from others?
balancing motherhood and work
discrimination against mothers in the workplace
negotiating societal expectations about motherhood
race, class and motherhood
raising bi-racial children or children of a different race
childless because you do not want children
childless because you do not have a committed partner (and you do
not want to be a single mom)
childless because you believe that having a child would adversely
affect your career or finances
infertility
adoptive mothers/guardians/foster parents
incarcerated mothers

DEADLINE: February 1, 2008
WORD COUNT/PAGE LIMITS: Personal Narratives - 20 pages/5000 words.
FORMAT: Essays must be typed, double-spaced, and paginated. Please include your address, phone number, email address, and a short bio on the last page. No simultaneous submissions. Previously published essays will be considered if the writer owns the copyright. Essays will not be returned. Essays will not be published without the writer's consent.

-SUBMITTING: Electronic submissions are preferred. Send essay electronically as a Word format file (with .doc extension) to Yvonne(at)YvonneBynoe.com (replace (at) with @). Write "Motherhood Anthology" in the subject line. If email is not possible, mail two (2) copies of the essay to Yvonne Bynoe at PO Box 14068, Washington, DC 20044 attn: Motherhood Anthology.Please direct any inquiries to info(at)yvonnebynoe.com (replace (at) with @).

EDITOR:
Yvonne Bynoe is a Senior Fellow at the Future Focus 2020 Center at Wake Forest University and the author of Stand & Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip Hop Culture and the Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture.

PUBLISHER: Soft Skull Press (New York)
REPLY: Please allow until March 1, 2008 for a response. If you have not received a response by then, please assume your essay has not been selected. It is not possible to reply to every submission personally.

Call For Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS
Association for Research on Mothering (ARM)
12th Annual Conference!
Mothering, Violence, Militarism, War, and Social Justice
October 23-25, 2008

We welcome submissions from scholars, students, activists, artists, NGOs, community agencies, service providers, journalists, mothers and others who work or research in this area. Cross-cultural, historical, and comparative work is encouraged. We encourage a variety of types of submissions including academic papers from all disciplines, workshops, creative submissions, performances, storytelling, visual arts, and other alternative formats.

Topics can include (but are not limited to):
Nationalism, militarism, and motherhood; violence against mothers and children; mothers and war across history and culture; motherhood and terrorism; mothers and human rights; peace building and peace/anti-militarism activism by mothers; peace keeping strategies of mothers; mothers against militarism; marriage, motherhood, and pregnancy in the military; Maternal Thinking; the Ethics of Care/the Politics of Peace; women writers and the critique of war; rhetoric of masculinity and violence against mothers; teaching social justice in the classroom as mothering for peace; educating children about war; parenting in war; teaching non-violence to children; mothers’ roles in post-conflict reconstruction; state violence against mothers; racism, ethnicity, and peace; impact of prolific small arms and light weapons on women; female suicide-bombers; women's contributions to (formal) peace agreements; suffering and survival of mothers in war; mothers and the dismantling of apartheid; mothers as activists in violent conflicts or militarized zones; roles of mothers in conflict; mothers as journalists during wartime; impact of violent conflict on mothers as refugees (asylum seekers and/or internally displaced persons); mothers of sons and/or daughters who serve in the military; gender-based violence of women in war and conflict; mothering and loss (of husbands/children); children and loss of mothers; mothers and children left behind in military communities: mothers who kill; domestic violence against mothers; the war on mothers; rape and/as terrorism; aboriginal mothers/children and residential schooling; social justice organizations for mothers (from MADD to Mothers Against War); patriotic mothering; activist mothering; representations/images of mothers and violence, war, and social justice issues; public policy and mother activists; legal responses to mother activists; reproductive violence; mother activists within indigenous communities; LBGT mothers and social justice issues; victims of violence in the military.

DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS – March 1, 2008
*Please email us your 250 wd presentation abstract and 50 wd bio to arm@yorku.ca

CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Flavia Cherry, National Chairwoman of the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research
and Action (CAFRA)
Gertrude Fester, Commissioner on the Commission of Gender Equality South Africa
Linda Renney Forcey, author of Mothers of Sons: Toward an Understanding of Responsibility
Sara Ruddick, author of Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace
Tiisetso Russell, Comparative, International and Development Education, University of Toronto
Audette Sheppard, Founder, United Mothers Opposing Violence Everywhere (UMOVE)

Association for Research on Mothering
726 Atkinson, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3
(Tel) (416) 736-2100 x 60366 (Fax) 416-736-5766 email us at arm@yorku.ca http://www.yorku.ca/arm

Mama Focus Photo Contest!

