ANNOUNCING EVENTS – PROGRESS – RHYTHMS at MoM in August and Beyond.
Our team sure knows how to have fun. Last week we did a little research in St. Pete. We explored local escaper rooms for inspiration as our volunteers continue to design and plan for our future ‘Escape Womb Experience‘ – (Anticipated opening in October). We also celebrated the opening of friend and neighborLucky Leroy’sFlorida Famous exhibit in the gallery at The Factory. The exhibit is up through August. Make sure to experience it when you visit MoM in August this summer.
Yes, to those who have been following the news that I’ve been having some health hiccups this summer. I am moving much better now as is evidenced in these pictures. Yay Team! I aim to continue with the healing process. Also, on a recovery note – if you’ve seen the weather reports, Hurricane Debby just came raging through Pinellas County, and thankfully we are okay here with only one event cancellation on Monday and ourlactation event with Amanda Bartles on Wednesday, August 7th this week at 6PM, still happening! (Our hearts go out to anyone impacted by extreme weather everywhere). August is Breast Feeding Awareness Month: raising awareness about the challenges and rewards of chest feeding! Whichever direction you choose, MoM is here for you. We are in Florida – HOME OF THE ENDLESS SUMMER. It’s hot, hot, hot at the Museum of Motherhood where Christen Clifford’sINTERIORS: we’re all pink inside Exhibit is up all month along with a Womb of Our Own – Seeing RED and Molly Duffy’sLil Dicki.
Joy, Leroy, Barbara, Tracey, Mary, Sierra, Deanna, Allen
You may have heard the news that The Factory property – where MoM is currently located was recently sold to investors. The transition has been a bit chaotic with no firm news of our future spot in Gallery Row and many of the artists are also up in the air. We anticipated moving at the beginning of September. Now it may be later in September and we’ll let you know as soon as we have any news. The arts make everything great, so I hope St. Pete can keep the cool vibe going with all the recent gentrification of the city.
Meanwhile, we persevere with all our committees are meeting regularly. We still need onsite volunteers. If you have 3 hours a week and are local to St Petersburg we are looking for responsible volunteers to spend time with us as a docent in a beautiful, warm, and inviting space, MoM needs you! Even if you are only available once or twice a month – Sign up on our volunteer form here. MoM is open for regular hours throughout August.
Lots and Lots of Love – Enjoy the end of your summer,
JOY(Martha Joy Rose, Founder, Director)
Here’s the rest of the GOOD NEWS report – Keep reading below:
MoM Art Auction for the Museum of Motherhood
An upcoming MoM Art Auction is planned for October in Tampa with chairperson and arts gallery owner Odeta Xheka and our entire Executive Board spearheading the event. The goal is to raise funds for MoM and build on our permanent collection. The submission announcement is live and open for artists to submit through August. We will have a great big bash and a post auction exhibition. Please spread the word! In collaboration with OXH Gallery.
MoM was awarded three grants last week! We can’t wait to announce all the details – but we can spill that one of them was with the Arts Alliance of St Pete for their Pitch Competition. Congrats Barbara Lynch for that team success on behalf of all of us!
25th Anniversary MoM Annual Arts & Academic ConferenceCFP is LIVE! The Conference is being organized under the leadership of Brittany DeNucci and our Academic and Conference committee. Thanks to all and Deanna Barcelona and Mary have visited USF and are actively seeking to coordinate conference space on campus in 2025. Artists, Scholars, Activists, SUBMIT NOW!
Thanks to New Community Partner/Sponsor, BayFirst Financial. Headquartered in St. Petersburg, BayFirst Financial offers personal and business banking services, including checking & savings accounts, loans, and more. MoM thanks BayFirst Financial.
As January ramps up, Americans and indeed, people around the world, are experiencing a kind of deadening whiplash that feels deeply problematic. From pandemics to earth shattering social events, our planet seems to be pushing back in unprecedented ways. Are we going to listen?
