The Museum of Motherhood is proud to be included in Joshua Ginsberg’s new book, Secret Tampa Bay: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure, published by Reedy Press.
This guide to the obscure helps unlock secret spots in and around the city including some of the most intriguing and entertaining surprises.
Join in a pirate parade, see live mermaids, or catch a flamenco dance performance at the oldest and largest Spanish restaurant in America. Wander through secret gardens, listen to bagpipe music, and sample a seemingly endless variety of hidden treasures in Tampa Bay. Also, of course, you can discover the art, science, and history of mothers, mothering, and motherhood at MOM in the historic neighborhood of Kenwood in St. Petersburg, Fl., “where art lives”.
Secret Tampa Bay: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure provides a deeper dive into the local culture, history, art and one-of-a-kind attractions as alternatives to the usual beaches and theme parks, you are sure to find it here.
Join author Joshua Ginsberg as he narrates his explorations through Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater and the surrounding areas in search of hidden history, strange monuments, museums, oddities, antiques in this truly invigorating guidebook that is sure to provide many memorable experiences.
Secret Tampa Bay: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure is available wherever books are sold.
If you are interested in stocking the book at their place of business, write Reedy Press or Josh at the above website
Please contact Don Korte at dkorte@reedypress.com to arrange an interview or appearance.
Book Details: Secret Tampa Bay: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure, by Joshua Ginsberg, ISBN 9781681062860, paperback 9 x 6, 208 pages, $22.50
Today is the 100 year anniversary of WOMEN GETTING THE VOTE in America. This is such a big deal!
Hard to believe, I was born only 37 years after this law was enacted.
Suffragette Sitting Room, MOM, NYC
At the Museum of Motherhood in NYC, we had an area called the Suffragette Sitting Room, where mothers would come and gather with their infants under the banner of these fearless warriors who marched, protested, and even starved for the right to be considered equal citizens.
I always find a way to include these foremothers of the feminist waves in the college classes I teach and remember fondly
Housewives On Prozac Band
the days when my band, Housewives On Prozac, was privileged to play the great city of Seneca Falls, New York, raising awareness about many of the issues mothers in America face. Those outstanding problems continue to include a continued lack of federally mandated paid parental leave, affordable childcare, accessible & adequate healthcare, as well as the issue of those who are home caring for loved ones without pay or social security in America today.
Let us not forget also, the simple willingness to declare “All people are created equal” according to the as-of-yet unratified ERA Amendment.
Thankfully, the fight for equality, access, and respect are continuing. From the Women’s March in Washington in 2016 thru the present, I am so grateful to those worthy and peaceful activists at work in the #MeToo and #BLM movements who also see goals worth striving for. Let freedom ring.
Despite headlines and discourse, the most unchanging thing about motherhood is how much it doesn’t change. While parenting narratives in the public arena are more visible than ever, while books on mothers and mothering are written and published at a dizzying pace (see Demeter Press among others), and while activists and bloggers do their best to articulate the realities and difficulties of mothering, the truth will make you mad. Policies ranging from healthcare to human rights in the United States have not changed much at all in the last 50 years, and if anything, they appear to be moving backward at times.
This year’s Mothers’ Day came and went with the usual fanfare of compliments, cards, and lovely acknowledgments. But, the truth of being a woman, or a woman of color in America, can be very scary. Aside from the well-known, repetitive conversation around everything from our as-of-yet still unratified ERA to maternal morbidity rates, we observed a rollback of certain state’s abortion rights, and the constant pressure mothers and caregivers experience as they try to balance unrealistic expectations with work pressures. All of this occurs in the midst of corporate greed and governmental callousness which is reflected in our lack of family-friendly policies.
‘All The Rage’ Isn’t About Moms Having It All — It’s About Moms Doing It All’
NPR: Weekend Edition, May 12, 2019
On why domestic demands on mothers actually increased in the mid-’90s
The expectations for motherhood suddenly … went through the roof. … One of the reasons that academics will cite for why this happened at the same time that [mothers’] labor force participation peaked was because there was a lot of anxiety about what was going to happen to the kids. All these moms are now in the workforce in greater numbers than ever: What’s going to happen to the children? So the standards for mothering kind of ratcheted up. [Link to ARTICLE].
