Blackwell Reference Online

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Maternalism has three meanings. First, it refers to social practices grounded in women's concern for children, especially when those practices extend beyond the home into community and/or political arenas. Maternalism has been used particularly to describe the activities of Progressive-era social reformers who shaped the emerging welfare states' policies concerning mothers and children. It has also been used to describe the activities of many women's clubs, associations, organizations, and social movements, from the nineteenth century to the present, that aim(ed) to improve the quality of children's lives. Second, maternalism refers to discourse that highlights women's connection to and responsibility for children and that emphasizes differences (which may be conceived either as biologically based or as socially conditioned) between men's and women's contributions to family and society. This discourse animates many of the social practices listed above, but it can also infuse institutions or systems, such as the welfare state itself. Maternal discourse often intersects with class, racial, national, or religious interests. Third, maternalism is sometimes used to describe feminist theory that critiques the cultural devaluation of mothering and that articulates the contributions of maternal practice to social and political life. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, feminists, ... log in or subscribe to read full text