Journal: Socializing Care Chapter 10

Journal: Tell the story of the role of motherhood, a mother, or mother-figure in

your life and the challenges you or she have faced.
I actually have been discussing this type of mothers' movement in  many of my other classes. Women are put to a double sword when they are expected to be supermom while keeping up a financially beneficial career. While I will admit men are taking part in the "domestic/child rearing" life than ever before, just as Judith Tucker said: women are still doing at least 2/3 of the work at home while still trying to juggle a career.

I do think that we are in a period of transition (yes a long one) but since the 60's and before women were not in the workplace and education as they are today. Welfare systems are not supporting mothers/families to keep them afloat and are driving many to go into poverty not to mention the enormous number of single moms due to divorce or children out of wedlock.

Our society needs to begin to mold into the current situation to help those mothers/families in need rather than policies that support families from over 2 decades ago. Our policies need to revolove around families that require two parents to work with affordable child care, flex time, health care, maternity leave, and parental leave that is not punished when taken. Yes we have some of these policies but not all apply to small businesses and/or these options are not encouraged to be taken advantage of by the employers. We do need these policies to be changed but no official is going to be elected when he/she proposes to raise taxes to support our society who is in need. This makes me think of the Social Security system when the public was irate about the fact they would be taxed for this policy (which was a low percentage at the time) but if one would suggest to take this benefit away for Social Security recipients we would have an uproar. The push needs to go forward to support these families (specifically mothers) so that we can create a society where all is supported in some way or another instead of the bare minimum. Other countries like Sweden has taken this approach, we just are not willing to elect someone who is willing to raise our taxes for these needed benefits. It's a vicious dead end instead of moving toward change (think of the problems that would be eliminated if poverty was not such an issue for single moms/poverty stricken familes!).


In accordance with the journal assignment that was tied to this reading in the syllabus my mom immediately comes to my mind. My mom came from a poor family with no support in college. When my mom met my dad at the 2 year college in my home town she got married and continued on to law school. As she was just about to finish law school before the LSATs she had my older brother Zane. My uncle was a huge help as he lived in the Des Moines area where she went to law school and he would watch my brother while she went to class/the library/and her final LSAT test.

My mom brought me and my brother as infants to her office to breast-feed and would juggle with appointments, bringing us to the office, or with grandma and grandpa during busy months for my dad in the field. My family was extremely lucky as my dad was a farmer/self-employed and we were able grow up with little child care other than immediate family before pre-school. Had my dad not been self employed and my grandparents available there would have been far more obstacles for my mom to establish her practice.

Journal: Tell the story of the role of motherhood, a mother, or mother-figure in

your life and the challenges you or she have faced.

Journal: Socializing Care Chapter 1

I think I have already blogged about this at some point as chapters 1, 7, and 10 already have my highlighting marks but I thought either way I would re-read the chapter 1 and 10 since I only have Chapter 7 regarding welfare specifically included in my blogs. I am going to answer the question on the syllabus related to when we were assigned chapter 1 and will do the same for chapter 10

Journal: Share an experience you have had with healthcare related to your health, the

health of someone you know, or the health of a loved one

When I have recieved healthcare I immdiately think of going to the doctor. After reading the chapter I think of my doctors, my mom/dad, and even myself. Even if it amounts to taking a Tylenol or cold medicine myself I was doing "personal care" since it was within my means to do it for myself and didn't feel I needed help from someone else.

I thought the chapter brought up a point that is so true to our culture. It is not seen as culturally valuable to be vulnerable. Vulnerability (especially when needing care) is seen as a sign of weakness as our culture has constructed people to be independent.

Also, I think that Tronto makes a good point when she points out that that care has fallen between a gap of rich versus poor and does not allow the equal care of citizens (specifically the United States). Her examples of a child growing up in an environment with few resources will in turn put that child in the same position for when he/she has children. It is indeed a vicious cycle.

This was an interesting chapter. If we turn the public's care problems into a a collective problem rather than the idea "it's their problem" we would be better off in many aspects: as human beings, as a (healthy) nation, and treating everyone equally rather than only valuing those who are financially capable of the care that is needed.

Health Care In Prisons- How does it stack up?? Fact Sheet/Article/Short Video - Amnesty

Wow- Lots of information here! As I read the article my mouth kept dropping yet wasn't all that suprised at some of the information.
The Retaliation and Fear in the Article seems to be alarming. I can understand why the guards/employees would be encouraged to review personal history files BUT I cannot think of how it is appropriate to not keep complaints against an employee confidential in fear of corruption of those people. I keep thinking in my mind to try to think of a solution but even if specific complaints but not entire personal history files were kept confidential the employee would still be aware there was a complaint at one point and time against them (if that makes sense). Regardless, there is unfortunately corruption and it seems as if it will be a challenging task to solve yet is still SO SO important!

Also- The video- this seems a moral question of humanity. What's humane and who qualifies for the same treatment? If one brutally murders should they receive healthcare? I fight with this question but ultimately all I can think of is an older human being who is vulnerable and helpless in old age in need of health care. I still am fighting with this question.

Clearly, Health care in prisons is less than satisfactory. Is there any good infomation about health care in prisions or it must be this bad. Considering many women are in prison for non-violent crimes (and what about those who have committed violent crimes) it seems riduculous the health care is so limited and unacceptable. Considering a prision is run by the state/federal government I am suprised conditions are this bad due to the state/country regulating them. At what cost and to who should bear these costs so prisoners are able to receive even at least adequate health care? Things need to obviously improve but (not to sound harsh) but who bears this costs? Taxpayers? and if prisoners are charged with this cost how are they to pay AND how is society setting them up for success once (if) they get out of prison?