Feminism & Motherhood
As a woman, I am angry. But as a mother, I’m seething. There’s a robust conversation right now about the historical and present power of female rage as a tool for social change. A number of books, articles, and social media hashtags are pointing out that women are fed up. Instead of being silenced by patriarchal ideas of women’s emotions as “hysteria,” women are embracing their anger as a social and political force to be reckoned with. That is great news for women. But what about mothers as a key subset of women? ~Kimberly Seals Allers for The Washington Post 2019: [LINK to article]
There is a lot to be angry about. Women of color in the USA, who are pregnant, have the most to be worried about. Their prenatal care, birth care, and post-birth care are all persistently worse than their white counterparts. This problematic scenario can be linked to many ongoing issues related to systemic racism, socio-economic status, and the apparent lack of willingness for medical professionals to listen to the voices of these women. [Read more here in the news at this link].
This year’s Museum of Motherhood annual conference focused on “Rewriting Trauma and Birth.” We welcomed keynote speaker Khiara M. Bridges, who is the author of Reproducing Race. Her book smartly explores the social construction of race in medical settings and helps to examine the forces that coerce women into dangerous birth scenarios.
So, whether over-burdened by maternal workloads, subject to a medical crisis of deadly proportions or managing the anger associated with outdated policies that do not support women and families, something has got to shift.
Before we can identify solutions we must notice the problems and call them out. By naming and labeling the issues we have engaged in the first line of offense. Some people will voice objections. They will list the ways in which gender mirrors biology. They will do their best to keep enduring structures of power and privilege intact. However, we just keep raising our voices and turning up the volume.
Kimberly Seals Allers proposes several steps for improving the state of families in America. Some of those include obvious changes to healthcare. Others must focus on policy shifts that recognize unpaid maternal labor, as well as the development of affordable childcare options for working mothers.
So what has been going on for the last 15 years? Below is an article that was written by Jill Brooke for the Chicago Tribune during a burst of notoriety for the Mom Rockers who had set their minds on creating change within the home as well as the world at large. While the emphasis on using art and music for social change has amped up the volume on women’s issues, many of the problems these founding artists sought to address have remained stubbornly ingrained in our institutions, including the “institution of the family.” You can read more on this subject in the book, the Music of Motherhood(Demeter Press 2018).
Course development and educational programming that break the barrier on women’s (and gender) studies in the university and beyond are an important step in disrupting repetitive patterns that keep individuals trapped in hegemonic discourses and force the idealization of parenting roles. Here at MOM, we are striking back by pushing back. Giving a nod to the work of Guerrilla Girl Donna Kaz, we encourage those of you who are seeking some strategies for change to utilize her work to create activist platforms. LINK
” I have heard many people express their own powerlessness as they face threats to their rights and the rights of those they support on a daily basis. Perhaps you agree there is a need to understand how to organize and see results, on a local level. Maybe you search for activist knowledge and are hungry for something to guide you through the steps of creatively supporting a cause. PUSH/PUSHBACK will fill that need.”
The band Housewives On Prozac was championing pushback through music in the late nineties through 2008. Their song “Eat Your Damn Spaghetti” was a rallying cry for overwhelmed and frustrated mothers. You can watch the video below. Meanwhile, the MaMaPaLooZa Festival, which is ongoing in New York City and Sydney, Australia aims to create dynamic change through empowerment, education, and large-scale community events. Other super-important and amazing organizations (to name a very few), include MomsRising, SisterSong, and The Center for Reproductive Rights.
TRACKING THE COURSE OF MUTINY AGAINST THE TYRANNY OF PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS
December 21, 2004,|By Jill Brooke, Special to the Tribune
“I tried to be the perfect mom but then buckled. It’s time for a little liberation, and I want to give moms permission to nourish a piece of themselves and then go back to wiping the kids’ noses, cooking dinner and carpooling.”
And what better way to launch a rebellion than rock ‘n’ roll? Link to ARTICLE.
Finally, let us ask the question: Why does America have the least-friendly family policies? The U.S. is the only country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) not to offer paid leave on a national basis.
“People think motherhood is inherently overwhelming because we’ve made that idea seem natural,” said Virginia Rutter, a professor of sociology at Framingham State University in Massachusetts and author of “Families as They Really Are.” “We normalize the hardships of motherhood. … This is now what’s familiar.”
We must continue to work together for the kinds of change that will benefit all American families and not just a few. The best way to do this is to advocate for intersectional, interdisciplinary education and activism that affects attitudes, policy, and the private/public sector in ways that support women and men and make the world an easier place for caregivers to navigate.
