The Loafer

Amber & her kids. her other writing in journals and anthologies such as Feminist Mothering, Mother Knows Best: Talking Back to the Baby Experts, Encyclopedia of Mothering Being and Thinking as an Academic Mother, Kinser took on the task of bringing “feminist mothering” from the 19th century to the present and future.

“I had to do an enormous amount of reading because most of my training was in modern theory,” says Kinser, who became chair in January after serving 10 years as ETSU’s first director of Women’s Studies, as well as professor in speech and Women’s Studies. “It was such a good experience for me to plot out a diagram of what happened in the 1870s, the 1890s, 1900 to the present …

“I had a couple goals. I wanted to make feminist theory accessible to more people. Sometimes you hear the phrase ‘just theory,’ insinuating that it’s not real and not usable and that’s actually not true but it can feel that way if it’s not accessible.

“Another goal was to project an accurate picture of feminism relative to motherhood. If you listen to public dialogue, those two are incompatible … So I wanted to illustrate that feminism has a long history of trying to figure out a way for motherhood to be freeing and empowering and a source of joy for women.”

The reality of Kinser’s years of researching other women’s perspectives and her own experiences in feminist mothering, however, is that while sometimes empowering and joyful, mothering in the third, more recent, wave of feminism can indeed be conflicting, or messy.

“It can be done, but probably not without guilt and self-doubt,” says Kinser, who holds a doctorate from Purdue University and bachelor’s and master’s from University of South Florida. “The cultural messages about what a mother should be and what a feminist’s life should look like are so pervasive, powerful and ideological, you can’t escape coming up against that with every professional and parenting decision you make. You just have to get used to it.

“Many mothers rightfully want to pursue their own goals but they also want to have everyone OK with that, so we spend a lot of time getting everyone OK with our choices, and modifying the choices when people aren’t OK with them.

But the cultural ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldn’ts’ for moms are too powerful. People are not going to be OK with mothers prioritizing themselves, so we have to get used to that and accept their discomfort and accept our self-doubt and pursue our goals anyway.”

“Our child-rearing methods