Critical Materialism: A window on the 21st Century

The concept of “maternalism” emerged onto the socio-political stage
during the mid-19th century, initiated by the army of middle class female
social workers that arose within the deprived urban areas that grew rapidly
in England after the Industrial Revolution. Historian Seth Koven reflected
that such women ‘used maternalist imagery and arguments in advancing
themselves and their visions of child welfare’ (Koven 1993, p.125).
Maternalism was a markedly different way of analysing the problems
emerging from working class, industrial poverty than the individualistic
self-help view taken by the mainstream culture dominated by men (the
“malestream”).
This paper will explore the relationship between the maternalist and
malestream agendas in both historical and contemporary culture, from
the perspective that maternalist initiatives are only likely to succeed when
they are in harmony with similar malestream policies, the consequences
of this situation and its particular impact upon mothering in the current
post-industrial Neo-Liberal milieu. The examples used will be drawn from
English society, but will also have relevance to other Anglo-American nations,
particularly the United States.
It will be suggested that in order to ‘break the glass’ of the current
malestream ideology, we need to consider the evolutionary roots of
mothering, and the impact of the industrial and post-industrial periods upon
this, in particular the professionalisation of child care and the politicisation
of parenting: ‘a reframing and centering of childrearing as a job requiring
particular know how and expertise... a complex skill which must be learnt...
the politicisation of parenting’ (Edwards and Gillies 2013, p.33).
The conclusion reached is that the development of a critical maternalism
could be used to question a dominant ideology which currently subjects
our youngest children to a malestream-derived professionalisation of care
which additionally creates stress for their parents, mothers in particular, in a
society in which ‘fear governs modern parenting practices now more than
ever’ Henderson et al (2010, p.232). It is suggested that a discussion of this
nature may eventually lead to ‘policies... grounded on the best available
evidence of what human beings are like’ (Singer 1999, p. 61), resulting in
an improvement in mental health and consequently, well-being for both
mothers and their children (Jarvis et al 2014).