*Mamava is a company that hopes to normalize breastfeeding and support nursing mothers. One of their lactation spaces in JFK airport is the featured photo on this post. #Mamava #Mothers #MOM #JoinMama
Martha Joy Rose (call me ‘Joy’) is a scholar, artist, curator, and activist. She She founded MaMaPaLooZa, after touring with her band Housewives On Prozac (1997-2008) and began work on the Museum of Motherhood (MOM) in 2003. She holds an advanced degree in mother studies from CUNY, GC, is the NOW-NYC Susan B. Anthony awardee (2009), has lectured extensively, written widely, and served as publisher for numerous mom-made publications. Joy has also been featured in the Tampa Bay Times locally as well as WEDU, PBS, ABC News and nationally on Good Morning America, CNN, and NPR. She is the NOW-NYC recipient of the Susan B. Anthony Award, her Mamapalooza Festival Series has been recognized as “Best in Girl-Power Events”, and her music has appeared on the BIlboard Top 100 Dance Charts. Her current live/work space in Kenwood is devoted to the exploration of mother-labor as performance art. She is an ‘artist recipient’ of a grant from St Pete Arts Alliance & in 2023, she was certified with the Adult Mental Health First Aid, USA. She is the mother of four adult children and five grandchildren.
Diary of a Curator
9:30 AM. I am a cheerleader with a cup of coffee in hand, at my desk, dressed in underwear, checking e-mail. The young intern in Southeast Asia, who is conducting research as part of a special project for the Museum of Motherhood is having an issue getting access to the women who have been traumatized by rape, displacement, and other human rights violations in Myanmar. She wants me to look over her proposal. A senior in in high school, she believes in humanitarian activism. It is only 9:30 am and we are mothering the world.
12 PM Pause for olives, crackers, kombucha, and seltzer. Nice ice spills on the floor as my phone rings. Daughter wants to video chat from San Francisco on her commute to nursing school, then back to my computer. 3-hour time difference.
1 PM Sift through the student e-mails which begin with “Dear Professor Rose, I am so sorry I forgot to turn in my homework on time,” and are followed by a variety of excuses, most of which are not worth sharing.
2 PM Urgent phone call from a friend. Her voice quivers. “Can you talk?” She apologizes profusely. A secret story spills out. She keeps asking, “Am I crazy?” She’s in the car, with her daughter, leaving her husband. She says she is not safe and needs advice and a divorce attorney. I refer her to one and also the Pace Women’s Justice Center.
2:30PM Text to my friend. “You are strong.”
3:00 PM Talk to my sister. Grab a cookie.
3:30PM Fingers on keys. I have a theory. I am a woman of many collected years, who has raised four children to adulthood. My circle is comprised of mothers, many who suffer periodically from anxiety, depression, and even mania. (I have had my episodes too). We are the women, forty to sixty years old who have spent our adult life feeding babies, changing diapers, and fretting over young progeny. We work, we take public transport, and if we have cars we drive. We try to sleep. We keep a grueling pace: the caregivers, the mothers, maybe now the fathers, but mostly the mothers whose bodies feel the vacant place where their infants stirred: the real, the imagined, and the yearned for. Trying to heal that deep mysterious hole, prepping children for school, cooking meals, cast, cast, casting spells. We, snap pictures for the prom, or we take them to the hospital, or maybe the worse possible thing happens. We keep so busy. Then, when our youth go off in the world to make lives of their own, all that is left in place of twenty years of directed, exhausting, unrelenting energy is a longing. That momentum, circles back into the heart and mind, funneling a giant vortex that drives some mad – Vigilance! Do not let the madness take hold. Take a deep breath. I am flinging these words, towards the universe in the hopes of reaching your collective soul. Take heed, I beg you. Find a way to fill yourself.
4 PM I draw a sketch of a small statue. She is a victorious woman made of steel with a V-up and V-down. Tomorrow, I go to town to procure rebar, followed with a lesson in welding, from a young man who works in a car factory, who has gifted me with a stick welding machine from 1957. “Can you give me lessons,” I ask? “Sure,” he replies. I place the drawing on the desk and stare at it. The fire burns hot.
5 PM Stirring a pot. Cooking the dinner. Watching the soup spin. I anchor my artistic practice to scholar Sarah Black’s assertions that argue for the position of “mother as curator.” Everyday activities equal the sum of our labor on behalf of the flock, as well as our art, and collectively we create, enact, and display our creativity.
6 PM I still have mountains of homework to do. I have a book to finish, paintings to paint, and metal to bend. I have a museum to run, my mother’s farm to harvest, a home in New York where the work began. Where the children were raised. Where I made music, was married, and then divorced.