Here at the Museum of Motherhood our aim is to inspire as well as to educate. How do we balance dire predictions, and unrelenting reality, with uplifting content? Do we pretend, making conscious decisions to ignore what is right in front of our faces, like the movieDon’t Look Up? Or, do we create small changes through everyday actions by staying vigilant, practicing tolerance, and also heeding the call to make amends, offer support, or reach out to someone in need?
What does change even look like anyway? How can we possibly have any affect on anything when everything feels bigger than us as individuals?
In my experience, it is the little things that count. It is the everyday actions of many people doing one brave, smart, or kind action that inspires connection, healing, and hope. I think our lives are made up of little moments. Those individual moments can be transformative: One football play can win a Super Bowl. One song can reach millions of ears with a message of encouragement (or laughter). One person, holding someone’s hand in a hospital can mean the difference between fear and comfort.
At MOM, we are comprised of the individual academics, artists, and students who gained insight during their time with us, the visitors who told us their secrets and asked for help, and the strangers who have connected through the years– who are not strangers anymore.
We are a small museum with big dreams. But, more than the big dreams, we aim to touch hearts and minds individually. We aim to offer a safe space of illumination and awe. I’m excited to introduce some new initiatives in the coming months that include an online community, our upcoming conference, and a newly launched storefront that will feature guest artists.
When a friend wrote me recently, and included a note (along with a check), that stated my/ OUR museum was wonderful – I realized a simple dream of mine – the dream that others would want to take MOM on as their own. It was never intended to be ‘my’ museum, even though I have been nursing it along all these years.
As we look back, let us also look forward. Let us rally against the darkness by joining our individual lights into a collective of lights, each bright, each different, and all connected. Let us remember the souls we have lost, while lifting our own spirits in unity and appreciation of this brief, difficult, and tenuous life we share on this planet and try to ‘do better’.
During the month of October, Polly Wood came to St. Petersburg, Florida to reflect, make art, and build a nest. More specifically, after ushering her daughter off to college, she realized there was an opportunity to commemorate this significant rite of passage. She came to MOM to build an empty nest.
On top of Polly’s many accomplishments, she is in the process of expanding her career as a musician and artist. She is also in the midst of searching for the threads of the next part of her journey. I didn’t realize the relevancy of the timing of her visit until she arrived on site. We were both engaged in creating big life changes. While I anticipated that I was doing her a kindness by offering her a residency, the opposite was actually true. Polly came with gifts.
The first time I met Polly she performed original music on drums and vocals at the academic ARM Conference in Canada in the early two thousands. I bonded with her instantly. Then, she participated in more performances at the MOM Conference in Manhattan, and I subsequently visited her at her childhood home in Ithaca, New York.
Polly’s first exhibition at MOM, over a dozen years ago, was an online presentation about the Sacred Feminine which launched our first Museum website. In it, she wrote about maternal labor, Goddesses, reproductive rights, and trees. Our relationship roots run deep.
In this online exhibit with the museum, Polly articulated the significance of trees within her own vision of the sacred feminine. She wrote: “Trees are symbolic, metaphoric and metaformic providing relationship, meaning and inspiration. Cross-culturally, trees are associated with the feminine principle, as well as with knowledge, life, cycles, time, and the connecting matrix between earth, water and sky.”
She elaborated on the relationship between trees and the ways in which “trees are deeply embedded in human consciousness and, physiologically, embodied within the womb of pregnant mothers.”
Her descriptions of the manner in which the placenta is “the only organ in a human that grows when needed – in order to support, nourish and sustain a human life.” Images of the “umbilical cord representing the trunk, and the exposed blood vessels acting as branches,” were included in these early presentations.
When she made the commitment to visit recently, the synchronicity of her willingness to devote time and attention at the MOM Art Annex brought a beautiful focus to our own growing momentum, which includes a search for a new Executive Fundraising Board, as well as an ongoing fundraiser for purchasing Helen Hiebert’s Mother Tree for our permanent collection.
