Feminism and Motherhood in Western Europe, 1890–1970: The Maternal Dilemma

by Ann Taylor Allen

According to Allen, motherhood and citizenship are terms that are closely linked and have been redefined over the past century due to changes in women's status, feminist movements, and political developments. Mother-child relationships were greatly affected by political decisions during the early 1900s, and the maternal role has been transformed over the years. To understand the dilemmas faced by women concerning motherhood and work, for example, Allen argues that the problem must be examined in terms of its demographic and political development through history. Allen highlights the feminist movements in Western Europe - primarily Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands, and explores the implications of the maternal role for women's aspirations to the rights of citizenship. Among the topics Allen explores the history of the maternal role, psychoanalysis and theories on the mother-child relationship, changes in family law from 1890-1914, the economic status of mothers, and reproductive responsibility.

Genres: Feminism, History

365 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2005

Reviews

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ann Taylor Allen's book details feminist responses to motherhood in Europe from before the First World War through the 1970s. The essential tension dealt with by her feminist protagonists is that between being "a mother and an autonomous individual." (208.) Taylor begins with the history of attitudes toward motherhood, forming the intellectual historical background which later feminists drew upon and responded to. Allen demonstates the existence of a shift toward seeing male dominance as a historical rather than natural fact. Recognition that "the father-headed family was not a God-given and universal order, but merely a political arrangement that had risen in response to historical circumstances" meant that this type of family "might also come to an end." (20.)
In light of this new vision of the family as contingent, feminists pushed for legal changes to improve the lot of mothers. Attempts to improve mothers' legal status involved debate over the meaning of motherhood and how to best help mothers. Allen terms two primary approaches "employment," in which mothers receive the assistance needed to work outside the home, and "endowment," in which motherhood is seen as a type of work which should be remunerated.
The debate on why and how mothers should be helped involved a debate on the relationship of mothers to the state. Many feminists argued that women worked for the state by producing the future citizens of the state. Mothers did their duty to the state, and, given mortality rates at the time, they risked their lives in doing so, just as men who served as soldier did. This argument was double-edged. If mothers were like soldiers, should they be under government command in an analogous fashion? The mother-as-soldier argument did not support women's reproductive freedom.
The First World War intensified pressures on women's reproductive choices. Fears of population decline and replacing citizen killed as soldiers created a new valuing of children by governments. The valuing of children is not the same thing as the freedom of women and mothers. This tipped the balance toward endowment over employment, especially after the war, in part because "the mother-headed family was associated with the hardship and bereavement of wartime." (133.) After the catastrophes of war feminsts made less claim to the national function of motherhood, offering arguments instead based on individual choice and a right to fulfilment for women, men, and children. While motherhood was a good, it should never forced upon women. Part of the support for this view came from changes in views of child development. A well-loved child was a healthier child, and to be well-loved a child had to be wanted. "If every child had a right to be wanted, then those who did not want children were justified in not producing them." (181.)
While there is more to Allen's story, she presents little forward motion beyond this point. We are still at this point today. The presence of the maternal dilemma within the present seems to be a large part of Allen's motivation for writing her book, in the hope that familiarity historical feminism will enrich current feminists' attempts at "reconciling maternal and familial responsibilities with individual aspirations." (235.)
This brings me to my primary criticism of the book. The term maternal dilemma in the book's title may be somewhat misleading. The book is primarily about a history of intellectual responses to and policy proposals dealing with reasons for having children and for supporting mothers. This is an important subject and Allen's work will likely be relevant to people wrestling with this dilemma for years to come. More attention to the lived meaning of the maternal dilemma for a wider range of mothers would have been valuable as well. There is much less in the book on the difficulties and dilemmas faced by actual mothers, particularly those from nonprofessional strata. Working class women, while mentioned repeatedly, are much less present than professionals. Likewise with women's struggles within unions, churches, and other bodies in which there were presumably occasional conflicts over the maternal dilemma.
These criticisms aside, the book contains a wealth of information about a variety of feminist viewpoints on an important issue. My undergraduate students, particularly young women, routinely stress that they are not feminists and when pressed they explain - not in these terms - that they see feminists as irrational and anti-egalitarian. In the face of these students, Allen's book seems particularly laudable. Allen treats feminism as a movement with serious ideas about serious problems, thus as a movement worth taking seriously, in a time when not enough people do.