Mamazine has sent out a call for photos....

We know you have a lot of adorable photos of your kids. I currently have 12,571 photos in my iPhoto and probably 11,491 of those are of my kids. Well, now it's time to shine a little light on you, Mama. And not just the smiley, huggy, fun aspects either. The whole picture. The whole person. So come out from behind the lens, stop dodging the camera, and show us your stuff in the Mama Focus photo contest.

In our Mama Focus photo contest, we challenge you to get artsy, take a self-portrait, give your kids the camera and let them do a mama photo shoot. We don't care how you get the picture, as long as you (mama) are the focus (the photo's actual technical focus is optional). We hope to see photos that show us what modern motherhood can be like: the ugly and the beautiful. We are looking for pictures with a fresh, unique perspective or that capture a moment, convey a feeling, or tell a story. We want interesting and unexpected shots that give us a peek into real mamahood.

Some themes you might choose to explore (but anything goes!): Self & Solitude, Work & Play, Sleep (or lack thereof) & Dreams, Nature & Nurture.

The Mama Focus contest is sponsored by mamazine.com, Picture This, and The Little Zygote That Could. The contest starts Thursday, November 1, 2007, and ends Friday, November 30, 2007. Winners will be announced Friday, December 7, 2007.

go to mamazine.com for details.

Center For Women Book Signing

December 2007
December 2 Sunday
2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
$10 at the door

The Citadel Holliday Alumni House, Hagood Avenue

Parking is available at the Johnson Hagood Stadium.

Light refreshments provided and gift wrapping available for $1.

Lowcountry Women Authors Holiday Book Signing
Meet 30+ local authors and have your holiday gift purchases personally signed!

Joyce Coakley, Stacey Crew, Ruth Cupp, Carol Ann Davis, Nathalie Dupree & Marion Sullivan, Linda Ferguson, Cathy Forrester, Dottie Benton Frank, Mary Edna Fraser, Nikki Hardin & Caitlin McPhilipps, Beth Webb Hart, Josephine Humphries, Fran Hawk, Trish Hutchison, Harriet McBryde Johnson, Alison Keller, Sue Monk Kidd, Ann Kulze, Dorothy Perrin Moore, Susan Romaine, Nicole Seitz, Sue Shankle & Barbara Melton, Toby Smith, Sally Hughes Smith, Shari Stauch, Liz Tucker, Andrea Weathers, Marjory Wentworth, and Mary Whyte.

With Barnes & Noble, Mt. Pleasant ~ bring your member card!
20% of all book sales benefit the CFW.
Special Thanks to Charleston Cookie Company & All Occasions!

We need volunteers! Email us if interested! leighann@c4women.org

Local Author Book Fair

Literary Mama Publicity and Marketing Manager and Columnist Elrena Evans will be at the Local Author Book Fair in Phoenixville, PA this Thursday, November 29th, from 5:00-8:30. If you live in the area, stop by and say hi! Elrena will be selling copies of Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers, in which she has an essay (that had its debut on Literary Mama).

She'll also be talking about two upcoming anthologies in which her work appears, How to Fit a Car Seat on a Camel edited by Sarah Franklin, and Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life, which she coedited with Literary Mama Senior Editor and Columnist Caroline Grant.

Directions are available at http://www.elrenaevans.com/contact.html.

Women's Worlds 2008 Conference

Women's Worlds 2008 Conference - Madrid - please
submit your proposed papers to ARM asap! DECEMBER 1st DEADLINE!!!!

Dear ARM Members and Friends,
WW2008 is Women's Worlds 2008, the International Interdisciplinary
Congress of Women held every four years in different parts of the world. In 2008, it will be in Madrid, July 3-8. The Congress usually attracts more than 1000 participants.

ARM is planning to submit 3-4 panels on the topic of motherhood for
the the Congress. The panels will be on the general topic of motherhood so if you are interested in participating at the conference, please submit 250 word abstract, 50 word bio by Dec 1, 2007 to arm@yorku.ca.