Over the course of the two weeks, we shared conversations, sourced materials, and made art. The affiliation I felt over what we have shared through the years, as well as the ways in which both of us have continued to grow, does indeed remind me of the unfolding branches of the intertwined sacred feminine, which I am fortuitous to witness within the walls of the museum, now flanked by one magical empty nest, crafted by this soul sister, Polly Wood (Pictured above and below this text).
There are stretches where time appears to inch forward incrementally. Movement can be difficult to perceive. This can be true for people, landscapes, and even plants. Tree and forest seedlings take anywhere between twenty and one hundred and fifty years to fully develop. Growth appears almost imperceptible. In the case of Polly and myself, so much has happened since our last encounter, but the last two weeks felt comfortably familiar. We picked up right where we left off.
The photos shared here, of the nest she built, the Mother Tree, and our own entwinement represent a personal celebration of life unfolding, our individual development, and maturation, as well as the manner in which we are inextricably linked through our art, womanhood, and our m/otherness. In each of these experiences, we are born anew. First in conception, then inception, then again and again in the counterpoint of connection. EnJOY! And, please consider joining MOM in some capacity or other, either by donating to the Mother Tree (Link below) or joining us in our ongoing efforts to expand.
Together we are strong. Together we are marvelous. Life is a circle. We are the trees. ~ Martha Joy Rose
I’ve always thought high-heeled shoes were ridiculous. Pretty women teetering on stilettos, inviting bunions, rushing about, that kind of beauty hurts. As it turns out, males in the Persian Empire first wore elevated soles in the 10th Century. The term, killer heels exemplify the fact that warriors used them to grip stirrups while riding ponies into battle. High-heels, as we know them today, weren’t invented until 1954, epitomizing an era when women were viewed as lovely vapid accessories.
2020 was not a good year for shoes. 2021 is not looking too hot either. Social activities have been curtailed. City streets are empty. COVID has presented unique challenges. While some hunker down, essential workers keep our country going. Teachers, first responders, delivery people, and health care practitioners (to name a few) perform the tasks necessary so that schools and emergency services are accessible.
I am a mother whose kids are grown. Under usual circumstances, our family spends lots of time together. We share vacation-time in Florida, gathering in the kitchen- cooking big home-style meals, engaging in loud, argumentative discussions about sports and philosophy. Now, life is weird. We wander around in slippers or even barefoot, wearing pajamas from the waist down, doing business on laptops, and Zooming with each other on weekends.
My daughter lives on the other side of the continent. She graduated nursing school this spring earning a residency in the emergency room of a hospital in Southern California. We have never been separated for more than a few months. Now, we are entering our second year of distanced communication. I mail her gifts. Vitamin packs, including zinc, D, and elderberry. She hustles through twelve-hour shifts. Working conditions have deteriorated over the course of many months. The entire hospital is overwhelmed and understaffed.
As the healthcare system topples around her, my daughter continues to push hard. She tells me about the chaos, the missing PPE, and the hallways filled with people. She is a warrior and I know she went to school because she believes in social justice and healthcare for all. Her uniform includes scrubs, gloves, a visor, and a mask. On her feet are white rubber clogs.
This New Year’s Eve, I was hoping for a new chapter in the story. Surely the release of the COVID vaccine and the end of the current political regime would bring a brighter day. I went to sleep at midnight, waking in the early morning to a group text from my daughter, sent to the entire family. The keys lit up at 6 AM, reminding me that sometimes things get worse for a time before they get better.
She texted: 2 firecracker victims, 4 stabbings, and my friend is intubated with COVID. Then six hours later she followed with, Meth lab explosion, two more COVID, two deaths. Finally, at the end of her shift, with nine understaffed workers in a fifty-bed emergency room, after only two months into her new job, she phoned exhausted in tears.
Optimism is hard to come by right now. I have to remind myself, the women in my family are warriors. As a proud feminist who has passed some of these qualities along, I hope her stamina for social change will stay intact, even in the midst of a crushing pandemic. It is challenging to be optimistic when metaphorically the house is on fire. I set my sites on the future, yearning to hug my beautiful daughter again. Then, perhaps my sense of humor will return, and joyously we can kick up our well-heeled souls once again.
