Why “Good Women” Can’t Be “Good Stepmothers”: Reproduction of Gender Inequality in Contemporary Families

• In Event: 1483 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 14. Gender, Race, and Childrearing

Abstract

This paper presents preliminary findings from an ethnographic research study about stepmothers’ familial experiences. I provide answers to the following questions: (a) In the absence of useful stocks of preconstituted cultural knowledge about how to successfully perform the stepmother role, how do stepmothers construct their identities? (b) What are the underlying ideologies that emerge from various sources of support for stepmothers? (c) What are the implications of stepmothering ideologies at large? Drawing on interviews, field observations, and content analysis, I find that stepmothers experience role ambiguity in the family, which they navigate by constructing the boundaries of the stepmother role as they live it. The boundaries are centered around a deep respect for a culturally sacred (biological) mother-child relationship. Sources of support for stepmothers acknowledge the difficulty of this social role, and advise stepmothers to un-intuitively “step back from, not into” a mothering role in their families. Stepmothers face unique challenges because we live in a culture that does not afford them the ability to fully achieve the exclusive status of being a “mother,” but at the same time, still imposes gendered role expectations on adult women in mothering-like roles in families. Stepmothers’ lived experiences help to ascertain how expansive the reach of oppressive gender ideologies about motherhood are, and how they are experienced by women in our society.

Author

• Melissa D. Day, University of New Hampshire