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- Convenors:
-
Lynne Nakano
(The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Lin Sun (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
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- Discussant:
-
Glenda Roberts
(Waseda University)
- Section:
- Anthropology and Sociology
- Sessions:
- Thursday 26 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the many contradictions between (a) expectations placed on mothers to take full responsibility for their child's health, behaviour, and social adjustment, and (b) the reality that mothers often encounter low levels of social support and understanding in everyday contexts.
Long Abstract:
This panel explores the experience of motherhood at a historical moment when reproduction within marriage and the raising of healthy and capable children are seen as the nation's singular source of hope for the future in a "super-aged" society. At the same time, marriage and motherhood is increasingly seen as a woman's choice. This panel explores the many contradictions between (a) expectations placed on mothers to take full responsibility for their child's health, behaviour, and social adjustment, and (b) the reality that mothers often encounter low levels of social support and understanding in everyday contexts. While previous studies have focused on the limitations that motherhood places upon women, the panel considers how ideas of motherhood inspire actions and are intertwined with women's attempts to reinvent and reinterpret life paths. It considers how women may be changing the meanings and interpretations of motherhood even as social institutions such as marriage, schools, medical systems, and corporate policies change on a more modest scale. The panel considers how women respond when they find that ideas of motherhood do not correspond with the realities of their everyday lives, and how they negotiate within social institutions. The papers in this panel are concerned with women located in a variety of positions in relation to motherhood including married women who are thinking of having a child, pregnant women and new mothers, women in the medical profession who struggle to manage work and childcare, and mothers of children with disabilities.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 26 August, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Recent data shows that suicide is a leading cause of death among pregnant women and new mothers. This paper will report on community programmes in several municipalities in Osaka that provide new mothers with counselling and information aimed to prevent depressive disorders and child abuse.
Paper long abstract:
Japan, the first country to have a 'super-ageing' population, faces serious concerns about child raising. The challenges of raising a child are compounded when the young generation has had no chance to observe others' experiences of childbirth and childcare. Rather, they are faced with a sudden lifestyle and environment challenge of isolated baby raising. The leading cause of death among pregnant women and new mothers from 2015 through 2016 in Japan was suicide, making up about 30 percent of the total, according to a survey by the National Center for Child Health and Development and other research institutes. The women apparently killed themselves because of postnatal depression, according to a survey showing a nationwide incidence of suicide among by women in pregnancy or shortly after childbirth. The reasons for the suicides are considered to be varied but pregnancy and delivery are major events for a family and understandably generate worry. The health ministry of Japan launched a new program in the fiscal year of 2017 to provide financial support to municipal governments offering health check-ups and counselling by clinical psychologists two-weeks and again at one month after childbirth in a bid to prevent postnatal depression or child abuse. Many new facilities and programmes have started providing new mothers a chance to meet other mothers, share their concerns and experiences and obtain information. Based on participant observation in several municipalities throughout Osaka, this paper will report on various community programmes targeting different groups of mothers. Available programmes and activities vary by municipalities and some mothers may select which city in which to reside based on the availability of community support programmes. This suggests that community support in one's neighbourhood may have greater significance than support of extended family members in modern Japanese society.
Paper short abstract:
This paper considers how ideas of motherhood shape women's views and actions when their children exhibit disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and how women express the human value of their child at a moment when society expects "perfect" children capable of able-bodied contribution.
Paper long abstract:
In the context of the superaged society, mothers are seen as responsible for producing and raising children to insure the future of the nation. Mothers are generally expected to take complete responsibility for their child's physical and social developmental processes, and children are expected to become adults who make a respectable contribution to the society. This paper considers how mothers of children with disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) view their role and take actions to insure the happiness and healthy development of their child. When a child exhibits signs of a developmental disability (hattatsu shōgai in Japanese), mothers are generally the first to notice. Yet many mothers struggle to find appropriate support for themselves and for their child. This paper considers how ideas of motherhood shape women's views and actions to advocate for their child, and how women express the human value of their child at a moment when society expects "perfect" children (see Landsman 2009) capable of able-bodied contribution. The paper further argues that mothers are often torn between (a) wanting their child to achieve the same developmental aims of "normal" children and (b) concern that pushing their child to achieve these aims will result in the emergence of "secondary disabilities" such as depression and low-self esteem. It also finds that, over time, mothers learn to appreciate the strengths of their child in terms of the child's particular character strengths, ability for growth, and unique - often ASD-related - perspective in ways that may challenge social expectations of motherhood and socially accepted interpretations of human value.
Paper short abstract:
Female doctors, especially during the childrearing period, face difficulties in continuing their professional careers. This paper reports on the work environment for women doctors with domestic childrearing responsibilities at a regional hospital in Japan.
Paper long abstract:
Although medical care is one of the fundamental supports for Japan's aging population, many communities, especially in regional areas, encounter problems related to the shortage of doctors. As the proportion of female doctors is increasing, especially among younger generations, providing appropriate support for and promoting female doctors are important tactics to secure adequate numbers and maintain a high quality of medical care. With these issues in mind, in 2008, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare launched a program to support female doctors, yet many challenges remain. Although their numbers have increased, female doctors struggle to continue their professional careers and significant numbers eventually resign from general practice or from posts in university hospitals. An increase in the number of female care practitioners would raise the quality of medical care for their communities. Women doctors, however, are rarely found at the levels of chief or in other leading positions. The reasons for the resignation of female doctors are varied but written surveys and interviews suggest several challenges. Based on a survey that obtained over 500 responses from male and female medical practitioners at public hospitals, the paper argues that female doctors encounter conservative expectations from their own families regarding their childcare responsibilities, and some are unable to obtain access to opportunities for career development. Furthermore, many medical practitioners at the public hospitals are constantly under high levels of stress from long working hours, and they encounter challenges managing personnel for the senior doctors of each department. These findings suggest that providing greater work flexibility and support for family responsibilities may improve career sustainability for both female and male doctors.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines how married middle-class young women in urban Japan today imagine and negotiate the notion of motherhood and marital happiness with families (especially husbands), friends, and (sometimes) health professionals, among others.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines how married middle-class young women in urban Japan imagine and negotiate the notion of motherhood and marital happiness with families (especially husbands), friends, and (sometimes) health professionals, among others. While motherhood in Japan is still regarded by many as part and parcel of "women's ordinary happiness", today it seems to have increasingly become a choice for the generation of Japanese women who were born around the time when the Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1985) was issued, went through the gender-neutral education, and now caught in the middle of the "womenomics" campaign. Often feeling torn between the neoliberal demand of self-reliance (by having a decent career) and the conventional social expectations to bear and raise children wholeheartedly, many women in urban Japan today, unlike the earlier generations, tend to ponder over the meaning of motherhood and its association with their own sense of marital happiness. Based on my year-long fieldwork in Tokyo, this paper focuses on certain "slices" or moments of several young wives' marital life revolving around motherhood and asks 1) how some women struggled between becoming a "good" mother and a "happy" woman—making the moral decision of whether to enter motherhood while knowing it might profoundly undermine their individual happiness, and 2) for those who are already mothers, what "gender strategies" (Hochschild 1989) they applied in order to balance between the simultaneously blissful and tormenting marital experience brought by their motherhood in this "lean in" era.