Photo: Shoe credit SPERA
BIO: Martha Joy Rose is a scholar, artist, and activist. She founded MaMaPaLooZa, after touring with her band Housewives On Prozac (1998-2008) and began work on the Museum of Motherhood (MOM) in 2003. The MOM Art Annex is currently in St. Petersburg, Florida with ongoing artist in residence initiatives and exhibits focused on elucidating the art, science, and history of mothers, fathers, and families. Rose teaches sociology at Manhattan College and holds an advanced degree in mother studies from CUNY, GC. Rose is the NOW-NYC Susan B. Anthony awardee (2009), has lectured extensively and served as founder of the Journal of Mother Studies. She has been organizing the international Academic MOM Conference each year since 2005. She is a co-editor of the Music of Motherhood (Demeter Press (2018), a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Motherhood (Sage 2011), and her work has been featured in the Mom Egg Review to name a few. She is currently at work on a memoir.
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.
The holiday season is upon us. You know the song: The Twelve Days of Christmas. This year we’ve got a little twist.
I’ve been teaching “Codes of Gender” at Manhattan College since August and the students have presented a number of ideas, poems, manifestos, and in-class presentations that explain some of their thoughts and interpretations of the work we’ve been engaged with.
This seems like a pretty good opportunity to wrap up the semester and share some of the students’ inspiration. The content is entirely the students’. Some have included their names and some have remained anonymous.
The important thing is that collectively we have been engaged in deep contemplation about the world we live in. Together we’ve explored language, theory, and the media in order to better understand difference as well as to more thoughtfully navigate our families, friendships, workplace, and deeply held belief systems. Sociology teaches us to expand our perspective and to look more honestly at our social and cultural experiences, breaking down privilege, power, and of course the patriarchy. I hope you enJOY reading these as much as I’ve appreciated working with these incredible young minds.
As the song goes:
Day 2: two turtle doves
Day 3: three French hens
Day 4: four calling birds
Day 5: five gold rings
Day 6: six geese a-laying
Day 7: seven swans a-swimming
Day 8: eight maids a-milking
Day 9: nine ladies dancing
Day 10: 10 lords a-leaping
Day 11: 11 pipers piping
Day 12: 12 drummers drumming
And a partridge in a pear tree!
# #
By Mario Ynfante
A Manifesta for Men Allies of Feminism in 2018
To create a society where women aren’t seen as inferior, and instead are seen as equal. Eliminating derogatory vocabulary and replacing it with positive terms so that instead of bringing down our women, we push them to the forefront.
To disagree with cultural norms and traditions that promote the patriarchy. Fighting against the way media, specifically movies, tv shows, music, and social media depicts women.
To live in solidarity with women of all races, social class, and genders. Men included must help out with the cause.
To act on our analysis and grievances. Only thinking about what’s wrong and analyzing it won’t change anything. A true activist doesn’t only think about what makes them uncomfortable they act on it.
To not be afraid to speak up when women are being disrespected. Eliminating “locker room” talk because once again it promotes the patriarchy we currently live in.
To educate yourself on what is sexual harassment and what is considered rape. Many of the things you say or do are wrong but they are so widely accepted in this androcentric society that they are ignored.
To fight against double standards. Men are seen as “the man” when they have a lot of sexual partners but on the other hand women are seen as “sluts” if they do the same.
Promoting the liberation of women’s bodies. Women can do what they want with their bodies, dress how they want, and most importantly have the right to choose whether they want to reproduce or not.
# #
By Isabella Bozkent
A Manifesto for a Better Tomorrow :
“In every way, shape, and form, we are at war” and so we must:
Ensure the public is available to proper health care and health education. Regardless of race, class, sexual orientation, or gender.
Make explicit the true nature of what is in the food people eat as well as the true nature of the chemicals in skincare, makeup, and other things absorbed by our bodies.
