Everybody’s at it. Another colleague at the OU, Lucila Newell, has a blog called maternalselves: thinking feminist mothering, focussing as the name suggests on issues of motherhood and feminisim. The site includes informal reviews of papers/books on related topics, and links to other more-or-less academicy blogs on this theme.
Pop Theory
Thoughts on Ideas
Pop Theory 
On my blog, my colleague reflected on the problems of child rearing in New York on the occasion of international woman’s day http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2011/03/things-change-preschool-in-new-york/. The post was telling and humorous, but it became quite serious in the exchanges that followed the post, where comparisons were made between Sao Paolo, Boston, Berlin and New York, and concluded with a suggestion that the proper role of the state was at issue.
Hi Jeff
Thanks for the steer to this exchange – I’m sure the role of the state is central to these issues, although actually I suspect it’s not so much a matter of ‘more or less’ state, as it a matter of the ways in which new political registers of ‘hardworking families’ and ‘work-life balance’ open up new possibilities for reconfiguring the type of state involvement in intimate social relations.
Clive
I agree. But there needs to be an understanding of the link between public and private good, and an understanding that the state has an important role to play. This unfortunately is something that is embattled in the US and I think in Great Britain as well. The contrast to the situation in France (where my daughter, son in law and grandson live) is striking. I hoped Obama would change our situation, haven’t given up hope, think the developing politics surrounding the conflicts in Wisconsin may present an opening against our Tea Party tide.
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