Mother-Scholars Maternalize the “Public” Sphere

Abstract

Mother-scholars nuance the binary of intellect/affect by maternalizing the public sphere, in this case academia. Academia, for the most part, has been hostile to mothers. Upon investigating a diverse range of professions (e.g., medicine, law, business and government service), Crittenden (2001) found that although women were entering all of these professions in record numbers, few of them held senior level positions and most of them were childless.