Liberate those from the social constructs that prohibit them from living prosperous stigma-free lives. In liberating others, we liberate ourselves.
“Pass the Equal Rights Amendment so we can have a constitutional foundation of righteousness and equality upon which future women’s rights conventions will stand.”
Develop a world built off of understanding. To promote and praise curiosity that leads to information consumption. Knowledge is the only way to combat misunderstanding, fear of the “other”, and xenophobia.
Promote the need for better treatment and rights for those who have been oppressed and victimized due to systemic oppression, abusive relationships, or unjust social dynamics. This task must be spearheaded by those with the privilege bestowed upon them from birth. They must recognize their privilege and use it for good as a tool to gain equality.
Emphasize that caring for the environment, is caring for ourselves, and each other. To educate others of the very real issues that surround climate change. How many of these issues will affect the poor and disadvantaged before anyone else. How in many third world countries environmental issues are blamed on women and they are punished and ostracised from communities due to the lack of education and information available to them.
“Work towards a nonviolent art by dedicating ourselves to living nonviolently. In art and life, create flexible and inclusive schemes for living that encompass respect, non-hierarchy, nonviolence, and tolerance. Art making is powerful; and a nonviolent art is a duty. Bodies such as the United Nations can be useful and fair, if: it stops favoring rich nations, it represents Latin America and Africa, not just North America, Europe and Asia, it prohibits the abuse of war in self-defense, veto power is taken away from the most powerful countries, and it enforces labor and environmental laws.” – Manifesto for a Utopian Turn.
Student-made Domestic Violence Awareness Brochure By Alia Flanigan & Mario Ynfante
I believe all members of a family who have welcomed a new member of society should get paid family leave for six months.
I believe all feminists should be a part of the movement in future years. The voting block ideally should be 18- 100, you are never too old to make a difference
I believe boys at a young age should be taught the dangers of toxic masculinity. And be encouraged to be emotional, sensitive people.
To put an emphasis on young children in school getting involved in politics. Teach kids about different political parties and the foundational beliefs each possesses. Change will come from the youth.
To have universal healthcare available for all classes and races, regardless of gender.
To be more vigilant in investigations of sexual assault/ harassment whether it takes place, at a university, a workplace, or in the military.
To liberate women of all ages from slut-shaming and bullying. This can be more harmful than physical violence to someone’s psyche.
Most importantly, to pass the Equal Rights Amendment.
# #
By Victoria Barreto
My Manifesta
To stop sluts shaming women for the choices they make when men aren’t slut-shamed for their choices.
To stop blaming the victim in rape cases based on what they might have worn or any other way of blaming.
To stop making excuses for boys’ sexist behaviors during adolescence such as “boys will be boys”. We should be teaching our boys to be more fluid and to respect women and other men.
To make equal pay for women.
To put more women in political office.
To stop telling women what to do with their bodies such as telling women they cannot have an abortion or get access to birth control.
Constitutional equality.
Stereotypes against women and men’s attitudes such as the Kavanaugh case as an example.
Affordable care act and fixing women’s health care.
4 out of five women are sexually trafficked.
To higher more women in the sciences and technology fields.
Maternity leave in the USA is horrible compared to other countries. Paid family leave and childcare: Behind other countries
# #
Accept Everybody
By Katie Compton
Over the course of my own childhood, there were various advertisements being made on the daily, whether they be about beauty and dieting, or something so simple as shampoo, the women that were showcased in these commercials were PERFECT. There is no other way to describe it but like as such because there was not a single flaw on their body. So, you can imagine the issues that this caused for me growing up, as I believed that that was how women were meant to look, always. In the video that we were asked to watch, it goes through the “behind the scenes” of the making of the advertisement of a woman who looks beautiful from the beginning, is Photoshopped into something that she is most certainly not.