Please see the Congress website for more information on the conference.
http://www.mmww08.org/

*One must be a member of ARM to participate on one of the ARM panels:

http://www.yorku.ca/arm/armmembership.html

White Ink

White Ink:
Poems on Mothers and Motherhood
edited by Rishma Dunlop, published by Demeter Press

http://www.yorku.ca/arm/whiteink.html
For ordering details contact Renée Knapp, 416-736-2100 Ext. 60366

Edited by poet Rishma Dunlop, White Ink is a unique collection of poems on mothers and motherhood, by some of the finest poets of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Unsentimental, unflinching, and edgy, White Ink registers the social and political changes, as well as the imaginative pulse, of recent history through the figure of the mother: a powerful, recurring, and central symbol in contemporary poetry. Spanning multiple cultures, ethnicities, genders, and languages, White Ink is a landmark anthology. Poets include Ann Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Alicia Ostriker, Joy Harjo, Sharon Olds, Gwendolyn Brooks, Gwendolyn McEwan, Patrick Lane, Lorna Crozier, Allen Ginsberg, Irving Layton, Priscila Uppal, Bronwen Wallace, Maxine Kumin, Sandra Gilbert, Grace Paley, Brenda Hillman, John Barton, Samuel Menashe, Richard Teleky, Margo Berdeshevsky, Marilyn Hacker, Steven Heighton, John Terpstra, John Barton, C.D. Wright, Cherrie Moraga, Natasha Trethewey, Rita Dove, Adrienne Rich, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Nicole Brossard, Annie Finch, Marie Ponsot, Mahmoud Darwish, Fady Joudah, Naomi Shihab Nye, Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, Deema Shehabi, Claudia Rankine, Ingrid de Kok, Gabeba Baderoon, Carolyn Forché, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Mary Karr, Philip Levine, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Rosemary Sullivan, Jean Valentine, Meena Alexander, Goran Simic, and many others.

Short Reivew: Unsung Heroines

Annie Kassof, a single mother of two in Berkeley, sent us this short review of Unsung Heroines: Single Mothers and the American Dream by Ruth Sidel (University of California Press, 2006, $17.95)

Hunter College professor of sociology Ruth Sidel's newest book, Unsung Heroines: Single Mothers and the American Dream, is a testament to the strength and resiliency of single mothers. In a scholarly introduction full of facts and figures Sidel relates how single mothers, though growing in number, are still stereotyped and stigmatized in our society. Sidel interviewed about fifty single moms of varying ethnic and cultural backgrounds and many walks of life (none of whom became single parents by choice), and in subsequent chapters shares their stories, and this is where the book comes alive. These women, whose stories were transcribed from interviews and written in first person, range from religious moms for whom abortion was not an option, to upper-middle class women whose marriages dissolved; and many others as well. The women encompass a wide age range, although geographically they all live in the New York metropolitan area. Within each woman's narrative Sidel weaves academic or analytical commentary, such as noting "the damaging effects of the low economic status of black men and its impact [on families]…"

What struck me (a single mom myself) the most while reading these women's accounts is that although many of them speak of hardships—primarily emotional and financial—not one of them expresses shame or guilt for raising children without a full-time partner, even if that wasn't the original intent. Sidel's book is a poignant reminder for those of you who aren't single moms that while we may not necessarily think of ourselves as heroines, we are, by and large, doing our best to raise our kids under sometimes challenging and stressful circumstances, in some cases doing the work more successfully than two-parent families.

Miranda Issue #17

Announcing issue number seventeen of Miranda, CNF co-editor Kate
Haas's zine about motherhood. This issue features the essay "Waldorf
School Dropout" (gnomes and knitting don't make up for a hellish
teacher); a discussion about using your child's card to reserve extra
books at the library (clever strategem or unethical scam?); the
account of a maternal crush; and a Ma Ingalls-inspired paean to the
chest freezer (mm, pesto in January). Plus lots of book talk and
reviews, offbeat parental moments, and a recipe for parmesan chicken.
Ordering information at www.mirandazine.com.

White Ink: Poems on Mothers and Motherhood

The Association for Research on Mothering (ARM)/ Demeter Press is thrilled to announce the release of our fourth title -

White Ink: Poems on Mothers and Motherhood
edited by Rishma Dunlop (October 2007)

Please join us!