7 PM Chores, water garden, pick up the kitchen. Then, back to the computer.
9 PM More papers. More emails. My eyes are tired. I need to log off until tomorrow.
9:30 PM Shutting down the screen. Brushing my teeth. I am grateful for the women, for IWD, for Women’s History Month, for all the ancestors who made my life possible, and for my mother, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters who inspired me to find this work. To the professors, scholars, and artists who helped me understand the world, I live in.
10 PM One last thought, as I lie in bed, in the dark, when the quiet is so thick it feels like an eternity. In the house where my parents lived and died, in the bedroom that was theirs for twenty years after they moved here, next to a field where relatives from Scotland arrived in 1832, where the blackness swallows the light, I say my prayers. I call out for help, invoking my angels, lighting a candle, blessing my children wherever they are (because I cannot tuck them in anymore), and then I wait, slumbering, for strength to find me again, which invariably it does.
Martha Joy Rose; IWD Women in Herstory 2023(Shared from a 2019 post)
10 AM Log onto the Manhattan College online. Grade papers for the Sociology of Family class. I am teaching fifteen students this summer. They are all boys. I am teaching them Mother Studies. We recite the names of the Female Founders one by one committing them to memory, first the feminist leaders, then their theories, then, the scholars, eventually the artists. I cite the quote from Adrienne Rich: “The one unifying, incontrovertible experience shared by all women and men is that months-long period we spent unfolding inside a woman’s body. Yet, we know more about the air we breathe, the seas we travel, then the nature and meaning of motherhood.” (Of Woman Born, p 11)
ProCreate Project is due to launch at the Women´s Art Library at Goldsmiths University in London, England on the 15th of December, 2015. Over 100 featured #motherartists. #JoinMama Book your free ticket here [LINK]
Here is my personal statement regarding the current status of mother-art around the world by M. Joy Rose:
(Martha) Joy Rose
I’ve been organizing the Mamapalooza Festival (worldwide) since 2002, which was inspired by the adventures of my mom-rock band, Housewives on Prozac (1997-2008). The intention was to support a mother-made-arts-movement and to activate social change for women who were mothers because: a) mother-made art was not being encouraged, b) venues for maternally-inspired artistic expression were non-existent. Motherhood generates its own reasons for celebration as well as illuminating a unique set of challenges. It was my very strong feeling that women who were artists should not ignore the procreative and caregiving aspects of their new-found embodied existence and that opportunities for mother-made-art should flourish.
By creating an inclusive, large-scale platform, I licensed the festival to event organizers ultimately reaching four countries and twenty-five cities. Hoping to open the portals to individual (and family) creativity as well as call attention to the specific issues women who are mothers and caregivers face. The festival garnered millions of followers through media stories generated by local events. The issues we tackled were broadly related to everything from acknowledging the liberating power of creative self-expression amidst the self-sacrificing nature of motherhood, to enhancing community engagement, as well as educating families at risk in the health, economic, and the reproductive justice arena.
After years of organizing and promoting Mamapalooza through our non-profit Motherhood Foundation Inc. (2003-2010), the focus shifted to the long-term goal of having a physical location for the Museum of Motherhood. We procured a donated space in New York City from 2011-2014 where 60,000 people from around the world enjoyed our collaborative location. M.O.M. is currently online and conducts international academic conferences on the topic of mother studies (2005-ongoing). I got my graduate degree in mother studies in 2015 and am teaching through the museum portal, conducting classes in “families and social change” at Manhattan College, and writing about my experiences. Goals include continued international partnerships and a next-level space for exhibitions, classes, and archiving the science, art, and history of mothers, fathers, and families. The MamapaloozaOutdoor Extravaganza Festival continues to host approximately 10,000 families on the third Sunday of May each year in partnership with the New York Parks Department at Riverside Park South in Manhattan, USA.
This guide to the obscure helps unlock secret spots in and around the city including some of the most intriguing and entertaining surprises.
After years of organizing and promoting Mamapalooza through our non-profit Motherhood Foundation Inc. (2003-2010), the focus shifted to the long-term goal of having a physical location for the Museum of Motherhood. We procured a donated space in New York City from 2011-2014 where 60,000 people from around the world enjoyed our collaborative location. M.O.M. is currently online and conducts international academic conferences on the topic of mother studies (2005-ongoing). I got my graduate degree in mother studies in 2015 and am teaching through the museum portal, conducting classes in “families and social change” at Manhattan College, and writing about my experiences. Goals include continued international partnerships and a next-level space for exhibitions, classes, and archiving the science, art, and history of mothers, fathers, and families. The Mamapalooza Outdoor Extravaganza Festival continues to host approximately 10,000 families on the third Sunday of May each year in partnership with the New York Parks Department at Riverside Park South in Manhattan, USA.