They tweak her body into making it thinner, making her eyes bigger, her nose narrower, her breasts large, but her butt small; I mean the list just goes on and on. However, in comparison to this video, the Dove campaign did one very similar. They started close up to a woman with her natural face, but then as the video goes on, it shows all of the edits being made to her. By the end of the video, similar to the one we watched for class, the image at the end reflected nothing of the woman from the beginning.
Part of the reason I think I experienced such gender fluidity growing up was that I never thought I could compete with a look such as the one that was so frequently displayed everywhere I looked. The biggest issue with it was not that they were making the woman look like another human, but the fact that we, as a society, were forced to believe that this was how she looked all along. Her appearance was completely fabricated, and the issue that is entailed is how much young girls AND boys look to these advertisements thinking that is the only way they can look to be accepted by society.
Something certainly must change in the very near future if we are going to allow ourselves to start accepting our bodies and appearances for what they are. Because the fact of the matter is, you cannot Photoshop yourself when you are walking down the street. That is when you are completely and utterly, YOU. So, we as a society, are going to have to start making some adjustments in our advertising if we are going to make it a more accepting and body positive environment for ALL.
Pain, suffering, harassment can’t be wiped out. Instead, it becomes scars
Or
The name of this poem is
Women had to endure unjust behaviors!
Or
The name of this poem is
Women having to endure patriarchy system
Or
The name of this poem is
Men as the main focus, while women hoping one day be able to work
Or
The name of this poem is
How being a man it is considered a privilege within society
Or
The name of this poem is
The fight against sexism continues
Or
The name of this poem is
Thanks to Sojourner Truth, for evolving women standards and to inspire others on keeping the battle going
Or
The name of this poem is
Making the world a better place to live
Or
The name of this poem is
Asking equality among all gender, race and cultural
OR
The name of this poem is
Enough is enough!!
Anonymous
Growing up in a house full of women has allowed me to really embrace my identity as a woman especially being the daughter of two very liberal, lesbian, feminists. I have realized that I am very privileged to have two very educated mothers who have supported me throughout my education and helped me look at the world with a very open heart. I do have to admit that I grew up in some kind of a bubble and I realized that before but it really made me realize that after the conversation we had in class the other day about the high schools we attended.
Growing up in my town it was very common for kids to openly express their affection for the same sex. In fact, it was actually very normal. I don’t even think I can count on my two hands the number of friends I had growing up that were openly bisexual or gay. I can remember the first time I realized that growing up in a town that was so accepting of others was as common as I thought. It was when we had planned to take a vacation to the Outer Banks. We ended up not going due to the enactment of the bathroom law that discriminated against transgendered people. Not only did we want to support a state with such awful laws, but we also did not feel safe going to a state with such policies that stand against the LGBTQ community. After learning about Judith Butler and her theory on gender, I realize how everything in this world is essentially based on male or female. With that said I like Butlers belief that gender is not something one is, it is something one does (Butler).
Each and every single day I continue to learn how privileged I am to be a heterosexual living in a world that is based on heteronormativity. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have a fear of using a public bathroom. Looking at the world through the lens of a symbolic interactionist, I believe that a lot of these stereotypes, inequalities, and injustices are all due to the interactions that people have with society and they are all socially constructed concepts that are easily changeable.
Unlock
By Tiffany Recio
Who am I?
Can you see me?
Do my curves seduce you?
Does my skin submit me?
Does my bank account show my value?
Does my sexuality make me normal?
Does my faith startle you?
Does my health show my talents?
Does my family intimidate you?
Does my intelligence shock you?
Does my accent alarm you?
Should I like pink?
Should I be silent?
Should I abandon faith?
Should I cover up?
Should I fail math?
Should I lose my accent?
Should I hide my home?
Should I be normal?
No. Nothing is Normal.
You can’t dominate me.
My skin is mine to conquer.
My value isn’t so easy to label.
You can’t shake my faith.
My abilities aren’t my title.
My family is my foundation.
Who cares for your disillusions?
Heteronormativity is archaic.
Sexism is a social disease.
Racism is ignorant.
Genderism is small-minded.
Ableism is cruel. Look at yourself, first.