Book Launch Celebration

Monday, November 12, 2007
7-10 pm
Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, Gladstone Hotel,
1214 Queen St. W., Toronto

Confirmed Poets Reading at the Event include:

Di Brandt
Priscila Uppal
Chris Doda
Pier Giorgio DiCicco
Ruth Panofsky
Ann Fisher-Wirth
Leon Rooke
Elana Wolff
Marilyn Gear Pilling
Molly Peacock

Poetry readings, refreshments served. Cash bar
http://www.yorku.ca/arm/whiteink.html

The Daring Book For Girls

The Daring book for Girls by authors Andi Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz has received a lot of press since it hit the bookshelves this month.

In the Sunday New York Times Style section, Liesl Schillinger writes, "In the “Daring Book for Girls,” the authors mix inspiring tales of girls who made good (mostly familiar names like Joan of Arc, Clara Barton and Amelia Earhart) with a scrap bag of how-tos for girlish activities like making a daisy chain or playing hand-clap games like Miss Mary Mack and Say, Say Oh Playmate."

Last week, Judith Warner, author of "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" bloged about The Dangerous Book for Girls in "Seventies Something" she writes,

"This week came “The Daring Book for Girls,” the work of two almost-middle-aged writers whose goal, they told me, wasn’t just to complement the mega blockbuster “The Dangerous Book for Boys,” but also to offer an escape route out of the high-pressure, perfectionist, media-saturated and competitive world of girlhood in our time. The way they do it: by offering up an alternative kind of girl culture that looks and sounds a whole lot like … life in the 1970s."

Love You To Pieces, Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs

Join us in congratulating Suzanne Kamata, Literary Mama's fiction co-editor, on the publication of Love You To Pieces, Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs, the first literary collection—fiction, essays, and poetry—on raising special-needs children. Available for pe-order at Amazon.com.

Responding to a dearth of literary writing on disability, Suzanne Kamata gathers parents' perspectives at various stages in the lives of children with mental or physical difficulties. In these real and fictional stories, families cope with autism, deafness, retardation, muscular dystrophy, and more, laying bare the moments of rage, disappointment, and guilt that can color their relationships. Parent/child communication is a challenge at the best of times, but here we see the epic struggles and triumphs of those who speak their own language—or don't speak at all—and those who love them.

Together, the authors—including Michael Bérubé, Jayne Anne Phillips, Penny Wolfson, Carol Zapata-Whelan, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, and Bret Lott—paint a beautiful, wrenchingly honest portrait of what it means to care for a child who does not experience the world as we do. The book serves as a site of quiet contemplation amid the swirling issues of medical research and disability rights, and the writers come clean about the complications of even the deepest love.

More from Moms Rising...

MomsRising wants you to share your story about the challenges of raising children in our country....

My daughter still remembers her favorite Halloween costume at age six--purple balloons pinned all over her body to make her look like a bunch of grapes. That was the first year she wasn't afraid of the Halloween hoopla.

She's in high school now, and pulls together her own costumes. But since the season of ghosts and goblins has come around again, I started thinking about what's really scary for Moms in America--scary all year long because of the daily parenting hardships and dangers that are very real and haunt us. What is it about our country's treatment of families that can make it scary to raise a child?

Help MomsRising.org collect real life stories for our MomsVote 08 campaign about how scary it is to raise a child without adequate family-friendly policies. We've found that sharing true stories about the hurdles we face with parenting--from overly expensive healthcare and childcare, to a lack of time with children when they are born or sick--bring the issues to life better than any fact sheet could. Reporters frequently ask for personal stories that exemplify the issues for which MomsRising is advocating. Legislators who are advancing bills to help families often use our stories to center the policy debates on the lives of real people.

Do you have a scary story to share about the hurdles you've faced raising children? Please share your story on our blog at http://www.momsrising.org/node/593

"On Being a Mother in the Academe"

Andrea O'Reilly will be in Tuscon, Arizona Wednesday November 7- Sunday, November 11, 2007.

While there, she hopes to conduct interviews with faculty and grad students on their experience of being a mother academic as part of her her sshrcc funded research "On Being a Mother in the Academe".

For full description of this project please visit ARM's website www.yorku.ca/arm. The interviews take between 60 and 90 minutes.

Please contact Andrea directly if interested with availability. aoreilly@yorku.ca