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Sept. 18, 2024
We Are The Donkeys Here
Motherhood, in our Western culture, is full of contradictions. On the one hand, mothers perform an essential task: creating and nurturing new human life. On the other, the status of mothers is that of general servitude to the nuclear family, with no significant public voice or power.
Western culture, adopted across the world, is still largely structured in the mold that the male Greek philosophers created millennia ago. Roughly divided into a public sphere that is inhabited and controlled by men, and the family sphere which is inhabited by women and children; a “private world” that is under constant surveillance and control by the public sphere.
While feminism continually challenges this patriarchal social order, and women as a class have made enormous gains in the public sphere, motherhood is still an arena where patriarchal interests come into direct conflict with human needs and women’s humanity.
In this episode Elle talks to political scientist and author Mariam Tazi-Preve, whose research fields are politics and reproduction, motherhood, fatherhood, family and population policies, European welfare state, gender and political theory, and theory of civilization.
Mariam has written extensively about the history of motherhood in Western patriarchy, about the invention of marriage, and the development of the nuclear family. In this hour we will talk about these social structures and the impact they have had on women, men and children throughout our history.
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Credits
Host: Elle Kamihira
Produced by Elle Kamihira
Audio Engineering by Jason Sheesley at Abridged Audio
Cover Art by Bee Johnson
Music by Beware of Darkness
Mariam Tazi-Preve
Political Scientist & Author of Motherhood In Patriarchy
Mariam Tazi-Preve has a Phd in Political Science, with additional specialties in Women’s Studies and Romanistics from the University of Innsbruck. Mariam’s scientific focus is Politics and Reproduction, Motherhood, Fatherhood, Family and Population Policies, European Welfare State, Gender and Political Theory, Theory on Civilization and Women in Islam.
A lecturer at University of Central Florida; and formerly a professor at University of New Orleans, Mariam Tazi-Preve holds long term appointments at research institutions in Austria.
Mariam Tazi-Preve is co-author and editor of several books; Familienpolitik – nationale und internationale Perspektiven (Family Policies – National and International Perspectives) (2009), Väter im Abseits (Fathers Aside) (2007), and Mutterschaft im Patriarchat (Motherhood in Patriarchy) (2004, 2014). Mariam’s most recent book is The End of the Nuclear Family: Capitalism, Love and the State (in German 2018) which will soon be available in English. In addition, Mariam has published numerous articles and co-founded the online Journal Boomerang: Journal of Critique on Patriarchy.