Long Way To Go
By Laura O’Neill
The plight of women has been a long one.
Giving life to men who have no empathy ain’t fun.
The first waves of feminism began in 1820.
But it’s been two hundred years, and we still can’t get equal money.
All women have faced the struggle.
But black women have faced it double.
Sojourner Truth had to plead with her white sisters, to see her as a woman.
Looking back, our history can seem quite inhuman.
The battle is far from won when it comes to binary options It’s time to throw away all your presumptions.
Radical feminism may seem intense.
But when a man gets paid a $1, Latina women earn just 54 cents.
Heteronormativity can keep people from living their best life.
Most women have big dreams, more than just a wife.
Cis-humans have to make being an ally a priority.
And eventually love and acceptance will be the majority.
What are the consequences of gender norms?
Olivia Warnock writes – Gender norms are perceived behaviors and personality traits surrounding one’s sex. When one acts outside of gender norms within a social setting, others can act out passive aggressiveness or even open hostility. Examples of common gender norms for men are “strong”, “assertive”, and “emotionless”. Common gender norms for women are “sensitive”, “irrational”, and “passive”. People can also assert something called social control which is when one attempts to change the course of the current situation by exerting their own expectations. This includes giving someone a dirty look, replying with a negative remark, earning less money from a job, or losing a promotion. Other discriminatory actions can include excluding individuals or groups from everyday social activities.
# #
Growing up in a Household Full of Boys
By Melanie Alberto
People always ask me
“What is it like growing up in a household with all boys?”
And I, of course, knew the answer to that.
Growing up in a household full of boys was wild.
We played sports inside the house
Wrestled with each other till we cried
And competed for literally everything
I was the only and youngest girl
But that did not stop me from being one of the boys
I never wore dresses,
Rarely played with dolls and dollhouses
Makeup was nonexistent to me.
I behaved like a boy because I grew up around boys
My father let me dress however I wanted to,
So naturally, I dressed in boy shorts, sneakers, and baggy shirts
It wasn’t until I was in Middle School that I started to see the difference.
Girls my age wore pretty floral dresses,
With flats instead of sneakers and hairpins in their hair
My brothers called them “girly”
And I thought to myself
“Am I not a girl because I’m not girly?”
I felt different because I looked different and acted different
In High School was when I changed
I still played sports and hung around with my brothers
But I dressed differently and
My brothers claimed I acted differently
Which now that I think about it I guess that I did.
It wasn’t that I changed who I was completely
I just welcomed and embraced my “girly” side
I still dressed in baggy clothes whenever I wanted to
Because clothes do not define my gender
Only I can define my gender
No one can.
I Am Black, Black as Night
Victoria Barreto
There, I was black as can be.
Aren’t I a woman too?
Whom should dance and sing,
Like the pale lady’s do?
No, I am black, and have no rights.
I am black, black as night.
I am black I see no light.
Mark of Cain that’s what I have,
My skin gives no privilege.
Instead it takes and takes
For I wish to scream,
“you have no power over me”
But I have to wait for the waves to come.
I have to wait for the first wave,
So, the pale ladies can get the vote,
Then I wait for the second,
So, they can start to work,
My back has scars from the work,
But the pale ladies need equality among pale men.
Then the third wave comes, this is my time.
I only had to wait hundreds of years to catch this wave.
It only took hundreds of years to free my bonds,
It only took blood sweat and tears for them to see,
JOURMS: The Journal of Mother Studies (JourMS) 2018 is currently published online. Special thanks to Candace Lecco for her work as editor and to all our authors and editorial volunteers. Find out more here: LINK
RESIDENCIES AT MOM ART ANNEX 2019: M. Joy Rose has returned to Manhattan College or the spring 2019 semester. We anticipate accepting new residencies at the MOM Art Annex in St. Pete, Florida beginning August 2019-December 2019.
Meanwhile, students of all ages, who are interested in accessing course materials for Sociology of Family curriculum can watch for posts on our teaching website.
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)
Download the PDF: 