Mothers in Prison in England For Class Printout

I  found two great sites pertaining to mothers in prison. I will highlight the key points and then list the website below each section.


1.
*There are 14 women's prisons in England.

*There are 7 mother and baby units.

*Around 55% of women in prison have a child under 16, 33% a child under 5 and 20% are lone parents.

*The specialist medical services provided for the women include breast and cervical screening, family planning and sexual health services.

* Every woman who is known to be pregnant will be consistently medically assessed and monitored, just as in the community.

*There are currently seven Mother and Baby Units. 2 of them allow mothers to keep their babies with  up to the age of 9 months.  4 of them accommodate babies with their mothers up to the age of 18 months.

** Each application for admission is assessed on an individual basis by a multi-disciplinary-team, whose focus will be the best interests of the child.

*Children are allowed to visit their mothers in prison in the same way as other visitors. In some instances, prisoners are allowed extended, more relaxed visits with their children or can get permission to visit their children where they are living.

**If a friend, who would not normally qualify for travelling expenses from the Assisted Prisons Visits Unit, brings the children to the prisoner, then they would be able to have their travel expenses reimbursed.

http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/adviceandsupport/prison_life/femaleprisoners/

2. *Currently, there are over 80 places for mothers and babies in prisons across the UK

(This was a pdf that was 38 pages long but thought it may be useful to print out certain excerpts from pages 12-25 more most interesting) These are chapters on  pregnancy, mothers and baby units, and separation. The above excerpt is from the separation chapter).

http://maternityaction.org.uk/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/prisonsreport.pdf

Vanessa

According to HMPS, it is policy to facilitate a mother leaving prison with her child, if at all

possible, thereby avoiding any separation. For example, a woman serving a four year sentence

who enters prison with her baby can probably expect to be paroled when her baby

is 18 months old, if she meets the conditions for parole. However, under existing policies,

some mothers do have to be separated from their babies while in prison.

Mothers in Prison

Ironic- In my Politics of Reproduction class we are talking about FAS, narcostics during preganncy, smoking during pregnancy (more of the entries into motherhood leading to incarceration). I know that motherhood most definately goes far far beyond birth but just have everything we've studied about new mothers becoming incarcerated before/shortly after giving birth.

Unfortunately, the stereotype of mothers who are in prison are not ethnically white. However, depending on the drug  that a woman uses for instance women who do crack are more likely to be African American but women who do meth are more likely to be white. (Just discussed in class today).

I have very mixed feelings of mothers in prison. I think it's easy to pass judgement on a mother who is in prison without seeing a face or a their situation that led them to being convicted and being sentenced to prison.

Something to think about: since women are in prison are less than 2% for violent crimes and most are drug related, misuse of credit cards, fraud, etc. (mostly drug convictions I'm thinking of) what is the problem here? Maybe government funding/tax dollars should be spent on recovery/prevention programs/child care programs rather than tax dollars to women being incarcerated and the children suffering from having their mother absent during their life.

Looking forward to tomorrow and I think may be a heavy day if we're talking about motherhood while incarcerated. Something I think that will be extremely touchy and personal for the women incarcerated who are mothers (rightfully so). See you tomorrow :) !

Welfare/ Chapter 7 Socializing Care

I feel that I have always thought of welfare in many different ways and have had different attitudes toward women receiving welfare. Quite honestly (but not proudly) in previous years I had underlying assumptions of the typical stereotype of welfare mothers as lazy women taking advantage of money given toward them. More recently (especially with Women's Studies) I have mixed emotions yet I understand that a large portion of welfare receipiants are struggling and desperately need the assistance.

This chapter was awesome to take step by step the "evolution" of the welfare system. Ironically, the intial goals of the welfare system have now (from what I gather) have created a perpetuating cycle of basically trapping women into poverty (as well as their child(ren)). This was the exact opposite effect of the goals to allow women to rise out of poverty.

Unfortunately, the welfare system has shown to be like a trap for women. Changes could certainly be made to financially help women or even more valuably for our society/economy to value care work (ie: mothers raising children that leads to the creation of human capital!). But who will pay for this?

I assume there will be changes in the future toward welfare but it seems as though the ideas behind welfare have not improved with supporting single/widowed mothers. One thing is for sure: these mothers need the assistance and the tools to raise them out of poverty and all the complications that are effects of poverty.

American Electra

There is so much to think about reading this article! As I was reading I would read from each side (young vs. "older" feminists) and would think "Well she is right." then read the other side and think "She is right too."

I must have to admit I do think that feminism today is much different. Lady Gaga is seen as an icon but I'm not so sure that her wearing a dress that looks like meat or that shes bleeding to death to an awards ceremony admits her as the lead icon for feminism today. She is certainly someone to look to for flashy outfits and radical music videos but a truly the feminist young women today look to? Then again, through the issues of whether she's a hermaphrodite and some of her music videos and the ideas behind them have good messages at points (some messages not so great). My point is, Lady Gaga (as a feminist icon for today's feminisim) proves good points to be out there and to be who you are yet if this is how feminism is looked at- how is someone going to get a respectable career if they walk around in outfits that are extremely bizarre? I apologize but my thoughts go back and forth on this a lot so "I'm writing it as I think of it".

Also I think there is an important point to be heard that women who were feminists through previous decades do have much significance (obviously) and I think people (both young and "older feminists") forget that so much has changed within those decades in our society and culture. We are in a post industrialist society and not industrial. The world is different now. I find it hard to embrace both new and past feminism without disrespecting either side.